News > Oceania

“Renewal in Jesus”

Article Writer: Joshua Lee
Conference Category: Oceania Summer Bible Conference 2024
Chapter: Australia and New Zealand UBF Chapters
Date: December 6-8, 2024
Location: Tops Conference Center near Sydney in Australia
Title (Theme): “Renewal in Jesus”
Total Attendees: 97 (Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Korea, and the USA)

God blessed OSBC 2024 (Sydney, 6-8 December), with the theme of “Renewal in Jesus”, when each of us offered five loaves and two fish, and it became a beautiful spiritual festival conducted by the Holy Spirit.

Among attendants (97 from Australia, NZ, PNG, Korea, USA), the majority was young people (54 = 45 of ages 18~40 + 4 of ages 41~45 + 5 of ages 12~17), who showed the bright future of the Oceania ministry.

All conference messages revealed Jesus’ power to renew our souls, with practical examples testified by messengers: David (Young man, get up!), Nick (Jesus is the light of the world), Daniel (Jesus is the Gate and the Good Shepherd), Austen (Jesus the Passover Lamb - Moses’ faith on Jesus) and Michael (Risen Jesus encountered Paul). We also had a New Year message from P. Ron Ward, with clear spiritual directions for 2025: Have suffering; be holy; love one another deeply; crave word of God, do good deeds, be shepherds of God’s flock.

- 14 GBS group leaders provided spiritual fellowship in God’s words and shared testimonies (P. Ron, Dervilla, Joseph, David, Sr, Mary, David Jr, Paakofi, Janne, Faith, Sowon, Insu, Daniella, Grace, Sara).

- 9 Life testimony speakers testified the beautiful work of God in their life, with tears of joy, new decisions and vision (Lewis, Esther, Paul, Shelley, Mitchell, Dokyoung, Debbie, Stephen, Sarah).

- Through 5 symposium speakers, we have learned practical spiritual lessons to apply in actual life: marriage and family, spiritual warfare and spirituality with emotional health (Sarah, Felicity, Rudra, Lewis, Moses).

- Oceania Night provided a beautiful, joyful and inspirational festival, with kids dancing, skit (Canberra), chorus (Melbourne), drama (Brisbane) and dance (Macquarie).

- 4 young people (Austen, Evan, James, Mary) were baptized by P. Ron Ward.

We had P. Nehemiah Kim (Korea UBF Director) and P. Mark Ku (Oceania Coordinator, Korea), along with other 4 delegates from Korea, who supported the conference, especially deeply talking with, and encouraging, missionaries. We also had Matthew Bai and his wife Rebekah Bai from PNG, who attended the Oceania conference for the first time, which opened a new coworking and fellowship with PNG. At the end of the conference, P. Joseph Yang was commissioned as a new Oceania Coordinator (2025-2028) to succeed M. Joshua Lee who has worked as an Oceania Coordinator over the last 4 years (2021-2024).

We know that many servants worked hard behind the scenes for all these works of God, including P. Kevin Albright (Oceania Coordinator, Chicago HQ) who provided two rehearsal workshops for messengers, also importantly, including servants around the world who had earnestly prayed for this conference. We give our sincere thanks to all of them and may God bless them and their ministry abundantly!

Praise the Lord who granted us numerous opportunities for us to have renewal in Jesus throughout the conference! We pray that each nation of Oceania may become a royal priesthood and a holy nation, and a missionary sending country in this generation!