During June 27-30 two hundred teenagers and their youth leaders spent four days at beautiful Wheaton University in Chicago, IL at the ACNA’s Provincial Youth Gathering.
“It was absolutely incredible And I felt changed! I loved it so much I want to invite as many people as possible next time.”
The worship music was wonderful and moving, in both Spanish and English. The speakers were excellent. Like Archbishop Ben Kwaashi from Nigeria, who explained why Anglicanism makes sense for Jesus followers. He then told the story of why he decided to follow Jesus and invited us to follow, too. It was powerful, and the response was amazing! Another speaker, Bishop Stewart Ruch, talked to us about what it means to be human and what the Bible tells us about God’s plan for sex and gender, and then spent the next hour inviting people forward and praying for them. It was SO much more than I ever expected!
“The two bishops were incredible! Being able to see the passion for Jesus Christ that these men of God had was inspiring and compelling. They have changed my outlook on the Christian church and Christianity as a whole.”
We also heard from Pastor Louie Giglio, the founder of the Passion conferences, who is a good friend of Archbishop Foley Beach, and finished off a crazy first day with two hours of ALIENS, played in the dark, all over the Wheaton campus.
Thursday began with a series of workshops presented by the members of the Anglican Global Mission Partners, talking about the exciting ways that God is changing the world right now, and how we can be people that He uses to do that. Charles Landrum, a pastor in Chicago, told us about how to reach the world around us every day, Which led us to what many people considered the most powerful part of the conference: the ministry in prayer for each other on Thursday night.
“I was impressed about the broadness of the different types of people that were here.”
When the conference ended on Friday afternoon, seventy-five of us went off to practice “mission on our doorstep” by serving in the inner city of Chicago with Center for Student Missions. For the next four days we worked at the city food depository, fed homeless people, ministered at a men’s home and ate incredible food prepared by the people in the neighborhoods we were ministering in.
It was a crazy, fabulous week of Jesus: an incredible time of worshipping, learning and serving together. What happens if you missed it? We’re doing it again in 2019. SAVE THE DATE: June ??????, 2019 in Dallas Texas.
