"New Room 2016: Awake O Sleeper and rise from the dead"
The South Georgia Conference's Congregational Development Agency recently introduced a new leadership initiative, "The Leadership Immersion Program". The program's purpose is to help pastors maximize their gifts and graces in their service to the Kingdom of God. Each district nominated two candidates, for a total of twelve pastors, to participate in the program. To facilitate this process, each nominee selected four of eight training opportunities in various locations throughout the remaining calendar year and in the 2017 calendar year. All of the eight training events are geared towards teaching, equipping, and inspiring pastors from all denominations. The evolution of the Leadership Immersion Program is related to the growing felt-need to invest in South Georgia's pastoral leadership.
The first conference was the "New Room" conference at The Church of the City in Franklin, Tennessee. The name "New Room" was derived from the first Building that John and Charles Wesley built to house their growing ministry. The theme of this year's New Room conference was gearedtoward Spiritual Awakening. Throughout America's history there have been several notable revivals, such as "The Great Awakening" that broke out under the preaching of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, and "The Second Great Awakening" of James McGready and Charles Finney. All the preaching and speakers addressed the anticipation of the next great awakening and how we can usher that in. Some of the conference's notable speakers were Danielle Strickland, Bishop James Swanson, Pete Greig, Ken Collins, David Thomas, Gabe Lyons and Ben Witherington, III. All the speakers were dynamic, but it was the passionate preaching of Bishop James Swanson that most stirred the crowd. The text for his message was Acts 1:8, where Jesus said, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you..." He preached on the need for Christians to take risks, to cross boundaries, and to move out of our comfort zones so that we can see how the Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of all people. He emphasized trusting God, trusting the Holy Spirit and not being afraid to see the Holy Spirit work in our midst. His message was nothing short of inspirational. My take away from all of the New Room speakers was to really double down on prayer and to fully rely upon and trust the agent of the Holy Spirit.
The New Room conference offered breakout sessions to all attendees. I attended"Anticipating and Participating in the Great Awakening" with David Thomas. David did an excellent job of presenting and facilitating a discussion on the topic of Awakening. There waslots of good discussion as to what awakening looks like, how it emerges, how it is nurtured, and how essential it is to the church. But it was abundantly clear that awakening occurs on the heels of sheer desperation of God's people. It emerges when a few of God's people experience it first hand and then long for it like nothing else matters.
The pinnacle of the conference was the Thursday night prayer service. The service was filled with inspirational music from the Mark Swayze Band. The whole service was a catalyst for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to come, fill, refresh, and revive. It was a powerful service of confession, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration. Pete Greig, an author and church planter from London, lead the assembly in a heart-felt, passionate outcry for God to bring about the next great spiritual awakening. He facilitated this prayer by having everyone in the service shout all together with him in their loudest voices "COME ON!!!" Again and again we shouted "COME ON!!!" That is come on Holy Spirit! Come on Revival! Come on SpiritualAwakening! COME ON!!! Sometimes, God wants us to pray in a way that is anything other than casual and routine. Sometimes, God wants to hear our cries. It worked for the Psalmist, so why would it be any different for the rest of us? "COME ON!!!" We are ready GOD, so "COME ON!!!"
To say the least, The New Room Movement is awesome! I, too, like many of my fellow Christians, am ready to see revival break out. But until then, I will be praying, really praying for God to bring renewal and restoration. And I will be trusting and relying on God's power and not my own. I am sure there are many takeaways from this year's New Room conference, but these are just a few of mine. Awake O Sleeper!
All God's Best,
Chad