LCMS Servant Event Leadership Conference
This past weekend (11/14-11/16) I had the opportunity to attend the National LCMS Servant Event Leadership Conference. My future coworker, Chris Hill, was able to fly from El Paso to attend as well. The event was held at the Our Lady of the Snows Shrine in Belleville, IL, a wonderful facility that took amazing care of us. Plus they have one of those deals where you can drive through and look at a whole bunch of Christmas lights, and they turned them on Saturday night...it was perfect with the SNOW!!!
The conference included devotions, hymn sings, Bible studies, breakout sessions, a worship service (which we skipped to reunite with the group from St. Paul's that went to Ysleta in July 2008...), and a commissioning service. It was great to make some new contacts (we managed to generate 3-4 groups that may be interested in coming down to El Paso sometime), meet others who have been to Ysleta and love it (like the group from Caro, MI, who built the new sanctuary at San Lucas in Anapra), experience new songs, group builders, etc., and learn from others' successes and failures, but a lot of the information was kind of common knowledge to us given that YLM hosts servant events day in and day out yearround. That being said, I still adored pretty much everything about this conference, ESPECIALLY the Bible studies, which I will attempt to outline below. LCMS is going to send us the full curriculum in Jan., but it needs to pass Doctrinal Review first ;)
The overriding theme was "Receive as Gift." We began by discussing things that we take for granted and what it means to take something for granted, and then compared the phrases "Receive as Gift" and "Take for Granted." When you think about them, the words are inherently similar but their meanings are completely contradictory, and we dissected the nuances of how each phrase has come to be connoted. Each of us was then given a rag--notice the first letters of the words in "Receive as Gift," R-A-G--and the leader explained that we were to keep it with us all week (remember, the idea behind this is that we take it and use it on a weeklong servant event with highschool youth). He made sure to point out that we could do as we wished to the rag, decorate it, cut it up, wear it however we chose, use it for whatever purpose we deemed fit. This physical prop was analogized to passages in the Bible about the free gifts of grace, faith, and salvation, and we proceeded to a discussion of how both these spiritual gifts and the rags were free, we bear them with us at all times, and we can personalize them, yet at times they become burdens. For instance, the rag may get dirty and worn, or one might stick out like a sore thumb if they were the only one carrying a rag. We went through each of the 10 Commandments as well as an additional list of things in our lives--school, work, sex, friends, church, responsibility--and talked about how they are meant to be gifts from God but we often perceive them as burdens. We discovered that this occurs in the Bible with the stories of the Good Samaritan and the Feeding of the 5000, and our focus then shifted to the vocations we hold in life and the people we are surrounded with and how God gave them to us as blessings but we have perverted them into burdens. Lastly we talked about how Scripture can be burdensome, using the parable of the sower as an illustration because God's Word doesn't always fall on willing, receptive ears.
I don't know if that made any sense whatsoever but it was my FAVORITE part of the whole weekend and I could probably keep rambling but I'll spare you. Each session (we did 4 of the 6 total...I just lumped them all into one paragraph) lasted about an hour to an hour and a half but I never grew bored and I totally felt like I was getting so much deeper than truths that, albeit wonderful, I have been indoctrinated over and over again. I tried to scribble my own notes as we went along but I cannot wait until we get the entire version in a published format.
As Servant Event Coordinator I should have the opportunity to go again next year, and I seriously hope that is the case because I had a fabulous time. One other item that I would like to point out is that you know you are a real adult when you go to a conference and you get free polo shirts instead of free T-shirts :)
Until next time, blessings!
The conference included devotions, hymn sings, Bible studies, breakout sessions, a worship service (which we skipped to reunite with the group from St. Paul's that went to Ysleta in July 2008...), and a commissioning service. It was great to make some new contacts (we managed to generate 3-4 groups that may be interested in coming down to El Paso sometime), meet others who have been to Ysleta and love it (like the group from Caro, MI, who built the new sanctuary at San Lucas in Anapra), experience new songs, group builders, etc., and learn from others' successes and failures, but a lot of the information was kind of common knowledge to us given that YLM hosts servant events day in and day out yearround. That being said, I still adored pretty much everything about this conference, ESPECIALLY the Bible studies, which I will attempt to outline below. LCMS is going to send us the full curriculum in Jan., but it needs to pass Doctrinal Review first ;)
The overriding theme was "Receive as Gift." We began by discussing things that we take for granted and what it means to take something for granted, and then compared the phrases "Receive as Gift" and "Take for Granted." When you think about them, the words are inherently similar but their meanings are completely contradictory, and we dissected the nuances of how each phrase has come to be connoted. Each of us was then given a rag--notice the first letters of the words in "Receive as Gift," R-A-G--and the leader explained that we were to keep it with us all week (remember, the idea behind this is that we take it and use it on a weeklong servant event with highschool youth). He made sure to point out that we could do as we wished to the rag, decorate it, cut it up, wear it however we chose, use it for whatever purpose we deemed fit. This physical prop was analogized to passages in the Bible about the free gifts of grace, faith, and salvation, and we proceeded to a discussion of how both these spiritual gifts and the rags were free, we bear them with us at all times, and we can personalize them, yet at times they become burdens. For instance, the rag may get dirty and worn, or one might stick out like a sore thumb if they were the only one carrying a rag. We went through each of the 10 Commandments as well as an additional list of things in our lives--school, work, sex, friends, church, responsibility--and talked about how they are meant to be gifts from God but we often perceive them as burdens. We discovered that this occurs in the Bible with the stories of the Good Samaritan and the Feeding of the 5000, and our focus then shifted to the vocations we hold in life and the people we are surrounded with and how God gave them to us as blessings but we have perverted them into burdens. Lastly we talked about how Scripture can be burdensome, using the parable of the sower as an illustration because God's Word doesn't always fall on willing, receptive ears.
I don't know if that made any sense whatsoever but it was my FAVORITE part of the whole weekend and I could probably keep rambling but I'll spare you. Each session (we did 4 of the 6 total...I just lumped them all into one paragraph) lasted about an hour to an hour and a half but I never grew bored and I totally felt like I was getting so much deeper than truths that, albeit wonderful, I have been indoctrinated over and over again. I tried to scribble my own notes as we went along but I cannot wait until we get the entire version in a published format.
As Servant Event Coordinator I should have the opportunity to go again next year, and I seriously hope that is the case because I had a fabulous time. One other item that I would like to point out is that you know you are a real adult when you go to a conference and you get free polo shirts instead of free T-shirts :)
Until next time, blessings!
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