BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) — For five days, more than 250 college students wrestled with their response to God's call to minister and the world's cry for help during the inaugural Antiphony conference at the Wynfrey Hotel in Birmingham, Ala.
The event was sponsored by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and Passport, a Birmingham-based organization that operates summer camps for youth and children as well as other ministries.
During a worship session based around God's call, speaker Julie Pennington-Russell, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, told students the call to Christ comes above any vocational or ministry calling they might feel.
For students struggling to discern vocational calls, Pennington-Russell said the answer is often not quickly spoken. “The Holy Spirit sometimes takes a long time to say what's worthwhile,” she said.
During the meeting, students were offered plenty of help in the discernment process. They had their choice of more than 25 different topical discussion sessions, called “chat rooms,” and were assigned to small “D-groups,” or discernment groups, where they grappled together with how to hear God's call and overcome hurdles that prevent clarity in spiritual direction.
The conference attracted students for a variety of reasons. For some, it was not knowing what life after college graduation would bring. For others, it was a desire to ring in 2005 with friends — the second full day ended with a New Year's Eve party. Some students came to reunite with former summer-missions teammates, and others came to meet like-minded people.
The missions component of the conference was enough motivation for Brevard College freshman Jakob Giese. “I came to learn about missions, but there's a lot more here than I was expecting,” he said.
During Wednesday's opening session, Pennington-Russell and Colleen Burroughs of Passport introduced the idea of an antiphony-style sermon, where ideas about calling were shared through a conversation between the two preachers.
But both women claimed no particular expertise. “I'm no shining call story,” Burroughs said.
Ministry was the last thing the former missionary kid had in mind after returning from Africa to attend college in America. “I really wanted to stick my head in the sand and be done with professional ministry,” Burroughs said. However, meeting her future husband, David, eventually changed her path, leading her to seminary and later to her current position as executive vice president of Passport Inc.
Pennington-Russell stumbled into her calling while attending Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in San Francisco, Calif. Starting as a church's music minister, she eventually became the church's pastor. “Call has come to me by degrees and by open doors,” she said. When hired by Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, she became the first female Baptist pastor in Texas.
In addition to in-house speakers, several people addressed the conference via video web-cams. Paul Brasden, co-pastor of a church start in Frisco, Texas, discussed what discerning God's call has meant to him and the impact that call has had on his life and his family. While the specifics of a call might vary from person to person, being a disciple of Christ is the ultimate call, Brasden said. “He is the mentor. You are the apprentice,” he said. “Let him teach you how to be a kingdom citizen.”
For Carson-Newman College senior Ashleigh Smith, the video testimonies helped ease her anxiety about a future vocation. “Tonight made me feel affirmed that it's OK not knowing. I think this conference will help me go in the right direction,” she said.
After a day of discussion about God's call, students were challenged to understand the complexity of human need.
“Before you can respond with love to the world's cry, you have to be able to identify where it is coming from and why,” said Burroughs, who illuminated a sample of current global needs, including the devastation of domestic violence, prostitution and HIV/AIDS.
Weaving the themes of the conference together, Burroughs said, “The unresolved tension of Antiphony is that God's call and the world's cry might actually be the very same sound.”
Students responded in a song by musical guest Ken Medema. “The cry of world will never end,” they sang.
Jesse Loper, one of CBF's Global Service Corps personnel serving for three years in the inner city of New York, also joined the conference via web-cam to share his experience of the world's cry. “The needs are overwhelming sometimes … but God equips us and enables us to respond to that [cry] the best we can,” Loper said.
Chat rooms covered topics including poverty, racism and the needs of women around the world. Students could learn about being full-time missionaries or meet people already practically transforming communities in need.
In a chat room concerning Christian mission and health needs, panelists discussed the necessity of ministering holistically. Frances Ford, health-care coordinator of Sowing Seeds of Hope in Perry County, Ala., said many Perry County churches had been unresponsive to their community's needs, feeling “their concern should be about the soul and spirit.”
Ford said Sowing Seeds of Hope turned churches toward a more holistic approach, an idea that has resonated with April Coates, an Oklahoma State University sophomore. “If I'm going to go into missions, then I can't just give them Jesus. I have to take care of the whole person,” she said.
Small-group discussion was the conference's hallmark, allowing everyone a chance to share their ideas, said Graham Ashcraft, a 2004 graduate of Baylor University. “It's not a lecture. It's a conversation,” he said. “And it's encouraging to see other people think the way you do.”
While each person's call varies, Pennington-Russell told the students, they should aim beyond their expectations. “Jesus' mission involved setting people free from a life too small. Whatever shape your answer takes, let it have some greatness in it,” she said.
Tom Graves, president of conference co-sponsor Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, echoed the challenge to greatness. “Your life needs to count for much. Dream for more, hope for more, expect more,” Graves said during worship Sunday. “Your life can really make a big, miraculous difference.”