National Staff Conference

The IV triennial National Staff Conference happened November 29 –December 3, 2010, just outside of Toronto. This was my first National Staff Conference, and it was conference filled with enriching and inspiring conversations, seminars and talks. Each day so full that a day felt like it was 5 days; by the end of the conference it felt like we’d been there for a month instead of just 5 days!

We were to do our best to enter the conference rested. This was not my reality. The week before the conference was my last week at my part-time job. It was full of with early mornings and long nights. Once the work week was over, I actually spent the weekend preparing for my staff role at the conference, which was being part of the Stage Design Team. The days before the conference was full of phone calls and last-minute errand running.  But despite some of the stress entering the Conference, I had a great time with my Stage Design Team, as we brought the various components of our design to life. For me, it was a time to reclaim and redeem my Interior Design background; and I thoroughly enjoyed using those skills to symbolically impart the theme of the conference.

The theme of the conference was the Word of God being spread amongst all the nations. We saw this in the morning bible studies in the book of Acts and the inspiring plenary sessions led by Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter-McNeil. In the afternoons, we had opportunities to attend seminars about a variety of topics. I attended a seminar about Proxes, (if you’re wondering what one is, keep reading my blog and I’ll be talking about them at length in another post) and one about building partnerships with ethnic churches. Each left me with a lot to think about and with a lot of ideas.

As much as I enjoyed the conference content, there were many hard moments for me throughout the conference. At various points, I felt conflicted in my calling and identity. These moments were often spurred on from “altar calls” made during the plenary sessions, but sometimes would spring up in conversations I would have with staff that I only nominally knew.  For a good chunk of the week, I felt “blocked” in more ways than one. One particularly challenging moment occurred during an alter call where we were asked to pray in our mother tongue. For some reason, I was extremely triggered by this exhortation, partly because I didn’t know my mother tongue. After there was a call to pray in any other language, and at that point I felt like the part of my brain that retained all the languages I did know was blocked.

However, the following day offered redemption. The plenary session was about being bridge builders. Near the end of the session, there were two altar calls that night: one for those who felt they were bridge builders and one for those who felt they were had been overlooked and were not living to their full potential as a leader. All who responded to the call were prayed for by the president of IV Canada. This was the first altar call I’ve ever responded to, and afterward I felt really exposed. I wanted to get out of that room ASAP, but was stopped by Ashley. Ashley is an extraordinary woman. She is doing an internship with Inter-Varsity in Montreal, she is of German and Pakistani descent, and though I don’t know her well, we’ve had a lot of great conversations about culture and identity. Ashley was struck by the message that evening, and immediately sought me out to talk. What followed was a great conversation about identity and culture. Reflecting on the conversation later, I realized that though my official focus of Campus Ministry is not South Asian Ministry, I was doing it anyway with the conversations I’ve been having with various staff within the organization. I realized that my calling is to follow where God leads me, regardless of my official job assignment.

On the whole, I left the Conference, largely unsettled. However, as I’ve since discovered, God often uses the places of discontent in our lives to fuel vision for future ministry.