Singing in Spanish, fingers pointed heavenward, the Cali, Colombia Church of the Nazarene worship team led the crowd in worship.
Across the convention center, workshop participants listened to a Rwandan Nazarene tell about forgiving and leading to Christ the man who nearly killed her during the 1994 genocide. Her story sparked a discussion about the role of Nazarenes in peace and reconciliation around the world.
In groups of four or five, people formed circles throughout the Orange County Convention Center, day and night, to intercede for the workshops, business meetings, conventions and worship services.
These scenes encapsulated the first ever Global Mission Conference, an expansion of the Nazarene Mission International (NMI) Convention conducted every four years during the general assembly and conventions of the global Church of the Nazarene.
Held June 24-26 in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A., the Global Mission Conference was characterized by emphases on intercessory prayer, mission strategy and drawing new generations into the global mission conversation.
Korea Nazarene University (KNU) sent a dance and drama group to demonstrate
traditional Korean arts on the Celebration Stage in the Exhibit Hall. Photo
courtesy of NCN News.
Something old, something new
Every four years, Nazarene churches from a growing number of world areas elect delegates to represent them at the denomination’s international business and worship gathering in the United States. This gathering is called the General Assembly and Conventions. The delegates spend up to two weeks at a convention center participating in worship services, training workshops, legislative and committee meetings and in fellowship.
For decades, the NMI convention, business meetings and workshops have been a central event of General Assembly. NMI expanded its 2009 convention by adding new features intended to involve young, missional leaders who did not hold an elected position in the organization or were not previously familiar with NMI. This expansion was called Global Mission Conference.
While the Global Mission Conference included the traditional workshops, business and legislation, new features included prayer-focused events and artistic and cultural presentations by Nazarenes from numerous world areas. (Read more about the prayer features.)
The conference was also different from past conventions in that NMI worked closely with two other ministries who previously held separate conventions with their own elected delegates during the same week of General Assembly. The leadership teams of NMI, Sunday School and Discipleship Ministries International (SDMI) and Nazarene Youth International (NYI) combined several worship services into one that brought together each ministry’s delegates for celebration, prayer and worship.
A conversation in the global story
Another new feature was the interactive discussions, called global tracks, designed to create ongoing conversation about difficult issues facing new generations of Nazarenes in a rapidly changing world. The conference planners’ intent was to create an environment where long-time NMI representatives could meet with young emerging leaders to develop new mission strategies.
Steve Gregory, an NMI mission call coordinator (person who helps young people explore their call to missions) for the Southwest Indiana District, and NMI president at the Vincennes First Church of the Nazarene, attended the global track, “New Voices in Conversation,” which centered on the question of how to embrace new generations of mission leaders.
Gregory heard young people say, "We need the older ones, we want the wisdom.’” As he listened, he realized the younger generation involved in missions "desperately want the guidance and the help of the older generation as well. I was really moved in that second session. I felt God’s presence.”
One discussion about the concept of partnerships--continuing relationships between the sender and receiver in a mission endeavor--reinforced what Gregory had been discovering about partnerships. Back home, he brought up this concept at a meeting in which his church board was planning a mission project. He hopes the ideas will help to improve how they carry out their plans.
Lori Anderson, a delegate from the Chicago Central District who attended the same global track, said, “Someone said that we know that Jesus is the answer, but we don’t always know what the question is for our specific community. What are the needs? How can we be that in our community? I wrote that down. It made me think.”
Worship through the arts
Culture and arts also played a major role in the expanded Global Mission Conference. Regions prepared multimedia presentations, called Regional Features, to highlight the distinctive ways people worship God in various cultures.
The Africa Nazarene University (ANU) choir, Shangilia, from Kenya, performed several songs during their Regional Feature presentation, and also led worship during one conference session. They performed on the Celebration Stage in the Exhibit Hall as well. Photo courtesy NCN News.
South America used drama to illustrate the significance of football (soccer) in the region and pantomimed reaching out to youth through a game of football. The drama team involved the entire gathering by throwing out a giant football that people bounced around the convention hall.
“The moment which had the greatest impact on me was when the Caribbean Region gave their report which concluded with a gentleman singing ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow,’” said Chet Decker, who was moved by the lyrics, “I sing because I’m happy/I sing because I’m free.”
“What a great freedom we have in Christ,” said Decker, a delegate to the convention from the Eastern Michigan District in the U.S.
“I enjoyed everything about it but most enjoyed the Regional Features,” said Lisa Jolly, also a delegate from the Eastern Michigan District. “It was so exciting to hear what was happening around the world.”
The March of the Nations, a longtime, traditional element of the NMI convention remained part of the event. As representatives from each of the church's 155 world areas carried 155 national flags through the convention hall, delegates from that nation in the crowd cheered--a fitting climax for the Global Mission Conference.
"NMI has always been about gathering mission-passionate people from the nations to ... catch the vision of what God is doing around the world and take that back to their homelands," said Shawna Songer Gaines, a member of the NMI conference organizing team. "The Global Mission Conference really intentionalized the largeness of that--a widening of everything that we've been trying to accomplish in past years."