Brief Walk thru’ FES National conference 2005

I must say I’m REALLY impressed and touched by the welcome. When takeshi, vicky and I arrived .. we had TWO people walk to the car and welcome us! wow!

Then we were escorted to the entrance … wow!

I quickly picked out my digital camera and then this guy appeared. so we mutually “camera-ed” each other. Perhaps a kind of non-verbal welcome. Impressive!

It was great to feel the energy, the noise level was just nice, some laughter here and there. I’ve been to many Scripture Union Camps. This is my second Fellowship of Evangelical Students event officially *grin*.

I was then escorted to the “speakers” room .. (where they quarantine the workshop speakers before they unlease us) The 3 in 1 coffee was a good booster plus an interesting “unexpected” conversation on Emergent and Theological Thugs 😛 when it was around 4.30pm I stepped into my workshop room S7.

The participants were all seated nice and tidy before we started. The topic was “Passionate Pursuit: Getting passionate with God, pitfalls and stepping stones.” I was given a pretty cool intro with the “Reverand” and all … by another conference staff.

I started with a short 5 minute for those “seated neatly” to turn around and share about what they’ve got thus far. Randomly got two people to share… and then transitioned with a moment of silence and centering.

we sang later “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy”

Then I went on to share with a simple question I got from Henri Nouwen, “Did becoming older bring me closer to Jesus?” trying to highlight this whole talk about passionate pursuit in relation to God is a long term thing.

I used three episodes from my life during seminary days to share and mentioned what were the pitfalls I discovered and what were lessons learnt and stepping stones that helped me – head-wise, heart-full and hands-on:-)

After I was done … this is what happened … the seating gets messed up .. and people buzz away freely in pairs. It was a pretty good buzz. In fact I sense some “great” buzz moments vibrating throughout.

Later I opened up to and managed to handle two questions and stepped up the language with emphasing the importance of spiritual formation, theological thinking and down to earth praxis as a kind of conclusion. We ended with some silence again and a closing prayer.

I did give them a set of notes… mine had colour 🙂 As usual there were some good one to one conversations after the workshop.

I was suprised that the conference staff actually waited for me to finish the conversations and then lead me to the table for dinner. I’m still speechless from such nice treatment as a speaker. I was also surprised to sit next to someone who reads my blog occassionally … another Wow!

Before I left … I thought it would be good to take Takeshi and Vicky to check out the main hall and see the “bigger picture” of the conference. Nice book table … set up!

The conference theme is based on the word “Zyme” which is “Yeast” …

I wish I could stay but this round I couldn’t .. it was great to meet some old “friends” and be introduced to new ones. And bumping into a few online kakis!
The trip home was a little challenging with thick fog after the rain. Hardly to see the car in front. We arrived home safely .