I was on the program team and very involved in set up, tear down, and overall effect of the main meeting room. I was specifically in charge of running lights for the main sessions. Here are a few pictures from the main meeting room as we set up.
On the first night of the conference, as with many Cru conferences the gospel was shared. Mike Donehey from Tenth Avenue North shared a clear presentation of what Christ did for us and it was a great kick off to the conference. After our session was over, Tenth Avenue North had a concert in the college conference ballroom that we joined in on. Unfortunately I was still working on stuff as we needed to finish and fix a few things, so I didn't get to go to the concert but I heard it was awesome!
Hanging out with the program team and running lights in the back was fun, but a lot of work! It was just cool to see how our hard work paid off as things came together and we could see students starting to open up and worship God freely!
On the second day of the conference we had free time and different activities for students to choose from. I was in charge of organizing a trip to Celebration Station. God taught me a lot of patience as Celebration Station forgot to put our reservation on the books and I didn't find out until about an hour before taking a group of almost 40 students. Thankfully it all worked out and everyone seemed to have a blast!
The third day of the conference was our community outreach day. Cru conferences generally incorporate some sort of outreach element in them. Similarly to the way we did it in Philly, we mobilized students to go into the community to knock on doors and ask people to give canned foods for a food drive. Students then asked if they would go through a short spiritual survey that lead into the gospel if the person was receptive and interested. They then left a bag for them to put food in and a local church came back to pick the bags up and follow up with people we talked too. I unfortunately didn't get to go because I injured my foot, but I heard it went really well from the students as many of them were sharing their faith for the first time. Each night we had "chat rooms" which were small discussion groups to end the night. I led a group and one of my students said he felt so much more comfortable sharing with his friends back home after going out and sharing with people in the community that day! The church also gathered 160 bags of food as a result!
One of the most powerful things that we did in the main sessions was the way we used the chalkboards we made for the conference. On the second day we asked students to write down their struggles and sins on an index card and leave it after the session. We gathered the index cards without knowing who wrote what and we wrote their struggles on the chalkboards. When the students came back in, they saw what everyone had wrote on the boards.
The next day our main speaker Jason Gaston spoke about how Christ had freed us and cleansed us from all of these things and that all we need is Jesus. Then, as our band Civil Parish played, we washed the boards clean and wrote FREE!
Finally on the last night of the conference during worship, we let the students go to the boards and write something that they felt freed from while at the conference. It was powerful to see how God had worked in these students lives during their time there!
Finally it came to an end as we came together with the college students for prayer and praise and worship as we brought in the New Year! Afterwards we had our separate New Year's after party in what was an old dance club that the hotel rented out to us as it is no longer in use. The students really enjoyed dancing and hanging out with their friends as a way to close out the conference!
It was so great to have our college volunteers who put in a lot of hard work to help us pull the conference off! Below is a picture of them and then a picture of the whole group that came from Raleigh-Durham, NC.
