NORTH AMERICA CONFERENCE IN NEW YORK

This year’s North American Conference from Aug 4-7, which over 120 people attended, was a conference of “firsts” for North America. It was the first time that it was hosted in the East Coast, right in Manhattan. It was the first time that there were discussion breakout sessions. It was the first time that Hope New York church hosted a regional conference. View Conference Photos

The theme was The CORE as the speakers expounded on our Core Values V to X. The previous conference focused on basic biblical values, whereas this conference focused on values more specific to Hope International Movement: Church Planting, Vision, Apostolic, Discipleship and Leadership Development. The overriding questions driving the conference were, “Who are we as a movement? What do we stand for?”

Pastor Simon Eng kick-started the conference with a teaching on church planting, expounding on the importance of the church and how a church can spring up from a simple bible study. Pastor Bill Wilson, who leads the largest children's ministry in the world, was the guest speaker. His radical lifestyle and provocative questions such as, "Would you be willing to spend a few nights in a trash dump with the least of these?" pushed many people out of their middle-class comfort zones. After lunch, a group of people came together to hand out leftover sandwiches and cookies from lunch to the surrounding neighborhood. The camp was located near some projects with lower-income housing, so many people were delighted and surprised by the generosity.

Midway through the conference, there were several workshops put on; the two most well-attended were Pastor Wilson Lim's on the difficulties with Calvinism and Pastor Lai Ling's on healing and restoration. Lai Ling's gentle, story-telling manner was a breath of fresh air after many high-powered teachings, as she relayed story after story of God's miraculous and prophetic healing.

Later in the conference, Pastor Ben Lee and Pastor Eng taught on vision and discipleship respectively. After each of their teachings, we broke out into groups to discuss how to apply these core values for our local churches. Members got together to talk honestly about where they thought the church was at and their visions for their local church, as well as the current state of discipleship in North American churches. It was a productive time to acknowledge the disparity between our ideals and present reality and work to close the gap.

Pastor Ben then unveiled the global CATALYSE master-plan, giving us, for the first time, a concrete sense of the direction of the international movement for the next five years. North America will be a key player in fulfilling one of CATALYSE's priorities, which is to move from a predominantly Asian movement to a global movement of all nationalities. Currently, members in HIM North American are predominantly Asian. Hope Quebec in Canada, however, will be starting soon and its core team composed of local Canadians.

Outside of the plenary sessions, the food and activities were appropriately New York-themed. Each day highlighted the diversity of cuisine in New York and typical "New York" meals, from Dominican food to gourmet sandwiches. Instead of having a sports tournament, Hope NYC hosted a clues-game that led groups of people to sight see through the city, from Columbia University to Wall Street. The conference concluded with a rendition of Sound of Music's "So Long, Farewell" by members of Hope New York in reflection of the popularity of musicals in New York.

This conference served as a mirror: it provoked much needed reflection on who we are as a movement and as a local church. In the upcoming year, the question is whether we can take our defining core values and embody them effectively in our local communities in North America.

Written by Sarah Ngu

www.hopeNA.org