ICMC Through San Diego's Eyes Featured
David Johnson
Monday, 15 July 2013 18:24
For many of us getting to the ICMC 2013 required a labor of love. We sold brownies, washed cars, asked for donations, and prayed for our efforts to be blessed. By the time we got there, we were ready to settle in and learn, happily oblivious to the work going on around us.
For the ICMC West in San Diego, staff meetings began as early as October 2012 to organize and plan the conference. Robert Carillo, an evangelist in the San Diego church, oversaw the planning and helped with the execution, but it was his idea to raise up students within campus to run with the idea, and to be involved in all aspects of planning. It was a collective effort of 30 staff members, 22 interns, and over 160 members from all over the US that made this conference a reality.
The majority of the campus students arrived a day early to help setup, and remained active in ushering and serving throughout the entirety of the conference. If you enjoyed a worship service in the main auditorium, you benefited from a sound crew, stage and backdrop constructed by campus students. If you attended a lesson during the day with a slick PowerPoint presentation, chances are the projector and speaker systems were carried there by an intern. Regardless of where you slept, trust me, planning went into that.
All of these efforts were put in, as campus minister Tony Owens says, “To be a launching point for the movement. We wanted to get every student back to the heart of a missionary, and the mindset of a one man movement.” For many of us it did just that. I hope you continue to keep the lessons we learned fresh in our minds, and as you do that, I hope you remember your three-day experience was nine months in the making. Gratitude does not always come in the form of verbal affirmation, although if you can thank someone involved, please do. But sometimes gratitude can mean taking the time to remember the sacrifice of others, and then choosing to reciprocate that sacrifice when the moment arises.
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