This week we held our Annual Conference in the Pacific Conference. It’s a time when we gather to conduct the business of the conference–approve budgets, hear reports, and ratify motions. But it’s also a time to build deeper connections with one another. After all, the conference is just another expression of the church; intentionally engaging in each others’ lives is key. We’ve also deliberately scheduled some challenge and inspiration into our schedule.

Let’s Talk

Here are some of the quotes we heard during our time together…

• The movement and explosive expanse of the Gospel (in Acts 4) was not from the cultural elite who were leading the charge, it was unschooled, ordinary people who had been empowered by the Holy Spirit.” -(Aaron Cloud)
• I felt like what the Lord said to me was ‘Your only failure was a failure to pray.’ (Aaron Cloud)
• Sometimes if we are willing to emulate Jesus we need to get dirty. (Deborah Loyd)
• We must reduce the resistance people have towards the gospel. (Deborah Loyd)
• If we believe in something we will say something. (Randy Myers)
• The demand is urgent and the need is appalling, but the redemptive power of the Holy Spirit, at work in believers, can meet the need. (Aaron Cloud)
• We must stop complaining that unbelievers behave like unbelievers. (Aaron Cloud)
• The 9-5-1 Response: On your commute dedicate 9 minutes to prayer and claim your community for Jesus, list and pray for five people that don’t know Jesus yet, actively engage with one non-believer. (Aaron Cloud)
• Carl Duhrkoop and I will be working on a new edition of The Discipline and it will come out in 2030. (Brian Eckhardt)
• The great news is that no matter what you’ve done, no matter where you’ve been, no matter the worse thing that’s happened in your life, God is able to forgive you. (Randy Myers)
• They wanted to see the scars on our hands and to learn how we held onto Jesus in our darkest hours and how He held onto us. (Deborah Loyd)
• It is not great faith you need, It is faith in a great God. (N.T. Wright)
• We are all called to “Go!” (Aaron Palmquist)
• I wasn’t raised in the church. When I was 18, someone got me to read the Bible rather than arguing with them and pretty soon I was believing it. (David Wright)
• Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on Earth. (John Wesley)
• We worship a great God who provided a great Savior. (Brian Eckhardt)
• Make the shift from being a hero to making heroes. (Aaron Cloud)

Before You Go

I love getting together with our church pastors and leaders. I am convinced more than ever that we need each other. No church should ever have to go it alone. We are better together.