Jubilee Conference

I just got back from hanging out with 2,500 college students in Pittsburgh. We were all attending a conference called Jubilee and it was amazing!!

The Jubilee conference is run by the CCO (Christian Coalition for Outreach) and it focuses each year on we can live deeper with Christ, focusing mostly on the college aged population. This year, the subtitle was "every square inch", and together we reflected on how Jesus encounters all aspects of our life.

At Jubilee, we encountered speakers from all aspects of the Christianity, from Lauren Winner, a professor and author from Duke Divinity school, to Bill Strickland, an entrepeneur reconstructing a missional love for the poor, to the punter from the Steelers, who is walking with Christ in the NFL. Artists surrounded us, whether those using paint or photography, to musicians playing Jazz, Indie, and worship music. The spectrum of giftedness ranged all throughout the weekend and it was a brilliant display of how God is moving in so many people and through so many unique channels.

Andy Crouch

Andy was the main speaker of the weekend, and he focused in on topics surrounding his new book "Culture Making". Often in Christianity we interlay a series of postures in response to culture: condemning, critiquing, copying and consuming. His focus was to inspire within us a effective and a God like culture which will direct us deeper. He directed us to focus in on cultivating culture, by taking what unique postures of culture are already present and passing them on then creating new ways to experience a live out our faith by residing deeper within disciplines to follow Christ. He deconstructed music, movies and slogans already used in our world and displayed for us how this culture either is great already or how we can work to cultivate a deeper sense of perfecting what our giftedness is in Christ.

Andy was a tremendous speaker, and I partictularly thought it was exciting to participate in breaking down the Pixar movie Ratatouie and see how this is a great representation of a great story and how this brilliance could underlay our drive to live out our giftedness.

On Saturday night, three artists joined together for a concert. Joy Ike (far left), Justin McRoberst (2nd from right) and Jonathan Walton (far right) all came together to mix up some reflections on life through their music and poetry. Music and poetry combine so beautifully together and as these three artists reflected, joked and simply just shared their journies of following Jesus together...just wow, it was beautiful.

Jonathan is a poet/rapper, a unique style combing together lyrical and poetic nuances into a flowing, heart filled expression of walking with God. Both Joy and Justin are musicians with unique abilities to encounter the heart. It was Valentines day night and it was great to sit their with Jessica, my girlfriend, and soak up these amazing expressions of love for Jesus.

Bill Strickland was another presenter. Bill is one of those entrepeneur types, who God has used in just amazing ways. Bill talked about creating schools for youth and adults in the midst of poverty. Now, this is great idea, anybody would agree, but Bill took this to another level. He just didn't build schools, he built great schools.

Bill talked about not just educating people in poverty but re-creating their self worth in education. The schools he built were beautiful, nicer than any school I have ever been to. He wasn't just educating them with GED's but empowering these people in poverty to be chef's, medical researchers, artists and computer programmers. I was just enamoured when he shared pictures with us gourmet deserts created by welfare moms with no prior training. Through Pennsylvania, formely poverty stricken individuals were key employees in just a plethora of businesses. He was training within these people not just talents and disciplines to help them get a job, but a he was cultivating a self worth and identity to help them be free from the burden and isolation class and identity struggles.

Just wow.

Throughout the weekend, it hit me time and time again how Jesus is alive in so many places in this world. So often, we just see the church and say...God is there. Yet, this weekend, the church was rarely mentioned. It was more pointed at the idea that we use the communities at our churches to empower us to go out and change the world. From the organization Kiva, which micro-finances people in developing countries through fair loans, to John Greene who started Emmaus Ministries in Chicago which just simply loves and creates relationships with male prostitues to give them a space to leave this lifestyle.

The stories continue and it was such an inspiring weekend.

Thanks for listening and feel free to chat with me about any and all of this post :)

Grace and Peace!
Micah