News > North America

The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ Jesus

The annual UBF North America Staff Conference was held on June 17-20, at Colorado State University, a possible location for the 2018 International Summer Bible Conference.  About 160 leaders (staff members and their spouses) attended the 3-day conference at the scenic, modern CSU campus, which has a majestic view of the Rocky Mountains. The conference title was The Surpassing Worth of Knowing Christ Jesus, based on Philippians 3:8. Pastor Ron Ward (Chicago) gave opening prayer topics to meet Jesus, to listen to Jesus, to be united with him and with one another, and then to raise a new generation of disciples of Jesus.

Conference members studied the entire book of Philippians in 5 lessons -- the first day in groups based on chapter sizes and the second day in groups by gender. In addition, there were five plenary sessions during which there were summary messages delivered by David Miller (Cincinnati), Philip Wong (Montreal), Dr. John Baik (El Camino), Russell Kille (Toledo), and Dr. Helen Rarick (Chicago). In addition, we heard chapter reports by David Kim (Miami), Dr. Abraham McIlhenny (West L.A.) and Paulus Cha (Humber), and mission reports from Dr. William Altobar (the Philippines), Paul Kim (Chun Cheon, Korea), and Isaac Choi (Kangreung, Korea). After each Bible study and plenary session, we prayed specifically for the prayer topics pertaining to the CIS, Africa, Latin America, Oceania, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Canada, USA and Korea UBF. Also, Pastor Kevin Albright (Chicago) presented the new Staff Education Program, which will be accessible on-line in August.

On Friday, there was a special lecture by Stephen Lutz, who is a nationally-known campus evangelist and author. Before the conference, members read his book, College Student Ministry in a Post-Christian Era, to explore successful, contemporary campus outreach methods. In his lecture, he described the current hostile attitude towards evangelism derived from hyper-modernism in which society is fiercely dedicated to reason versus faith. He advocated a more serious discipleship approach based on solid Biblical and theological training of student disciples to prepare them to have faith, wisdom and courage to overcome persecution. He will speak again at the Midwest summer Bible conference on his book, King of the Campus, which is written for college students.

On the final day of the conference, members shared their testimonies based on one word they received from Philippians. This was followed by regional meetings to prepare for regional summer conferences. Afterwards, we rejoined for national prayer topics and direction. Pastor Jacob Lee (Washington) presented the new donation link on  the UBF website, in order to support various goals of the central world mission office, such as a missionary retreat center, second generation education, and support for missionaries in need. Next, Pastor Mark Vucekovich, North America UBF Coordinator, presented the UBF chapter guidelines, which can be accessed on the North America UBF website, and he encouraged everyone to review them and discuss them with their chapters. The guidelines strongly encourage chapters with more than 20 members to form a board of elders and register church members who have voting rights. Pastor Mark also introduced Edward Papabithini (Chicago) as the new North America Conferences Coordinator, who then gave a presentation on the possible sites of the 2018 conference, with a focus on Colorado State University.

Finally, Pastor Abraham Kim, UBF General Director, gave his report and prayer topics. He acknowledged being appointed for a second term and shared his vision to raise key leaders and a new generation of leaders. Pastor Abraham reported on the distribution of the 2014 Christmas worship service offering towards the construction of new Bible houses in South Sudan and the Philippines, and the direction for 2015 offering to relieve earthquake victims in Nepal. He gave as prayer topics based on our Philippians study: 1.) Have an identity as Christ’s soldiers; 2.) Be acquirers of Christ as our master passion; 3.) Be holy pilgrims who rejoice always. Also, he shared general prayers topics: 1.) North American student ministry; 2.) Send out missionaries; 3.) Colorado co-workers; 4. ) Korea UBF’s 2016 World Mission Report; 4.) New chapters: Isaiah and Dream Kim at Washington State University, and Dr. David and Dr. Praise Cho at the University of South Florida; 5.) The Philippines UBF ministry led by Dr. William and Sarah Altobar; 6.) Timothy and Hannah Rhee in Guadalajara to overcome government charges against their business; 7.) Dr. John Jun’s CME ministry in Japan; 8.) Northern Latin American regional conference in Venezuela  on August 20-23.

After the conference, Colorado co-workers -- Jeremiah and Maria Jung and Joseph and Rebekah Choi (Denver) and John and Lydia Lee and Stephen and Grace Kim (Colorado Springs) -- hosted staff members to a tour of the Rocky Mountains and invited them to attend their worship service and a luncheon. Please pray for North America UBF staff members to live Christ-centered lives to form Christ-centered communities that can be used to evangelize all major cities and campuses of the world!

By Yvonne Lee