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Toledo held our spring gathering at Michindoh Conference Center on April 13-15. Our main goal for the conference was relationship building with theme, “Love God and Love Your Neighbor” (Mt. 22:37-39). Leading up to the conference we studied the death and resurrection of Jesus from Mark’s gospel. We tried something different in the basic format and organization of the conference to better promote our goal of relationship building and love.

In February, we began meeting in peer groups to pray and prepare the conference. Men leaders formed one group, and women leaders formed another group. A third group was composed of all the student-aged leaders among us. Each of the 3 groups was charged with creating the program and content for one of the main sessions for the whole congregation based on our conference goal and theme. Women leaders took charge of planning and organizing the opening Friday night program. Men leaders met and organized the Saturday morning program, and student-aged leaders put together our Saturday evening program. Additionally, we had a special baptism ceremony on Saturday afternoon for 5 students, Mark Kwiatkowski, Yaqing Huang, Esther Paik, Mary Reilly, and Lena Wu. For Sunday, we conducted our regular Sunday worship service format including a communion service. Albert Hong and Greg Lewis delivered the 2-part Sunday message. Each of the peer groups was also responsible to lead and organize a couple of the prayer meetings leading up to the conference. The conference environment and programs were very conducive to moving forward in our goals and theme. Many people participated in various ways with freedom and excitement, and the level of communication and relationships among our peer groups is improving. Overall, we thank God for his vulnerable love displayed in so many ways, including sending Jesus and making his dwelling among us. We also learned how loving God and loving our neighbor, in addition to doing something, is also a state of being that is always within our reach due to the grace of Jesus.       

Reported by Greg Lewis