WU students heading to Jubilee Conference
Feb. 14-16 will be a weekend of jubilee for more than 60,000 college undergraduates in the Pittsburgh area.
The Coalition for Christian Outreach will be orchestrating its 37th annual Jubilee Conference at the Westin Pittsburgh and David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
At least 50 speakers and performers will be devoting their time to instructing young adults on how they may draw nearer to God and apply their faith in all aspects of their lives, especially post-graduate careers, ranging from science, art and music to law and engineering.
As the conference’s website said, Jubilee is a “gathering of thousands of college students learning how to worship God with their whole lives.”
This year’s theme is “everything matters.”
The program booklet explains the theme more in depth,”With the world around us shouting at every turn that nothing really matters, it’s time to take a deeper look into the truth of the Gospel and how it absolutely does matter. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the promise that His sacrifice makes possible the redemption and restoration of the whole world- it matters how we treat our roommates, how we view business transactions, how we study, play, work, and interact with everyone we meet. It matters how we will live out our faith in Jesus Christ.”
Registration will begin 3 p.m. on Friday with the first large group gathering starting at 7:30 p.m.At this first gathering Jay Jakub, director of external research for Mars, Inc.; Andy Crouch, executive editor of Christianity Today; and Manfred Honeck, music director for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, will be speaking on creation.
The High Calling will also be announcing its Jubilee video contest award.
Friday’s “Late Night Op” at 10 p.m. will offer six different activities.
One will be a worship slam, which will introduce many ways to praise God, including Christian rap and poetry.
Others include a Justin McRoberts concert, life size board games, prayer, a fitness dance party and a multimedia experimental art show.
At 8 a.m. on Saturday, there will be an optional session on the ancient practice of Lectio Divina, which is a purposeful reading of Biblical scripture in an attempt to experience a more intimate encounter with God.
The workshops will begin at 9 a.m. It will be completely up to the students which workshops they will choose to attend.There will be many choices, including specialized cross-cultural ones designed to show ethnic backgrounds as special treasures from the Lord.
Bethany Hoang, director of the Institute of Biblical Justice at the International Justice Mission; and Dan Allender, author and professor of counseling at the Seattle School of Theology & Psychology will be speaking on the fall [of man] at the 10:30 a.m. large group gathering.
Jubilee Latino will hold a session at 4 p.m. on “Machismo: Discovering the Beauty of Ethnicity and the Frailty of Pride” with Michael Thornhill, Point Park University’s CCO campus minister and downtown Pittsburgh salsa instructor.
There will be a Jubilee Cross-Cultural dinner at 5:45 p.m.
Saturday night’s group gathering at 7:30 will feature author and speaker Margot Starbuck and Eric Mason, founder and pastor of Epiphany Fellowship. They will present on the subject of redemption.
Josh Brown, senior pastor at Bellefield Presbyterian Church in Oakland, Pa., will be speaking on a subject titled “With Trembling Boldness: Understanding the Call to Vocational Ministry” at a workshop 2:30 p.m. Saturday.
“I really appreciate the CCO’s emphasis on extending Christian faith and service into personal vocations,” said Brown. “With this session I wanted to talk about the possibility of being called to fulltime Christian mission-related work – the joys and trials. We will expose false motivational models that are out there in the world and compare them to the Biblical model. I’m really hoping students will be able to fully grasp the concept of ‘trembling boldness,’ which would be proclaiming Christ even when we are completely aware of our own weaknesses.”
Saturday “Late Night Ops” will be a cross-cultural prayer, a shoe drive, bingo and a dance off.
Sunday, the last day of Jubilee, will begin with an 8 a.m. yoga session.
At 9 a.m., R. York Moore, national evangelist for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship USA; and Terry Thomas, director for Geneva College’s student ministry program, will close out the large group gatherings with a talk on restoration.
At this same time, Jubilee Africana will hold a workshop on “The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: Life as a Black Christian on a White Campus” with Khadija Adams, associate staff member of the CCO.
Jubilee Asia will also be presenting at 9 a.m.with Kerri Landes Clauser, CCO associate staff member at the Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh campuses; speaking on “Identity and Urban Ministry: Leaving your Comfort Zone for the Kingdom of God.”
Lead by Waynesburg University CCO campus minister Russ Schneider and Becky Juliano of First Presbyterian Church of Waynesburg, a group of about 15 students will be leaving the campus at 3 p.m. to head to this conference.
“I was encouraged to go when Russ talked about his experience with Jubilee and how it’s shaped his faith,” said student Derrion May. “I’m excited to fellowship with other Christians in my age group and learn about networking with my faith.”