There are only 3 days left until the 2014 Higher Calling Conference, one of the largest and well-known Christian conferences targeted towards youth and young adults. At their headquarters in Los Angeles, California, KCCC (Korea Campus Crusade for Christ) students, leaders, staff and alumni gathered for their last session of intercessory prayer for this conference to pray one last time as a ministry for the upcoming event. They all gathered at 7am on the 19th of December.
Students from all the college campuses with KCCC ministries arrived from all over Southern California, including a number of students from the University of California San Diego, who came the night before to Los Angeles to prepare breakfast for all the students and leaders who showed up that day to pray. With only 3 days left, and yet so much more that needs to be done in preparation, the students prayed in unison that God would empower all the leaders with wisdom and that no accidents will occur during the set up that is taking place as we speak.
After the prayer session, around 100 student leaders remained in the room to receive instructions regarding small group sessions during the conference. One of the most prominent features of Higher Calling Conference is that all participants will be placed in a small group or “soon” which is led by 2 KCCC student leaders. Today, the small group leaders from various campuses were paired together as teams.
This year however, with barely 1,000 students participating, more than half of the male leaders would have to serve without the help of a partner. There were just not enough workers and many older students who were planning to attend the conference as just attendees were challenged to step up and serve, and KCCC alumni and even students from other KCCC regions travelled all the way to California to serve together. Though the circumstances for this year’s Higher Calling Conference seem rather difficult, none of the leaders who were there showed any signs of discouragement, but started joking about the situation, and assured each other that God had everything under control.
Students were also briefed on other activities they will be responsible during the conference, and work immediately started again. Many brothers remained at the KCCC headquarters to help move equipment into the vans to be taken down to the conference site at Town and Country Resort in San Diego. Right now, KCCC staff and students mostly from UC San Diego are preparing the stage, booths and other crucial pieces of the conference.
Special teams that will be performing at the main worship sessions at the conference were also going through last minute rehearsals, getting ready for one last practice on the completed state in San Diego. These teams include the KCCC praise team, “Undignified”, Christian hip hop dance, body worship, and even drama performance teams. Since these were the things that participants will remember the most, each team prepared its performance with great dedication to deliver the Gospel message to every attendee effectively.
A number of Korean-American churches are still registering to send their youth groups and English-speaking ministries to the conference, and fundraising is still underway. Though circumstances are perhaps not the best, expectations for the 2014 Higher Calling Conference are still sky high.
