Faithfuls claim that all God-glorifying activities are automatically considered as successful. But as professional (scientific) researcher and evaluator, and as faithful believer, there are moments that I really find it conflicting between these two school of thoughts. In logic, it is “to see is to believe”, while in faith, “believe and you will see”. Seems difficult to reconcile, isn’t it . . . ? How then shall I evaluate (judge) the recently completed grand fellowship of believers?
During the promotional period, we learned of the five to eight thousands target participants for this Convention, as well as the supposed highlight Experiencing the Pentecost, where at least a thousand souls be baptized. This was based on the premise that each local congregation shall bring at least one soul to be baptized, knowing that this nondenominational group has over a thousand local autonomous churches nationwide.
As per Convention president’s final announcement shortly before it ended on Sunday, April 11, 2010, the total registered conventionists was only 1844, while only 60 plus souls were baptized. This excludes some ten to fifteen souls who confessed faith after the Sunday sermon.
Looking at the program implementation, this Convention is one of the most God-glorifying and quite interesting, as the organizers have perfectly striken the balance between worship and entertainment (may be this is not the right term, the audience was really entertained and blessed). Everybody was actively participating from the partakers through the members of the audience. Filipino’s rich cultural heritage were integrated into special numbers like songs, dances, skit, mimicry and what have you, all slanted towards praising and worshipping God. On a sidelight, celebrity guest Dodot Jaworski, don in yellow shirt, spoke briefly on love of country or patriotism, but short of campaigning for political purpose. He must have been informed and understood the occasion, thanks God.
Availability and use of modern facilities and gadgets added to the general soul-uplifting programs, such as video coverage in a big screen, sophisticated sounds and lights system, and the huge auditorium. The venue is designed for big crowd, but not for small group discussion. The open tents which served as classrooms were not quite conducive to learning.
Food covered by registration fee was simple, but supplemental merienda at cost were available. Thirst-quenchers like softdrinks and juices were also available around for sale, typical of this bi-annual Christian fellowship.
All the resource persons were good and prepared. The assigned masters of ceremonies did their parts very well, so do with the choirs and similar partakers of special numbers. The song leaders (aka Praise and Worship teams) for every session performed well, but the usual ushers and usherettes, who used to attend to the hour-to-hour needs of the conventionists were not quite visible.
Mass baptism done right before Sunday worship was fine, but as mentioned before, it was short of everybody’s expectations (in terms of quantity). The worship service was just perfect, were it not followed by a call for a series of special offerings, to cover the initial deficit of (hold your breath) P300K. Hence, he who was assigned to make an offertory challenge really did a hard-sell "forcing" the believers to give. Final deficit was placed at P75K.
While this bi-annual convergence of churches under the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement becomes the traditional, regular destination of the members of the Churches of Christ/Christian Churches/Christ’s Churches, and is one of the most sought-after activity in the Christian circle, there’s still a big room for improvement for the organizers, host and even the attendees to consider to keep it more meaningful. By faith, one can make justification for every pitfalls and shortcomings; but, it must be assessed objectively to avoid repeating same mistakes and make our Conventions truly hassle-free, satisfying and above-all, God-glorifying.
Below are some photographs taken during this blogger's sojourn to the 97th Convention. All for His glory, amen.(JSF Blogs)
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