2017 Feast Coordinator Conference

I'd like to share this report from our Conference Planner, Charles Melear:

The annual Feast Coordinator Conference convened on February 7 and 8 via web conference. Participating in the meeting was President Vic Kubik and conference planner Charles Melear, all the coordinators for the U.S., Canada, and Caribbean, along with staff at the home office whose duties interact with the Feast of Tabernacles. This is the third year in a row to meet like this, with the intent to save money rather than fly everyone in to the home office.

Opening comments by President Vic Kubik reviewed a little personal Feast attendance history and then urged the Coordinators to keep the Feast fresh with ideas and energy and not just repeat what we have done for many years.

Other topics discussed were scheduling articles for the Festival Planning Brochure, youth education lessons, site budgets, special music, and suggestions for improvement.

Tom Disher has been working hard to develop a new website format for the Feast, including festival registration. Tom did a live demonstration, showing some of the new features which will be ready to launch by April.

There will be five new site locations in the United States and two in Canada. The Caribbean will only have two sites this year. Discussions also included the request for additional sites while considering the impact on manpower and staffing.

The education committee is already working on Festival booklets and youth lessons.

Never Give Up!

Have things ever been so bad that we begin to think that they won't get any better? This can happen--particularly when an unforeseen condition or situation pops up that seems devoid of hope or is shocking in its personal scope.

Trusting God means to turn things over to Him in prayer and action.

Here's some good news: the Bible is full of accounts where people looked out and saw vast armies poised to destroy them, where they faced insurmountable odds, where they were discouraged by the acts of others, or where their friends and colleagues told them to give up. These inspiring accounts show how God delivered them and delivered mightily. These incredible accounts were provided that we might have vision and hope. How might this apply to you?

I was reminded of this biblical capacity for vision in a recent meeting of my Rotary International club near Cincinnati. Our programs are often insightful.

Last week, three enthusiastic middle school students captured that remarkable capacity with a noteworthy and thought-provoking demonstration of their vision for what Detroit might be like in 150 years. Currently from an economic and infrastructure perspective, Detroit is today nothing short of an American disaster story. The city, which once boasted of a booming automotive manufacturing economy and a population of 1.85 million in 1950, has since seen the number of city residents more than cut in half as the remaining 710,000 people scramble for jobs. About three years ago, Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy case in the history of the United States.

These facts didn't daunt these eight grade students. They put in a lot of thought into  developing a vision of a solar-powered region, a secure city with plenty of energy, beautiful new theme parks, and virtually no crime. They competed with 20 other schools in making a visionary presentation, and came in second place.

As I took in this presentation, my mind was filled with thoughts. One trail of thoughts centered on how much of humanity still relies solely on science to solve many of its insolvable problems.

Another trail of thought led me to consider how we, in the Church, anchor our vision of the future. In Luke 14, our Elder Brother Jesus Christ laid out what it takes to become a true disciple. The terms are simple and a challenge at the same time. The bottom line is that nothing can be in the way of our relationship with Jesus, which leads directly to a relationship with God, our Father.

While we may consider giving up everything we have in order to become a disciple (Luke 14:33), there is an additional thought that we must consider: in order to be disciples, we must implicitly trust God. Even as Jesus set us an example, we must confidently and unabashedly place our very lives in His hands, actively turning over our problems and challenges to Him.

Being able to confidently turn events in our lives over to God--the heart of trust where we fully surrender ourselves to God and Jesus Christ--is made possible in part by the vision that we establish in our minds, that of seizing and holding fast our eternal destiny: being born anew as incomprehensibly powerful spirit beings into the Kingdom of God, serving directly under the King of Kings for all eternity. Can we grasp that? Trust springs from holding and fully understanding this.

As the King James Version translates Proverbs 29:18: "Where there is no vision, the people perish." The lack of vision and capacity to put things into true perspective, of not understanding the incredible human potential that we have, can easily lead to discouragement, depression and a sapping feeling of hopelessness.

We must personally make the vision of the Kingdom of God deeply relevant and meaningful to each of us. When we yield to God, our Father helps shape and sustain that vision within us through the power of the Holy Spirit. When things get tough, we recall to mind what our real goal is. We are refreshed to know that getting in line with the will of God for us today is what will lead us through trials and discouragement. Jesus gave us this unbreakable promise: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (Matthew 6:33).

Understanding and making alive the certain promises of the Kingdom of God allows us to relax and fully yield our will to God's. That is when we fully begin to trust God for events in this life, which is the active application of living by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Trusting God means to turn things over to Him in prayer and action. In the course of human life, we all will face major boulders in our pathway that block our way. These may be spiritual, mental, emotional or physical boulders. Often we can't budge them by our own efforts.

When they can't be moved by human means, that's where we learn how to trust God. That's one reason why many biblical authors were inspired to write "whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he" (Proverbs 16:20). As the Bible records in many places, when we trust God, we are indeed in a state of being blessed.

Trusting God is sometimes counter intuitive. In tough times we may want to take things into our own hands instead of seeking God's help, insight and even intervention. Sometimes we face trials so severe that we don't feel we can go on. That's where exercised faith--in the form of trust--pays off.

Let us hold fast our vision. When we face trials or discouragement, let us trust the One who will set everything right. Let us find ourselves, as Jeremiah wrote: "Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence" (Jeremiah 17:7, New Living Translation). Let us never give up!