Navigators Midwest Laborer’s Conference
This weekend (Friday and Saturday), I had the privilege of attending the Navigators Midwest Laborer’s Conference (held in Manhattan, Kansas), which is a time for students on the Leadership Teams of Navigator ministries around the Midwest to come together and learn about leading and laboring for Christ from a series of ‘rallies’ in which a speaker delivers a message (the same speaker all weekend for 3 rallies) and through various workshops and times of meditation and reflection. This year’s conference we had the privilege of hearing Jim Rinella, the Rocky Mountain regional director and campus director of the Colorado State University Navigator ministry.
For weeks before this conference I was looking forward with anticipation to this time of fellowship and growth, as well as the opportunity to serve for an entire weekend by helping set up when necessary, tear down when needed, and helping with anything else that needs to be done throughout the weekend. As the conference grew closer (like the Thursday before) I prayed that God would use this conference to show me ways in which I can better serve and honor Him, to open my eyes to more of what He wants from me, and for God to rejuvenate my soul and my spirit. The Laborers Conference has come and gone, and I can confidently say that that prayer has been answered.
The first rally of the conference (Friday night), Jim spoke about three fundamentals of living a life like and for Christ. These three fundamentals are “Prayer from the heart, Care from the heart, and Share from the heart.” You might think to yourself, “well, that makes sense,” and it does; but the cool thing was that how he spoke about those three things really lead me to think about how these three fundamentals are related, or how they come together to form a life that is one, honoring to God, and two the life Jesus called us to live. The way in which these three do this is as follows: When you lift up prayer for someone, I mean really pray for someone about anything (prayer from the heart), you will naturally want to check up on them to see one, how they are doing, and two, how God is working through your prayers. Through prayer from the heart, automatically created in you is care from the heart. You will always be asking them how they are, how whatever you are praying for them is going; you will always be interested in their life. As a result of your prayers, care will immerge, and more than likely, whoever is the beneficiary of your prayer and care, will be attracted to you because you have shown an interest in them. They will want to spend time with you because you make them feel loved (which they are), and you make them feel like you actually care (which you do). From this attraction will come, naturally, an opportunity for you to share your heart with them; to share Jesus. To put it into a simple and more portable phrase,
With prayer from the heart, comes care from the heart. With care from the heart comes an opportunity to share from the heart.
So that was just the Friday night rally, which is the main focus of this entry, but there is more. At the Saturday morning rally, Jim delivered another stellar message that again inspired me to praise and wonder. Simply put, he spoke about the ministry and strategy of Jesus, and summed it up with only one word: With. I won’t go into that right now, because I believe that that deserves its own entry, which you can get to by clicking the link above.
I’m always amazed by how much God speaks through these conferences. My last two conferences have been absolutely incredible, and this one most definitely has lived up to the standard. I have a lot to chew on and meditate over. God has challenged me through Jim and has used Jim and the men that he brought with him from
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