GO Conference turns students to missions through the church

By Bella Agnello

Despite a one day delay due to a heavy snowstorm, GO Conference was a radical hit, charging Cedarville’s students to get involved in their local churches. Speakers challenged them to reconsider the importance that the church plays in the worship of God through missions. To close the conference, a brand-new prayer night event offered students a place to reflect and talk to God about the present and future state of the mission field.

Over the course of the conference, visiting ministries set up booths throughout the DMC and SSC, promoting missions opportunities for students to explore. Various faculty members from the Bible department spoke in chapel about the desperate need for Christians to reorient their view of the church and the purpose of missions and take on a God-centered perspective.

On Wednesday morning, Dr. Josh Bowman, assistant professor of missions and theology, stated that the reason for proclaiming the Gospel to lost people groups is to fill the earth with worship.

“Missions exist because worship does not,” Bowman said.

Bowman emphasized that God carries out his mission through the church. Christians, he said, are called to worship God and overflow that worship by supporting missionaries.

Wednesday evening, Dr. Matt Bennett, assistant professor of missions and theology, expounded on Bowman’s call to worship and church involvement by charging students to consider the significance of the church. 

“The church is the place of the manifold wisdom of God,” Bennett said.

Bennett redirected the focus of missions from seeking to save people from their sin and suffering to pointing all towards the glory of Christ. By establishing churches for those to whom the name of Christ is foreign, people will consistently be taught about the wisdom and glory of God. To support this mission, Christians must first have a worshipful, humble heart to learn about who God is.

“The Lord wants you to see how good he is,” Bennet said. “For some of us that means we’re going to go to the ends of the earth and have the privilege to suffer for the Lord and see that our suffering pales in comparison to the privilege of pulling off the lid and saying, ‘Look at what the Lord has done.’”

Dr. Stephen Dye, associate vice president of Christian ministries, closed the conference’s chapels on Thursday morning with a message on Revelation 19, looking forward to the future of the church.

“[The church] is going to be an eternal community of the redeemed from every tribe, tongue, people and nation in worship of the triune God,” Dye said.

Like his counterparts, Dye called the students to get plugged into their local churches to come and participate in the church’s eternal destiny of worship. He redirected students’ attention not to the mission but to the Holy Spirit’s ability to guide Christians towards opportunities to worship God through the means of missions.

At the end of the conference, Synergy welcomed students to act upon the messages they heard by attending a prayer event on Thursday evening. Senior History major Will Galkin, a Synergy student leader, left the event encouraged by the number of students who set aside their evening to pray for God to send more workers to unreached people groups.

“God was so gracious to allow 60 people to come,” Galkin said. “He blessed us with a sweet time of prayer and communion both together and with him. His hand was on that evening and his blessing is the only reason we had such an amazing time.”

Though the GO Conference is over, the call continues for students to get plugged into their local churches and learn how they can help spread the Gospel throughout the world. Aubre Weller, a sophomore Worship major, especially found herself impacted by the conference’s focus on individual and church worship in order to fulfill God’s mission.

“Missions is something I’ve been praying about more recently, and after hearing at the GO Conference about the importance of the church, I want to serve more at my church,” Weller said.

The conference brought a refreshed vision of how God designed missions to bring the whole world closer to him in worship.

“GO Conference will always be a point of reorientation in my year,” Galkin said. “Each spring, I feel reinvigorated to go on mission for the Gospel. I think it serves as a heart checkpoint for me, where I get to ask, ‘Am I pursuing what is most valuable? Am I putting my life into something that will last?’”

Bella Agnello is a junior Broadcasting, Digital Media and Journalism major with a concentration in Journalism. She enjoys thrifting, listening to records and reading classic Russian literature in her spare time.

Photos by Preston Cavin