Pastors' Conference

I attended in full our Pastors' Conference two full days and two nights and I only missed yesterday's afternoon session. I must say I enjoyed it, prepared mentally and spiritually for it. I learned a fair bit from it, especially encouraged to listen to my fellow pastors, most of whom are now my juniors and they did splendidly. This morning's session about how to pastor in the End-Time turned out to be my favourite. It went for one hour and five minutes but the anointing and his gift of telling a story won through.

In fact, he must have taken a few courses when I was a teacher at the Bible College because he called me "guru" (Teacher"). Those I have taught normally will call me "Guru" and there are now at least 50 or 60 pastors currently serving whom I had taught in College. 

One interesting fact not noted by our first speaker (he was good too) was the increase in female pastors. For the first time, one third of the participants were women, mostly single women in their 20s and 30s who pastor churches. When I started 32 years ago, I knew only one female pastor who pastored a church and a few others were Sunday School coordinators of various Districts. Soon, the speakers would have to say the pastors' husbands who are not serving instead of assuming the pastor is a male. The world has changed.

But many of the female students were my former students, but obviously many more I do not know, having left the College more than 7 years ago. The overall participation is better than last year, but still short of 300 out of 440 full time workers (this number was mentioned a couple of years ago and I do not have the current numbers). 

I do not even have a post or appointment, but I attended as a former pastor and one waiting for an appointment and I guess I qualified to attend. I wanted to reconnect with my fellow pastors whom I hardly see throughout the year. So it was a good meeting connecting with one another. I also spoke briefly with my senior leaders (The Executive) and they were friendly towards me.

And I had no choice when a few pastors asked me about my current situation and to a few I had to explain why I left my pastorate after only 15 months. Maybe in the next blogposts, I will post some reflection especially from a female pastor who told me, "Pastor, I know you since you were Treasurer-General and I was only a teenager" and I supposed she is already in her 40s, still serving faithfully as an evangelist in a remote district.