The 14th Campus Harvest Conference, which begins Friday at King's Park International Church (KPIC), N.C., is expected to gather more than 2,100 students and staff from Morning Star International Church and also its campus arm Victory Campus Ministries. The number of conference attendants this year has continued the upward trend of 200-300 new conference attendants being added each year.
The growing phenomenon the event has experienced recurs annually for good reasons.
“Simply because the conference is so dynamic and so life-changing,” said Christina Hall, administrator for the Campus Harvest Conference.
The purpose of the conference is to encourage and equip college students around the nation to evangelize, share the gospel and also light the fire under them said Hall.
Also, the fruit of the conference is students evangelizing more students who will then attend the conference and bring more.
Pastor Ron Lewis of KPIC a member of MSI, initially started the idea of the conference for students at the MSI Church in North Carolina. Although the conference may have started with only 200 attendants, Lewis had a greater hope in mind.
“It was his dream to make it an international event,” said Hall
Over time, Campus Harvest has become also the official conference for Victory Campus Ministries. The first international conference took place last year as 200 of the 1,800 participants were international students from the VCM chapter of the Philippines and Cape Town, Africa.
Main speakers of the event will include Ron Lewis, pastor of KPIC; Jim Laffoon, member on the apostolic board of MSI; and Phil Bonasso, the Executive Vice President and co-founder of MSI.
There will be 14 seminars available at the conference on topics such as Effective Campus Evangelism, International Ministries and Arts, Culture and Entertainment.
Lynette Troyer, an inspirational speaker on workshops pertaining to faith, vision and purpose will teach participants how to network during her seminar on “Relationships on Purpose: How to find the people you need for work, school and life.”
The impact the conference has on the students is they leave the conference realizing how international the church is and how amazing God is, said Hall. Some “walk away with a vision of a calling”. Last year, 200 people responded to a full-time ministry call at the conference.
VCM started in 1990. The motto of the ministry has always been: Change the campus, change the world.
“Campus Ministries is extremely important because [for] those four years the college students are away from the their parents for the first time,” explains Hall. She said the time opens up to new circumstances and a new definitive time in their life.
“You go to college you decide what you want to do for you’re the rest of your life.”
Hall noted if a person were to walk away from their faith in college there is a chance they won’t take it up again. However, reaching out to students early will make a difference in the direction of the future.
VCM wants to “be a light on college campuses and affect world leaders,” said Hall
The Campus Harvest Conference goes from March 26-28, followed by a Staff Summit that ends on March 30.
For more information on Campus Harvest, visit www.campusharvest.org..
