Over 800 Chinese Christians from all around the world will convene for the Stream of Praise international leadership conference to equip themselves to become competent worship leaders.
Following the success of the last two years, the Stream of Praise’s international headquarters is hosting the International Leadership & Worship Conference at Los Angeles this year again. The theme "GLOW" does not only mean "bright and shining" in English, but also can it be interpreted as "God Leads Our Way."
The "GLOW" conference aims to send revival among the Chinese Christians from all around the world through the abundant word of God as well as praise and worship. In addition, the training offered at the "GLOW" conference is to encourage a new generation of leaders to develop the characteristics of a spiritual leader, worshipping in spirit and truth, and raising up more worship leaders and teams.
The location of the international conference is chosen to be Los Angeles because there is a strong team of staff at the Stream of Praise headquarters to offer support. The huge number of local Chinese churches in the Los Angeles area has also raised the urgent need in nurturing worship leaders to serve in different ministries.
According to official statistics from the Stream of Praise, most of the participants are coming from Los Angeles, but there are also many coming from Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada and others. The age of participants ranges between 20 and 40.
The GLOW conference has proven to be very fruitful. The number of attendants have grown from 200 two years ago to 500 last year. While the application has not yet closed for this year, 800 people have already registered for the conference and the total number is expected to reach 1000.
"When we were praying for the goal of 500 participants this year, one minister saw a vision, which God told us there would be as many as 800 participants. However, now we have already exceeded 800, and we are even heading to 1000. So God is always giving us extra grace," shared Tiffany, spokesman of the Stream of Praise.
Tiffany explained how effective was the GLOW international conference in the past two years in raising worship leaders among the Chinese Christians around the world, as speaking to the Gospel Post.
"Many of them don’t know their roles in the worship team, but through the conference, they are able to straight up their knowledge in worship. They can come to have a clear mindset of what means by worshipping and also be equipped with the necessary techniques. Especially, a worship leader needs to understand the spiritual battle and prayer," said Tiffany, referring to many participants who have already been involving in the worship team of their churches.
When asked about the work the Stream of Praise has done to strengthen the knowledge of the word of God of the worship leaders apart from music training, Tiffany told the Gospel Post that the ministry has been emphasizing on the word of God very much. The Stream of Praise schedules worship and praise as an expression of grace after receiving the word of God.
Tiffany shared with the Gospel Post the grace she has received during the preparation of the conference, "We have to set up great faith in the preparation, as we have just moved into the new office in November. While we were still trying to settle down, many people apply to join the conference."
"Before we have staff prayer meeting regularly, but now we have strengthened our prayers. We are holding prayer meeting in the morning everyday for one to one and a half hour. Many of us have received spiritual gifts," she continued. "When we are not praying for ourseleves, but praying for others, God even fulfills his promise for us."
In 2006, the Stream of Praise will go on international tour to Australia and New Zealand in March. Many new territories that the team has never been to before will be opened up as well, such as Indonesia, Macau and France.
