Life: Pinch hit Bible study trainer

A number of years ago, I was very involved in the West Coast Chinese Christian Conference.

It is a conference that gathers various Chinese churches in California between Christmas and New Years with the intent of providing training, broadening of perspectives and challenge for college and early career age Christians.

One special feature of the Conference is that the theme is explored in a variety of ways. There are morning and evening speakers who preach on the theme. There are also small group (8-12) Bible studies as well.

I was a last minute "pinch hit" facilitator for the training session for the Bible study leaders in Southern California.

The Bible study coordinator had a family responsibility and wasn't able to do the training session. He asked someone to fill in. Unfortunately, the designated trainer had a heart attack! I'm happy to report he is doing well but as you might guess he opted to find a replacement. And that would be me, the third option!

Anyway, I was glad to help out. The Bible study coordinator had prepared a lot of good material already and when he email it to me, I knew I had a good basis for pulling together the training session on short notice.

About half the material is straight from the Bible study coordinator's files. I just did some re-arranging and I added some features to make the session interactive over the 4 hour training.

The West Coast Chinese Christian Conference provided me with some wonderful friends and great opportunities to learn about the life of faith and serve the Chinese Christian community here in California. I saw many examples of "good and faithful" servants. I was regularly challenged to examine the Scriptures. Also, probably the biggest lesson was learning about time management and prioritizing what one is doing and calling upon the Lord for help while in the midst of it all.