Corners Await!!!

Hello, friends!

I have done a lot of crazy things in the name of the Gospel and InterVarsity, but this weekend may take the cake. Our staff team is about to put on FOUR SIMULTANEOUS CONFERENCES AT THE SAME LOCATION.

That's right, this weekend, the Doubletree Hotel in Overland Park is going to overrun with InterVarsity students from Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas, as part of our Corners Conferences. The 4 conferences will include: Imani (a Black student conference), Ohana (an Asian American student conference), Mi Gente (a LatinX student conference), and Being White (a White student conference).

A question that I'm sure will come up is, "Adam, why have so many different conferences? Why not just have one big conference? Isn't that being divisive?"

First of all, that's 3 questions, not 1, but I still get your point. It goes like this. One of the things that I've learned in my time with InterVarsity is that culture and ethnicity are things to be honored, celebrated, and taken into account. Black, LatinX, Asian American, and White students experience the Gospel differently. We do musical worship differently. Our speakers are different. We have different life experiences. The point of the Corners Conference is that we want to celebrate this diversity, knowing that God is the author of each of our cultures. There will be some things that we do together as a whole group but we're having 4 conferences because we want to speak the heart language of students, and sometimes, that means being apart for a while.

Y'all, it's about to get crazy. At our Regional Spring Conference, Catalyst, last year, we had 139 students from our 4 states participate. Right now, we have over 400 coming to Kansas City this weekend. Our staff and students have been killing it on the recruitment side. Everyone has been working hard on the planning and logistics. It's been a fun thing to see.

We really need y'all to be partnering with us this weekend in prayer. There are a lot of moving pieces and if we are going to need as much prayer as we can get. Here are a few specific ways to be praying for us:
- Journey's Mercies: Praise Jesus, we have something like 20 students from Mid-MO attending the various conferences, including 6 from Lincoln! Getting all of them safely to KC and back is a huge priority for us.
- Our Speakers and Seminar Leaders: We are going to have some great speakers and our seminars are going to cover everything from Ethnic Identity Development all the way to being a minority in today's America. Please pray that our speakers and seminar leaders will be led by Jesus to speak words of truth.
- Our students: This is easily the biggest conference our Region has ever done in terms of student involvement. Please pray that the students will be receptive to hearing what God might have for them.

One last thing. If you're interested in giving scholarships to help our students attend, there's still time to give! Thanks to various scholarships and discounts, it costs about $40 for a student to attend. If you'd like to sponsor one of our Mid-MO students, you can do so by clicking this link here.

Have an excellent day!

~Adam