Just like that, AnCon has come and gone, and the semester has started back up again. 

Annual Conference (AnCon) is one of the EU’s big 3 events. As the name aptly suggests, AnCon takes place annually and is the EU’s mid-year residential conference. This year’s theme was “The One True Living God”, covering the Doctrine of God. The summary of all the main talks (skip if you don’t like spoilers and plan on listening to the talks still): 

• Knowing who God is as the One True Living God, how should we respond to Him? 
• Answer: in fear, worship, faith, awe and thanks, hope, love and joy.

This year, I have had the privilege of serving as the Howie helping to oversee the planning of AnCon, alongside another senior staffworker Matthew. For many students, they only see the tip of the iceberg that is AnCon – the one week we have together in the Blue Mountains. 

But being on the AnCon team, you see all of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into planning a conference of this size and the sheer scale of coordination and effort required to ensure things run smoothly (hint: things never go to plan and yes, God is still sovereign). We started meeting as a leadership team about October last year, when the last thing on students’ minds was AnCon, and all up, we had 18 students across 4 sub-teams to help plan AnCon. I think what struck me most from the meetings that carried across into AnCon was the importance of prayer.

The verses from 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 summarise this nicely: 

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 

Notice here Paul’s commands of when we should rejoice, pray and give thanks: it’s always, continually, all circumstances! Not just sometimes we should rejoice, or sometimes we should pray, or sometimes we should give thanks. No – all the time! Prayer helps us to focus on who God is and seek to glorify Him, when the temptation can be to glorify ourselves and look inwards from all our efforts of planning AnCon. 

In our team meetings, even from the get-go, we were praying for AnCon, rejoicing and giving thanks for God’s hand over AnCon (for His kindness to the EU over many years, for the privilege of gathering together as God’s people for a week, etc). Our meetings in sub-teams were sandwiched by prayer, with many things to thank God for and rejoice in and pray for each week we met. 

And certainly, God answered prayers, and He was kind in the lead-up to and over the week of AnCon. If I had to list all the ways, this article would never end! But here are some examples of answered prayer that I noticed: 

• Many students who came to AnCon for the first time! (including 190 first years!)
• 14 students came along to investigate Jesus – including 3 new brothers and sisters in Christ by the end of the week! Praise God! 
• Energy for the staff team over the week of AnCon
• No rain! And plenty of sunshine!!! (in all my years of being at AnCon, it’s always rained during the week of AnCon, and for the first time, we were able to run all the sports, including the new sports of netball and ultimate frisbee during free time)
• The unity amongst the AnCon team in serving together with all our different gifts (praise God for those who can navigate spreadsheets!), even in our tiredness as the week progressed and with each new challenge that came along 

In my faculty teaching time on Wednesday, we looked at Matthew 6 and the command not to worry. With AnCon, there are so many things we could be worried about: the weather, energy levels, sickness, tech not working, students not turning up, and more!

But the reminder here is that we do not need to worry, because our Heavenly Father already knows what we need. Instead of worry, we should seek first His kingdom and righteousness. As Wednesday night’s main talk then reminded us again, the God we trust in is the only one who can help us navigate the uncertainty of the future, with such hope found in Christ. What a great reminder and relief that is, and certainly a reminder for me to bring all things to God in prayer, with thanks and rejoicing! 

Indeed, there is much rejoicing and giving thanks and praying for us to do post-AnCon! Will you join me in doing so in prayer?