Anaheim 07

We are told in the Bible that we reap what we sow and in my estimation Anaheim ’07 was harvest time. Since 1975, U.S. Mennonite Brethren have invested human and financial resources in quadrennial national youth conventions. More Mennonite Brethren come together for these conventions than for any other denominational event. Given that high school students have only one chance to attend a national MB youth convention, the event generates considerable excitement, not to mention fundraisers.

For more than three decades Mennonite Brethren youth have been challenged at these conventions to put feet to their faith. Countless have stood to indicate their willingness to serve God anytime, anywhere and in anyway. But have they followed through? That would make for an interesting research project. In the absence of hard data, I think anecdotal evidence suggests that the answer is yes.

I quit counting the number of national MB youth convention alumni walking the halls of the Anaheim Hilton. Youth pastors like Kelly Thomas, who was serving at least his second stint on the convention planning team. College students like Joanna Chapa, who attended Estes ’03 as a high school junior. Four years later she was part of the Anaheim ’07 planning team and helped lead worship during two general sessions as a member of the Tabor College worship team i268. Volunteer youth workers like BJ and Denise Heizelman who have invested themselves in young people for more than 20 years.

Sometimes we think saying yes to God means saying yes to the “uttermost parts of the earth.” We forget that God calls some of us to Jerusalem. Our local churches, district conferences and national agencies are blessed with men and women who have answered God’s call to go anywhere, including home. Some of us are serving the Mennonite Brethren church today because we said yes to God at a national MB youth convention.

For some national MB youth convention “graduates” like Tim Peters, the Monday evening speaker at Anaheim ’07, saying yes to God has led them to ministry opportunities outside the denomination. Earlier in the day, Tim had hosted some 300 conferees who visited Los Angeles’ Skid Row. That evening Tim shared his story. When Tim attended the national MB youth convention, Ridge Burns was the speaker. Ridge challenged the 807 high school youth at Glorieta ’87 to commitment themselves to being used by God “anyplace, anytime.” Ridge cautioned the students, “This commitment is for Christians who are willing to be sold out to Christ.” Tim told the audience, “I was willing to make that commitment.”

Tim returned to Kansas firm in his intention but uncertain what that commitment would mean. He stayed in touch with Ridge, who in 1988 established the Center for Student Ministries, a short-term mission agency that brings young people to urban centers. While Tim was a student at Tabor College, Ridge invited him to come to Los Angeles as a CSM intern.

Tim told Anaheim ’07 students about his first night on the third floor of a hotel on LA’s Skid Row. He described gang members hanging around outside and prostitutes waiting inside. He told of rats and roaches and sleeping with his mouth shut. He described visiting different ministry sites the next day and roaming Skid Row with Ridge that next night on a prayer walk. What he saw touched his heart.

Tim signed on as a summer intern and “by the end of the summer I didn’t want to leave,” he said. After graduating from Tabor, Tim returned to Skid Row and has spent the last 15 years living in inner city LA, ministering for 11 of those years to people who live in the very same hotel he slept in that first night. Tim currently manages a transitional home for homeless families and continues to host high school and college student urban immersion experiences.

“If God can use me, he can use you,” Tim told the Anaheim ’07 conferees. Referring back to his commitment at Glorieta ’87 Tim said, “I didn’t know where I was going…I just knew I was willing. How many of you are willing to make the commitment I made 20 years ago?” I wasn’t surprised when hundreds of young people stood.

When I got back to the Leader office, I read the magazine’s article about Glorieta ’87. Two comments caught my eye. The first is a statement by Steve Schroeder, the first “graduate” of a national MB youth convention to serve as chair. “Someday, maybe eight or 12 years from now, one of you will be standing in my place,” he told the crowd. That crowd included Tim Peters. The second is the closing paragraph in which editor Don Ratzlaff writes that for many conferees the difference that Glorieta ’87 made in their lives would “show itself in a myriad ways for a lifetime to come.”

Most of the time farmers don’t sow and reap at the same time. But that’s what we did at Anaheim ’07. Seeds were planted in the lives of hundreds of youth and we saw the fruit of earlier conventions. We need to commit ourselves as a denomination to supporting the 2011 convention so that the cycle will continue.

—CF