Thursday, September 18, 2008
This leadership conference attracts participants from the states and worldwide.
YOUNGSTOWN — Shirleena Blackwood of Nottingham, England, traveled nearly 15 hours by multiple means of transportation to get to the Pentecost in Perspective International Leadership Conference.
“It’s worth it,” she said of the event being hosted by Bishop Norman L. Wagner of Calvary Ministries International, 1812 Oak Hill Ave.
The conference began Wednesday and continues through Friday at the DeYor Performing Arts Center downtown.
“Between 500 and 600 people from in and out of the country are attending," said Greg Andrews, media manager for Pentecost in Perspective. He said attendees hail from Africa, Jamaica and England, to name a few places.
Andrews added some 1,300 people attended a preconference program Tuesday night at Calvary Ministries International with featured speaker Pastor Kimberly Ray of Angie Ray Ministries in Matteson, Ill.
Blackwood is a staff member at Mount Zion Millennium City Church in England, which is part of the Pentecost Assemblies of the World. Dr. Terrence Thompson, originally from Calvary Ministries, is the pastor there. Blackwood works with his wife, Deborah Thompson, in the youth department and in church administration.
This is the second time Blackwood has traveled to the conference.
“It helps you to understand how a church should operate and how to accomplish that,” she said of the seminars and workshops. “But knowing that the creator of the world will help you face any challenges is key. The creator has the solutions.”
Blackwood said she also gleans support and information from interaction and hearing testimonies of others at the conference and in fellowship with them. In a world rocked by difficult economies and violence, Blackwood said, fear “is not an option. We have the blessed assumption that God will provide the answers.”
Bishop Wagner opened the conference Tuesday morning in Ford Recital Hall and focused on the theme, “Capture the Holy Time.”
“Try to live without God and you will come to naught,” he said. “You can’t go forth until you know who God is.”
Bishop Wagner told his audience of some 250 people not to worry about “where the devil is” because evil is always present. He said it is vital for people and churches to “think about where they’re going.”
“There are sacred calls to secular places,” Bishop Wagner said, emphasizing that education and a perspective of faith were the means to meet challenges in the workplace.
In a leadership workshop, Bishop C. Wayne Brantley of Zion Pentecostal Church of Christ in Cleveland discussed how the church is a “microcosm of what is best about the baptized believers” and the church is more than stained-glass windows and pews.
Bishop Brantley spent 30 years with Calvary Ministries in many roles, including executive officer and director of TV ministry. He graduated from Youngstown State University.
He discussed how the church must consider aspects of culture including language, arts and sciences, thought, spirituality, social activity and interaction. The speaker went on to say that a “ministry of order” including procedures, protocol and sequence lead to an orderly church and the same ideas could be applied to business and other fields.
Bishop Brantley quoted 1 Corinthians 14:40: “Let all things be done decently and in order.” The request from God applies to sacred and secular ventures.
The bishop also said, we have been “saved to serve and the children of God must exit to enter into the promises of God.”
He said it is often difficult to leave a situation or place where you are comfortable, but you won’t advance in faith or the secular situation if you remain stagnant. The sacred and secular move forward when there is “harmony in diversity.”
He likened individuals to musicians in a symphony, all playing different instruments to blend harmoniously into one piece.
The bishop emphasized it is “character that allows you to work with others, not your talent.” Working in accord gives power to actions, he concluded.