Deeper Life Conference challenges students to ‘kingdom laborship’

Bethel College held its annual Deeper Life Conference during the week of March 17-19, 2014. The conference featured a series of five messages by Dwight Robertson from Kingdom Building Ministries. Robertson has frequently been a guest speaker at Bethel College in past years, and returned once again to share on the topic of kingdom laborship. The theme of the conference centered around Matthew 9:35-38, focusing in on verses 37-38: “Then He [Jesus] said to His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.’” Robertson shared three simple steps through which a person can serve Christ as a kingdom laborer in the sphere of influence God has placed him or her into, encouraging students to “see, stop, and spend time with” the people around them, especially those they encounter daily. “I thought it was good,” said freshman Samantha Conley. “I liked the ‘stop’ approach, not to just pass everyone by, but to actually stop and take time out of your day.” Robertson challenged the student body to demonstrate the love of Christ daily in a very real, hands-on approach. “I loved it,” said freshman Chelsea Thomas. “I liked the fact that he was out in the audience, and that was kind of related to what he was talking about, about being with people. And I thought that was really neat, because I’ve never seen a teacher do that before. It was great.” Robertson addressed students in a variety of fields and encouraged them to reach people in their personal spheres of influence. “I think the speaker had a lot of good things to say,” said sophomore Jessica Schrock. “Since I’m an education major, and we talked about this in class, too, I really liked it when he talked about reaching out to the invisible child. That really stood out to me.” Robertson also charged students not to wait, but to ask God to use them now in the lives of others. “It was really good,” said freshman Megan Spencer. “You don’t have to have your degree in order to help other people. God can use you to reach people right where you are.” The conference left students with many profound statements to ponder and a call to action. “I haven’t been able to sit down and really process it through yet,” said Thomas. “But I was thinking, ‘Who else can I be up-close and personal with now?’”