Bethel Col­lege Holds GO con­fer­ence

Mishawaka – The Bethel Col­lege GO Con­fer­ence oc­curred this week.  Sopho­mores, Ju­niors and Se­niors will re­mem­ber that the con­fer­ence used to be called WCAC – World Chris­t­ian Ac­tion Con­fer­ence. Right be­fore the con­fer­ence be­gan, the Bea­con was able to sit down with John Kaehr, head of Spir­i­tual De­vel­op­ment.   

“The spirit of WCAC lives on in the GO Con­fer­ence. WCAC had al­ways been about how Bethel Stu­dents could min­is­ter and share the love of Christ around the world and in their home­town. Shawn and I got to think­ing, you know, what’s a good ac­tion verb that goes with that? So, we re­named the con­fer­ence GO and re­fo­cused it more on how to ful­fill the great com­mis­sion.” 

This year, Bethel brings back pas­tor Jonathan Brooks from Spir­i­tual Em­pha­sis Week and skyped in two Bethel Alumni mis­sion­ary cou­ples to dis­cuss how to min­is­ter in our lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties and around the world.  This week stu­dents were en­cour­aged to take part in meals with in­ter­na­tional alumni and staff. Bethel will also be host­ing an op­tional ser­vice pro­ject at St. Paul’s on Sat­ur­day, Feb. 2.  

Go­ing for­wards, John Kaehr hopes that the GO Con­fer­ence will en­cour­age “...stu­dent en­gage­ment. We want stu­dents to en­gage their Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the ends of the world. Two, I want stu­dents to en­counter Je­sus. We want them to fol­low the mis­sion that the Holy Spirit calls you to, weather that’s right here in Mishawaka or across the world. If you look at Matthew 28, the Great Com­mis­sion starts with go and does­n’t stop.”