It started off with thousands of voices chanting “There is more! There is more! There is more…” The fact that I was completely unaware that this was the theme of the conference led to me thinking that this was an incomplete chant, hence my use of an ellipsis. But as the night went on, I soon realised that this phrase was left incomplete because there are an infinite number of possible endings.
There is more… to discover
Walking into the O2 Arena, surrounded by tens of thousands of people, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. Forget the fact that we are now experiencing record-breaking temperatures in the UK, this is the first time that I have seen so many people come out in one place to worship. People had travelled from many European countries and even as far as China and Nigeria to be there. This wasn’t a concert or a comedy show, this was a conference, a Christian conference at that. It was amazing to see and be a part of.
Hillsong Church is probably one of the most famous megachurches of our generation. If your worship team wasn’t singing ‘Oceans’ last year and ‘What a Beautiful Name’ this year and they would have missed some fantastic worship songs. It’s a church greatly known for their pastors and songs, yet somehow, they still managed to capture the audience and point them to God. Whether or not people went to the conference to see Brian and Bobbie Houston, Chris Hodges, Carl Lentz, John Gray or the Hillsong Worship team, there is no way that they could have left not encountering God through this experience.
With each pastor speaking about a different topic, from soul winning, to showing love to others, to understanding God’s love, I soon came to the realisation that there is so much more of God for me to discover.
There is more… of His love
One message that was really built upon by each speaker as the conference continued was that as Christians, we have a branding problem. More often than not, people identify Christians by what they are opposed to rather than who it is that they represent. We are known for what we stand against, rather than the love that we were commanded to show.
On the second night, Carl Lentz challenged us to think about whether or not we are actually fulfilling the new commandment.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34 (NIV)
At times it is so easy to get caught up in who God is and what you want Him to do for you, that you can forget who it is that He has called you to be. It is easy to forget the grace and love that He has shown you and because of that, we do not pay it forward. There is more of His love, but this love is not just for us, it is for us to share with others.
There is more… of His salvation
At the end of each night there was an opportunity for people to give or rededicate their lives to Christ and each night, hundreds of hands went up. I always assumed that only Christians would bother going to a conference like this, but the fact that each night, so many souls were saved, it just reminded me that there is more of His salvation.
