Revival Conference 2014 Paris
We thank God for His protection and our co-workers for giving their best in making this year Revival Conference in Paris a success.
This is our ninth Revival Conference since we launched the yearly event in 2005. This year we burst out of Asia to hold it in France, an event participated by 100-plus overseas believers from Mainland China, Hong Kong and a dozen European countries. The local participants, some 800 of them, made up of Chinese from Paris. The conference comprised 12 sessions spread over mornings, afternoons and evenings. Limited by space, the Paris conference was much smaller compared to revival meetings in Hong Kong, Britain and the United States with participation ranging from several thousand to close to 10 thousand people. However, the Paris conference was blessed with an atmosphere of brotherly love and concern. According to several second-generation Christians who are brought up in Paris, the Revival Conference 2014 was fairly sizeable as Europe is still dominated by the Catholic and Evangelical churches. For the last 20 years, they have never attended any charismatic conference which, to them, was something new and extraordinary. For this, we thank the local Parisian church for allowing us to use its building which holds one of the larger congregations in Paris.
At each session of the conference, representatives from European countries shared about their countries in general and religion in particular. Although their countries are geographically close by to each other, national conditions and needs could be quite different, so are the challenges facing the Chinese churches there. In recent years, Christianity is dying in some European countries. Conversely the number of Muslim converts is on the rise and Christian churches are being sold and turned into mosque. In some countries, there is also a significant rise of suicidal tendency among their nationals. In some cities, the Chinese churches are mainly in the ministries of caring for overseas students. These Chinese students, who enjoy the freedom of worship, have to return to their countries of origin upon graduation. Because of the problem of membership mobility, these Chinese churches have difficulties in planning for long-term development. As for birth rates among the Chinese, they differ among the European countries. On the whole, Europe is dominated by evangelical denominations and charismatic churches are a lonely minority.
At the Paris Conference, well-known Asian speakers Pastor Lawrence Khong, Brother Yun the Heavenly Man and Pastor Stephen Hah from Korea shared their personal experience in ministries to encourage faith among the participants. Pastor Dennis Balcombe and Pastor Peter Chu blessed the conference with their anointed teaching on various charismatic subjects.
We are very grateful to the Chinese churches in Paris and other European cities for joining hands with us to organize the conference; their devotion and humble spirit are praiseworthy. We are also grateful to CKFC and its crew for videotaping the conference and live-streaming it on their website.
