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My review of Army of God Conference 2024 (GMS Jakarta Jawa Barat Banten)
Finally, the long-awaited moment is here, and over. The Army of God Conference is an annual youth conference held by Gereja Mawar Sharon (Rose of Sharon Church), and on this installment, it’s all about dreams and vision.
Well, I didn’t expect it to be so good that defeats the fantasy world of aespa (you know that meme?), rejecting the metaverse for God’s true vision. As what this year’s tagline says, “Divine Blueprints, Guiding Dreams: Your Path Unfolds in God’s Given Visions.”
The conference that’s so important to me... if it were held 3 years ago.
I am grateful that I have passed through my recent years of burnout in continuing my passion and profession. I can finally passed my final assignment to reach a bachelor degree. And I found a lot of the conference’s topics relate to my past self that I just left.
The fact that God will fulfill His promises... on His time (not ours) is something that I have experience last July. The fact that the church opened a wide number of opportunities for the young generation to contribute, is, something that I should be reminded of myself in 2020 and 2021.
And the most surprising part: A lot of my recent sermons are being covered in the conference, including:
- God wants to put you as a light on the world, on a high place so everyone could see God’s glory on you (Matthew 5:14-16)
- God uses the weak to defeat the strong (1 Corinthians 1:27-31)
- The whole Army of God is a community full of excellent people, the Josephs, Daniels, and Esthers, and so...
The last one, wait, did I learnt about that as far as last December?
So, I found my calling.
The entire conference can be simply summarized in these seven points:
- God created you uniquely. No one looks, behaves, and excels exactly like you. And He has a plan.
- God seriously wants to use young generation as they have the hearts of a child (that God explicitly favors according to the Gospel). Even influential Bible people Moses, David, Daniel, Esther, and so are being chosen since their youth.
- If you have previously received a calling from God, always examine the calling and see whether God actually realigns you and your life to achieve it. God may only give you partial details of your calling, as He has big plans you don’t even understand today.
- But if you don’t, you will receive your own calling on your secret place with God, not the Army of God Conference. God’s calling is explicitly personal to you, and as what Joseph experienced before with his early dreams—don’t overshare God’s secret things to the public!
- Always look for what God wants you to be, not the world or even Satan. Because otherwise, there would not be a single compelling reason for God to create and place you on earth.
- Always believe in God’s (often long-and-lengthy) process. God still works for you even though you don’t see Him, and once you’ve passed the process, God guarantees you to become strong and resilient once you have achieved your dreams, while others who cheat will also be quick to fall down.
- Consider contribute yourself to build churches (in our youth—that’s the actual motto of Army of God since 2021!) as God truly creates you to fulfil His mission, not yours. So is His Great Commission (go and make disciples, baptize them, and teach them what I teached to you), and how the church are working to help achieve His main mission.
I have learnt seven out of seven lessons here through my early growth in Army of God and their Connect Groups. And I feel that the entire conference is worth the price for people who are seeking help about their future—they are in the right place.
And as a young person who have received (point 4) in 2016, examined (point 3) for years in my spiritual and professional experience, and acknowledge the rest of the points over the past five years, I can at least confirm that I’m here as a forerunner of events. Not that I receive some prophecy from God, but I help execute it first before God is doing with others. It has been multiple times that I voluntarily lay down to God in the beginning before the pastor asks everyone to bow down in the end. And as said earlier, I’ve discovered specific rhemas of God before they are discussed in this AOG Conference.
So, is it the prime time for me to bear my title as The Shift of Worlds and Nations? I have some doubts around the name since I’ve made that up while God explicitly requested my parents to name me Reinhart, but from the recent spiritual discussion brought to the affirmation that I might use that title for good. So see you, shifters!