Wonderful report by Dave Rasmussen (emphasis Dave.)
2009 Exodus North Central Regional Conference
The North Central Region has had a Regional Conference every year since I have been involved with Exodus since 1998. This has been our largest attended Conference since then. We had 102 registered guests this year. Last year we had 80.
All 8 Directors of active Exodus Ministries in the Region attended the Conference.
The Conference was held at the Green Lake Conference Center in Green Lake Wisconsin the weekend of October 30- November 1. Joe Dallas, our guest speaker, said this is one of the best Conference Centers he has been to. On the morning of the 30th, prior to the Conference, Karen Booth who resides in Wisconsin and is Director of Transforming Congregations and is now also on staff with Exodus, gave a presentation to the Directors about equipping the church to minister to the homosexual.
The theme of the Conference was “Called out of Darkness”. After sharing his testimony on the first night, Joe Dallas spoke on Saturday on what “Called out of Darkness” means and what it costs. After each general session the attendees broke into Breakout Groups. Each group discussed questions Joe had written based on his talk for that session.
On the Conference evaluations everyone said they loved Joe Dallas. This was not a surprise. What was a surprise is that almost everyone enjoyed the Breakout Groups.
We had a Breakout Group for wives of strugglers.(There were 10 wives in the group the largest we have ever had. My wife Diane led this)
We had a Breakout Group for the husbands who are strugglers (Eric Lundstrom from Nehemiah’s Walk and Mike Levenhagen from Reclamation Ministries led this group.
We had a Breakout Group for Families and Friends. (There were 30 in this group. Last year we had only 8! We were not prepared for such a large group. Bob Van Domelen from Broken Yoke Ministries led this group and did a great job with such a large group.
We had 3 Breakout Groups for men who are or were strugglers. (Dan Puumala from Outpost, Dennis Murphy from Upstream Ministries, and Jeffrey Humpleby from Whitestone Ministries led these groups.)
We had 2 Breakout Groups for women who are or were strugglers. (Michele DePauw from Transformed By Grace, and Jill Rennick, Women’s Director from Broken Yoke, led these groups.)
At past Conferences married couples impacted by homosexuality and family/friends of a gay loved one comprised roughly 20% of those attending. This year they comprised 50%. Why the sudden increase? Something to think about.
We closed with communion and sharing time on Sunday morning.
It was a powerful moving time. Here are just a few of what was shared:
From a woman who has a lesbian sister, “I’ve learned God loves me as much as my sister.”
From a woman who has a gay brother, “As long as there is love, and there is much love here, there is hope.”
From a woman who has a gay brother, “The reason He meets with us is because we are broken. Thank you for your honesty and being so humble.”
From a man whose wife is divorcing him, “Listening to other’s stories helped me not focus on just me. We are all family here.”
From the worship leader who is not a struggler,” This Conference was more impactful than any Conference I have led worship at. And I have led hundreds.
From a man who has been a struggler, “I am grateful for Exodus. God loves me so much just as I am, but loves me not to leave me there.”
Some others, “God has a new name for us.”
“When I first got here all I saw was the pain, now that I am ready to leave I finally see the hope.”
“I’m a mess. I feel at home with everybody here.”
Dave Rasmussen
Exodus North Central Regional Coordinator ((IL, IA, MN, Eastern MT, ND, SD, WI))
MORE:
About Randy Thomas
Wow, what a blessing. It is my hope to have this same kind of Christ like impact here in little ole Montana. Home of Big Sky Country, and other things.
Cool. You should call Dave Rasmussen about that (if you haven’t already) and talk about doing something like this there.
Dave covers eastern MT, I am located in western MT. Not sure why MT is divided up the in that fashion. I think we should be under one or the other. Billings is one of the biggest cities and would probably be the best place to hold something like that. Billings would fall in Dave’s region.
I think at this point God is laying lots of ground work and in time it will manifest in a conference. Perhaps soon would be premature but definitely in the next 5 to 10 years.
Let’s just watch and see how God continues to move here.