5 branches of Korea Campus Crusade for Christ (KCCC), one of the largest Korean-American Christian ministries for college students gathered at Moore Hall in UCLA for a collaborative night of worship on the 30th. A total of 5 campuses with KCCC ministries were present; UCLA, USC, Cal State Northridge (CSUN), Santa Monica College (SMC), and Glendale Community College (GCC). The students and staff were there to challenge members to participate in one of the campus ministry's largest annual events - Higher Calling Conference.
Higher Calling Conference, formerly known as Vision Conference, is KCCC's largest annual event alongside its summer mission project. It is a gathering of not only all the leaders and members of KCCC to worship God, but many Korean-American EM church ministries also join to challenge the next generation of Christian leaders to find their vision or higher calling for their lives that God has planned for them. The first Vision Conference was held in the 1990s at Big Bear with only 80 students, where Dr. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ was invited to speak. Now, Higher Calling Conference happens in 7 different regions; Los Angeles, Northern California, New York, Boston, Canada, Atlanta, and Chicago.
The Open Chapel, or KCCC's weekly campus worship, on the 30th was the first time ever since the inception of KCCC, 5 different schools had gathered for a joint worship, outside the weekly regional prayer meetings that happen on Friday nights. Interestingly, these students and staff were also worshipping at the university where the global ministry (currently called Cru) was first established by Dr. Bill Bright in the 1950s.
It was a good chance for students from different college campuses to mingle with each other before the actual worship began, reminding everyone that they were part of a much larger movement that not only worked to spread to Gospel to all the regions of the U.S. but Korea and nations all over the world.
After a testimony from a senior student from USC, message was delivered by Ji-Hyang Lee, a full time KCCC staff who had just finished her Ph.D. for Christian education at Talbot Theological Seminary at Biola University. Before diving into the "business" of challenging the students to participate in Higher Calling Conference, she started to share about her own personal life, growing up in a very typical Korean-American family and how she came to know Christ through her experiences in KCCC ever since its very get-go.
Pastor Lee shared how she first learned to be thankful to God for her circumstances regarding her unloving family and her life before she became a Christian. Through her time in KCCC and participation in the conference and short term missions, she was convicted to be thankful to God for her hardships, and eventually led her father, who was a non-believer at the time, to Christ.
After message was over, the students were challenged to pray for 2 topics; that God would remove any obstacles that may hinder them from participating in the conference, and to pray for other people that God has placed in their heart to bring to Higher Calling with them. In the end, the students who felt convicted filled out commitment cards to show their faith and obedience.
On November 15th, all the KCCC campuses of the Los Angeles region will be travelling down to Town and Country Resort in San Diego, where the conference will be held, for a "Joshua Prayer" to pray for the facilities and the programs. Student leaders will be receiving training to lead Bible study and small groups at the event.
