As a Power to Change intern based in Perth, Ashley Muehlbauer knew she would be pouring herself out while serving in different roles during the winter conference from July 1-5.
“But what I didn’t expect was how much I would be poured into from God through our main speaker for the winter conference, through connection times with students, and through workshops that I helped lead,” she reveals.
“It was very encouraging, and God really blessed me with how much I was serving, but I was still poured into over the five days.”
Ashley, who hails from Minnesota in the US, believes going away on a conference allowed her to connect with students on a deeper level than during campus outreach events. “The messages in the seminars and workshops were all God and Bible-centred and it was a great time connecting with students who you already knew before, but so many other new people as well. Having that time and space to rest, reflect and connect with other people makes it really special.”
A sign of how precious the time was for students was that they already organised a reunion a few weeks after the conference, she says. “It was really cool after our main speaker gave a talk on identity in Christ. I looked around the room, saw students, and was able to chat with a student after the talk about our identity in Christ and how that’s such good news that we have this firm foundation and security that we don’t have to try to people-please or try to get our identity from other people, relationships, our jobs, our futures, our dreams, our hopes,” she says.
“In Christ, we have this firm security that surpasses everything. Because of our identity in Christ, we are able to live from love and not for it. So everything that we do is not trying to earn God’s love. It’s not trying to earn other love. It’s coming from a place of love. And the security that love will never leave us as children of God. That was a great thing to be reminded of.”
After the talk, Ashley was alarmed to see that a student sitting next to her had tears in her eyes. “I was like, ‘Oh no, is she okay?’ Then I realised she was overwhelmed with peace from a deeper understanding of God’s love for her, that she didn’t have to try to get that from anywhere else, but she already really has it in Christ.”
As she heard students’ stories, Ashley realised what a privilege and honour it was to have God move through her to encourage or serve another student.“ Freedom is the main word that I took out of the conference. There’s freedom in surrendering to God. The world might say the opposite, but we live in an upside-down kingdom.”
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