This was the best conference (imho) in the last decade. It was encouraging, powerful, and life changing.

I know that leading up to it there were concerns about how many would come to Kiev. Would people sign up? Would the conference lose money for the Kiev church? It turned out to be our largest ILC this decade, with next year in Denver now poised to be even bigger.

Sure, I wish more Americans had come. Those who stayed away missed out on some incredible fellowship with brothers and sisters from around the world. Still, we had over 1500 attendees, and the Sunday service had over 5000. (We had 1300 attendees in Anaheim last year). Everyone left inspired. I confess I grumped a bit about the 24 hour travel time to Kiev, but now that I am home I know that it was an experience that I will never forget. We made the long flights for 16 years when we lived in Brazil and Africa. I think they go by a littlemore quickly as I get older.

Shawn and Lena did a great job, and deserve our thanks. So does the staff and all the volunteers who helped make it so awesome. The disciples in the white hats were everywhere and very helpful.

Kiev is a beautiful city. The messages were very powerful. All the messages will be available soon I am sure.

Steve and Lisa Johnson came from Portland. They asked for the chance to explain their situation to those interested. About 150 came to the meeting. They apologized to the group and were well received. Steve and Lisa are my old friends and it meant a lot to me and many others to see them there, eager to connect with folks.

The delegates meeting was a huge success. As you probably know, the Cooperation Plan (aka the Unity Proposal) calls for delegates to come from the various geographical families of churches and meet before the conference. About 75 were in attendance. These delegates have no authority. Rather, they are just servants, organizing things for churches who choose to participate. Right now almost 400 churches participate.

The delegates try to serve in areas like conferences, web presence, youth and family, HOPEww, pulling together teachers, elders, and campus leaders. These meetings have been very helpful. In fact, the only way we could have had this conference in Kiev at all is through the cooperation of hundreds of churches. Not all of our churches feel that they can participate in this kind of volunteer work among churches. I respect their feelings. Thankfully we have plenty of people who are working very hard to keep things going.

Back to the delegates meeting... Roger Lamb of Disciples Today made a presentation. Things are stabilizing financially at Disciples Today. That was good news. We should all help to support Disciples Today. We can get them on a stable footing next year.

HOPEww explained their financial situation. They need help for sure, and the delegates pledged to communicate that need to all the churches. Miami asked for the right to host the ILC in 2010. San Antonio asked to host a huge all-in-one-place conference in 2011. All the responses were positive. A committee was formed to recommend the final decision.

All in all it was a great conference. Keep praying for unity, and the love and zeal to reach the world with the gospel ofJesus!

Mike Taliaferro

PS...It was also inspiring to come out of a message and use my phone to 'watch' the University of Texas defeat Oklahoma in USA college football. I kept refreshing the ESPN webpage. James Schultz was sad for sure,but a group of about 6 or 8 Texans were cheering for the Texas team as they came from behind to win. Go Longhorns! ‘Nuff said.

www.icochotnews.com

Click here for more info in Steve Staten's article: A Report on the Edge