Friday morning, Chase Gymnasium was sparse with students attending the 75th annual Torrey Bible Conference, a contrast to the three overflowing venues on Wednesday morning.
According to Chapel Accountability, Wednesday afternoon’s session had the most attendants, with 3,055 students packed into all of the sites offered. Friday morning had the smallest amount of attendees, with 1,212 seated in the gym.
Students had plenty of opportunities to gain credit, however, especially with the newly added Friday afternoon session.
New Friday afternoon session
For the first time ever, Torrey Bible Conference was extended past its final Friday morning session with a Conflict Coaching Intensive given by Annette Friesen. According to Krista Roberts, the assistant director of Resident Life, this extension offered students practical application of peacemaking.
“It [provided] the tools of peacemaking in your life,” Roberts said.
About 180 students attended the Conflict Coaching Intensive.
The coaching session was one of eight sessions and four reflection times offered for credit.
Friday morning session relatable for students
Annette Friesen spoke at the Friday morning session. Many of those who attended the 9:30 a.m. session Friday said they came away feeling as though she had related the topic best to students.
Junior Vanessa Castro considered Friday morning as one of her favorite sessions.
“I really liked today,” Castro said. “She [Annette Friesen] was able to relate the topic to us right now.”
Friesen told many of her own personal stories to demonstrate the truths of conflict and peacemaking, and how, oftentimes, conflict arises when unhealthy desires grow. One such story was when she and her husband spontaneously decided to go out to dinner after work one evening. Friesen said she built the date up in her head by fantasizing how she wanted it to go. When it didn’t go that way, she said she became upset with her husband for not fulfilling her expectations of the date.
“Real love is willing self sacrifice,” Friesen said. “It is a choice you make to put down your goals.”
Breaking away from conflict and focusing in on racial reconciliation
Gary Friesen, executive vice president of Peacemaker Ministries, spoke Thursday about reconciling relationships instead of following the world in breaking away from conflict. Ed Gilbreath, author and former editor of Christianity Today, spoke at the remaining conferences of that day and honed in on racial reconciliation.
“I don’t have a simple formula to heal our racial divide, but I do know that our racial divide isn’t too wide for the cross,” Gilbreath said.
Conflict exists within every person’s life
Wednesday’s sessions with Tim Pollard, vice president of distribution and strategy for Peacemaker Ministries, gave students a chance to see that conflict does exist within every person’s life, whether it is directly or indirectly. Gary Friesen concluded Wednesday, calling on students to glorify God through genuine apologies and reconciliation.
“I think that they could have touched more on reconciliation, not just racially, but overall in terms of denominations, culturally and all of the ways that we differ,” junior Daniel Parham said.
Freshman Stephen Croft was happy with the reconciliation topic and the lessons that he took away from the conference this year.
“In addition to being a nice break from homework and tests, it also came at a perfect time in my life,” Croft said. “It taught me to not drop conflict and to deal with it in a godly way.”
Students can watch some of the sessions they missed on Biola’s YouTube channel.
