Amy McDonald, chapel programs coordinator and director of this year’s Torrey Conference, remembers well the overwhelming feeling that comes with juggling undergraduate studies, extracurricular activities, meeting the 30 chapel credit requirement and the eight mandatory fall semester Torrey Conference credits.

THEME CREATED FROM STUDENT'S RESPONSE 

“I remember what it’s like to be in the busy season of life — like, I took 21 units one semester. I know what it’s like to just feel overloaded and overwhelmed,” McDonald explained. “I know the temptation to feel like this is just another thing I have to do … but I think that’s what’s helped me in trying to craft the conference, because I know what it’s like to be a student.”

McDonald, who graduated from Biola in 2008 as a business marketing major, started working Oct. 1 of last year, two weeks before Torrey Conference, in order to observe all of the sessions and workshops and to collect student feedback.

At the conclusion of the conference, McDonald put together a student-wide survey, open to any Biolans who wished to voice their experience, concerns, suggestions, likes and dislikes about the three-day conference. The amount of student feedback she received was encouraging, McDonald said.

“We had like 615 student responses from last year, which is really encouraging for me because there’s no incentive for them to fill it out, but people just wanted to give their opinion, give input. They wanted to be involved,” McDonald explained.

All of the data McDonald collected was not put to waste. Since November of last year, McDonald’s team has been implementing the information received in the student surveys into every aspect of Torrey — from the conferences’ speakers and their topics, to the various workshops and prayer rooms held during the conference. Even students’ feedback on something as significant as the conference’s theme was taken seriously.

“One of the main topics that students were kind of wrestling with … is just around relationship with God: my identity in God. Who am I? Who am I in Christ? How do I relate to others in this community? What do we do with that?” McDonald said.

After hearing these student responses, Todd Pickett, Biola’s dean of spiritual development, who is responsible for choosing the conference’s theme, decided to base Torrey’s theme off of a book by Skye Jethani, “With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God,” McDonald said. 

AUTHOR AND CREATOR OF VEGGIE TALES AMONG SPEAKERS

However, Torrey Conference isn’t merely coining the book’s title “With,” as its theme, but its author as well. Jethani is scheduled to speak for the conference on the topic of “With,” and his friend, Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, will also be speaking.

Students were also concerned, McDonald noted, with the amount of credit opportunities offered. McDonald was happy to address this concern.

“I know as students you have to go to four conferences in person out of your eight,” McDonald said. “I know last year we had nine opportunities to get credit, and so seeing kind of a need for that and wanting to offer more credits, to give students the ability to attend more of the sessions they feel led to go to … we actually have 17 opportunities to get credit this year, which is almost double of what we had last year.” 

This year, there will be more overflow sites, McDonald said, as well as more workshop opportunities.

McDonald mentioned that part of the Torrey staff’s answer to providing more credit opportunities will also address another student-wide concern: the need for time to process. On Friday morning, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., a Sabbathing session worth three conference credits will give students time to spend time with God processing what they’ve been learning throughout the conference.

“We have a lot of prayer rooms around campus,” McDonald added. “Not just in RoLo … but there’s going to be one at the Bell Tower and one in Talbot and one at the McNally fire pit. Kind of to make the conference a little bit more all over the campus. We’re really wanting these to be sites and places where students can engage with others, engage with the Lord.”

McDonald also wanted to answer students’ desire to make the conference their own. She explained in an email that this year, the Torrey team has brought along seven student coordinators, each with their own team of three to four volunteers, to oversee prayer rooms, overflow sites, experiential sites and marketing.

PRAYER ROOMS TO CREATE PLACE OF REST

Jasmyn Hiday, a junior sociology major, is one of the prayer room coordinators for the Torrey Conference. Hiday described her role as facilitating the development of prayer rooms that encourage students to come and spend one-on-one time with God. 

“I really just wanted to be involved in the student-led part and just let it be a conference that students look forward to,” Hiday continued.

McDonald expressed a similar desire for students.

“That’s our goal for the conference … for it to be a restful space where students can come amidst the busyness of their life, come and engage with God and with others and their community. And just to be able to receive … and to be blessed by that,” McDonald added.