When the new year began, we never had any intentions of live-streaming or going online, but we pivoted following the Lord’s leadership as the whole world changed. The result was our first ever online conference! Our heart was to make it free and available to as many people as we could to help provoke them to go deeper in their prayer lives during this time. Thanks to the hard work and sacrifice of so many people, Pursuit Conference REDUX was able to host and minister to hundreds all over the world. We had people from our backyard of NYC to throughout the East Coast all the way to multiple continents. People tuned in from Belgium, Brazil, Guatemala, Indonesia, China, and Australia to just name a few! Praise God! Check out some of the testimonies from this year’s conference below.
I think it’s been a crazy season for all of us. In times of great confusion and suffering, all people long for hope. Hope is what gets you out of bed in the morning. Hope is what causes you to stand back up when you’ve fallen. Hope gives life meaning and joy. And hope is always found where people pray. Hope is found when people fall on their knees in surrender, look up to heaven and cry out, “God I can’t! But you can!” Revivals of hope always follow revivals of prayer.
In the last session of the conference, I felt hope rise within my own heart as I heard Sam preach about past revivals. I was reminded that it’s never worth it to give up the fight. I was reminded that before God brings breakthrough, he often creates desperation. I was reminded that there is an unshakeable hope for those who trust in the name of Jesus.
I’m so encouraged to see Pastor Sam and Pursuit NY calling people to prayer in this season. This ministry continues to fight for the soul of this region, unceasingly contending for revival and being aggressively discontent with halfhearted devotion. Let the church arise in this season, and may they find there is always hope when people pray. – AL
Pursuit Conference REDUX was personally refreshing for me to be connected to people from all over the world to contend for revival. The sessions ignited in my spirit a perseverance and tenacity to keep praying even in the midst of confusion, doubt, disappointment, and pain. The speakers also gave practical applications of prayer that were timely and profound that I am still applying in my daily walk! – LS
I was so blessed by this conference especially during this season of my life. I felt like this conference challenged me and gave me a charge to really activate my prayer life and to completely surrender to what God is doing and seek after real intimacy with the King. – JK
We heard great speakers and talked about important topics about prayer. But at the end of the day we were convicted to go into our prayer closets to pray. A resounding yes! I am more hungry for God. Thank you Pursuit team. – LY
To be honest, I came into the Pursuit Conference REDUX feeling hopeless, tired, and discouraged because of things that have been happening this year. I didn’t really know how to process everything and where I stood in it. I felt that many churches have been “obligated” to speak on the tension of racism in our country or that this issue became just another “trend” or “season” that everyone was experiencing. A lot of other complications were stirring my heart and mind to a point where my soul and spirit felt dead.
I remember randomly joining the weekly prayer meetings with Pursuit because it just came up on my IG feed. And at that time, I was actually at my worst, where I was bitter towards our church and certain groups of people. I felt the divide and leaned heavily on one side and felt deep hatred for the other. I’ve been feeling that, as Christians, we’ve failed to demonstrate facing issues that are so important to the people who are within our cities, communities, outside of church walls. During this one prayer meeting, Sam Won was very honest and kindly rebuked our Christian community about pretty much everything I was feeling. And I remember I just broke down crying. Because, then I knew that God cares and He agrees. There is a lot of work to be done because our country is so badly broken. So during the Pursuit Conference Redux, I came in not knowing what to expect, but really challenging myself to keep my heart open. I can’t recall exact words that struck me, but what I do know is that it was healing.
Healing to see all the different voices speak power and hope over an issue so deeply broken. I’m still in a place where I feel the pain, brokenness, and reality of the sin and divide, but I left the conference telling myself that I was continue to choose to fight. So, thank you Pursuit, for your courage and wisdom. For instilling hope deeply to those listening. – NK
Throughout the conference, every speaker touched upon how important it is to have an intimate and personal relationship with God. I was reminded of this truth through the online conference itself- though we were just nameless squares on a screen, I believe that God was intimately and personally meeting with every single one of us where we were at. I am left feeling encouraged to persevere, challenged to go deeper in prayer, and empowered to boldly live out my faith (s/o Ali Ferrell empowering women leaders – that prayer is still ringing for me). I’m so thankful that when the world stops, God does not! – YS
During the Redux conference, one of the pastors shared his experience of attending morning prayer when he was younger at his family’s church. That led me to think about the times when I attended morning prayers when I was a child and how the room was filled with elders and parents. I questioned why they would come out so early in the morning to pray, couldn’t they do that later in the day? But looking back on it now I come to realize that those people chose to come before the Lord before they did anything else. They came with faith that God cares about what they’re saying, faith that God speaks to them, and faith that God sees them where they are and as they are. This led me to start morning prayers at the church that I currently attend. Although there was no affirming word from God or signs that were shown to start morning prayers I wanted to open up a space where brothers and sisters in my community can gather and have a time of prayer aligning their hearts with the Lord before doing anything else. Since morning prayer began, it honestly helped me personally to seek God first before my everyday tasks and allowed me to regain faith that God sees, hears, and cares for me when I pray to Him. A friend of mine once said to me along the lines of, “There’s just something different about morning prayers…“ and there really is. – EJ