Dr. Carlton Byrd, Senior Pastor of Oakwood University Church and Director of the Breath of Life Television Broadcast, giving his message at the Conn Center on Monday evening.
Courtesy of Lee University Media Services
This semester's Convocation—a time where students, faculty and staff come together for a time of spiritual renewal and reflection amidst the academic year—has drawn to a close.
Convocation services began Sunday, Sept. 16, with a message from Dr. Mark Walker, vice president for ministerial development and chair of the Department of Christian Ministries.
He wanted to encourage his audience by calling to mind the quote “I triple-dog-dare you” throughout his speaking, his message being founded upon a believer’s willingness to be daring for spiritual gain, according to Walker.
“Dare to believe that God believes in you, even if you don’t believe yourself,” Walker said. “Dare to believe that God is with you even if you don’t feel him, dare to believe that God has a plan for you even if you feel that he’s downsizing you.”
For Monday evening’s service, Lee once again welcomed to the Conn Center stage Dr. Carlton Byrd, senior pastor of Oakwood University Church and director of the Breath of Life Television Broadcast.
Byrd appeared to have struck a chord with the Conn Center crowd, eliciting applause with his lyrical manner of speech. Byrd delivered a three-point message about the nature of God, basing his sermon in the story of Balak and Balaam.
“God can’t lie,” Byrd said. “God can’t make or force people to love you and God can’t lose.”
Monday night’s service ended with a powerful anecdote of personal loss from Byrd, moving the Conn Center crowd both spiritually and physically as attendees approached the stage to kneel.
Convocation also included the Tuesday morning sermon that takes place during chapel.
New York Times bestselling author and renowned speaker Mo Isom gave Tuesday morning’s message. Isom notably was chosen as the third female Convocation speaker in Lee’s 100 years of history.
Author of “Sex, Jesus and the Conversations the Church Forgot,” Isom brought a taboo-breaking message centered around the concept of purity.
According to her message, sex when wielded without knowledge, wisdom, or understanding is a weapon with the ability to wound.
In a show of her willingness to make a crowd address its brokenness, Isom referenced a leading cause of sexual sin in today’s world: pornography, a vice Isom denounced as a slow but powerful source of spiritual ills.
“The truth is many of us become tempted by the little thing, the small thing,” Isom said. “It’s the tiny little step in, and the tiny little step in, and the tiny little step in, and what happens is suddenly we wake up one day and we realize we’re a mile deep because we’ve been choosing to choose for ourselves, and the enemy gets a stranglehold around us and jerks us away.”
Isom concluded her message with a call for change in the church, which she said had erred by merely condemning sinners rather than placing an emphasis on addressing why someone might struggle sexually.
The message for Tuesday evening’s service was brought once again by Josh Rice, generations pastor at Eastside Baptist Church and professor of Old Testament for Lee Online.
Rice used the symbolism of passageways in his message, calling them the tools, the mentalities, the formulas that one depends on in this life.
Rice also included his testimony regarding his battle with anxiety, resulting from an intense desire for success. The pastor frequently used drug addiction-related imagery in order to convey the severity of his reliance upon his own sense of drive.
Concluding his sermon, Rice shared a short maxim he received from a Christian therapist who helped him during his trials of anxiety.
“Let go and let God,” Rice said.
In the last night service of Convocation on Wednesday, Sept. 19, Lee University President Dr. Paul Conn took to the Conn Center stage.
Conn’s message was rooted in the idea of sustainability, as he tentatively titled his message “Closer is Better” and opened his sermon with a question.
“Am I trying to follow Jesus from a distance?” asked Conn. “Am I trying to carry the cross at arm’s length?”
Answering the question, Conn said God allows humanity to define the distance between Him and the individual, going on to heft a 15-pound dumbbell and calling up freshman nursing major Pierson Nelson.
Conn handed the dumbbell to Nelson and asked him to hold the weight at arm’s length to illustrate the difficulty of “carrying the cross” when it is not held close to a believer’s heart.
“This is my first Convocation, and I loved Dr. Conn’s message,” Nelson said in a post-Convocation interview. “Not just because I got to be a part of it but because it was so true to the nature of God.”
After the conclusion of Conn’s sermon, the worship team closed this semester’s Convocation with a resplendent rendition of “Forever Reign” ending the final service on a high note.
For those who either missed Convocation or would like to re-experience the week, videos of the speakers have been uploaded to Lee’s official YouTube channel and the services in full are currently available via livestream.
