By Abigail Loop
Staff Writer
Antioch Community Church is bringing back World Mandate for the 26th year, offering a weekend of worship, concerts and inspirational sessions.
Carl Gulley, World Mandate producer, said the church is preparing for an exciting conference that is expected to have between 4,000 to 7,000 people in attendance from the moment doors open 6 p.m. Friday at the Ferrell Center. The event will run through Sunday.
Gulley, also Anitoch’s college pastor, said the best thing about World Mandate is the union it creates.
“This conference is about the family of God coming together, he said. “We’ll have people from Austin, to Boston, to Scotland and even some from India.”
Gulley said the conference will offer inspiration to attendees through worship and speakers. The conference will feature a new seminar as well.
The new seminar, called Not in My City, will give people a look at the problems of human trafficking.
“It’s based on our Unbound program, which is an anti-trafficking ministry we have at Antioch,” Gulley said. “We’re hoping to spread awareness to people and show people what to look for.”
According to the Unbound website, the group works with prevention, advocacy and aftercare dealing with human trafficking.
In addition to the seminar, Gulley said a number of inspirational speakers will be in attendance.
“We’ll have a former army ranger speak who’s been liberating people both physically and spiritually in Burma,” Gulley said. “We’ll also have Scott Drew, Baylor’s basketball coach, speak, as well as Francis Chan, a pastor and author of the book ‘Crazy Love.’”
To attend the conference and take part in the five different sessions, people can register online or pay at the door. Regular pricing for registration online ends today and is $100. People can register for the whole conference or just for individual sessions.
At the door pricing is $120 and youth pricing for ages 13 to 17 is $50. Children aged 12 or below are admitted for free.
“Since this will be taking place during Family Weekend, we’re telling students to bring their parents too,” Gulley said.
Jady Griffin, associate college director at Antioch, said he couldn’t be more excited with the preaching, worship and informational sessions of the conference. He said World Mandate plays a critical part in bringing people together and giving people a chance to hear the story of God who haven’t heard it before.
“I’m fired up for this week,” Griffin said. “This lets us take time out of the chaos and look to God and see what he’s doing all around the world.”
Gulley said he’s expecting many students along with other registered attendees to come in large groups to the event.
“This week is like Christmas for us,” he said. “All week long we’ll have people coming for this conference. We’ll have some people bringing a group of 20 from Baton Rouge and a group of 120 from College Station. It’s fun to see who’s new to the family and who’s been with us for a decade.”
More information can be found at worldmandate.com.
