Golden honey dripped from students’ hearts, oozed from their mouths and connected them with the same sugary stickiness as they reflected on their experiences at Jubilee, a Christian conference that took place from Feb. 20-22 in Pittsburgh.

A group of about 25 people gathered in Narnia, a Christian-based house on Richard Avenue, where they discussed what they had learned from the worship, sermons and small group sessions at Jubilee. Jen Reedy, a campus minister with the Christian Coalition Outreach (CCO), began the discussion with a Bible passage from Proverbs that compared honey to the goodness of God. They all returned from Jubilee filled with honey, or God’s goodness, Reedy said.

“Let’s turn this honey into wisdom,” Reedy said.

Then the students and campus ministers broke into smaller groups for discussion questions. Although they related God’s message back to themselves, there was a continual resurge of connecting God back to others.

“The role of a Christian should be ‘let it be’,” said staff director of CCO Phil Schiavoni, explaining that Christians need to care for people in whatever stage they are in, so that they can figure out their calling.

Jubilee’s theme focused on finding a person’s calling and trying to relate his or her faith to it, Reedy said.

There are two callings, sophomore Coby Sullivan said during a small group discussion. The first is to understand God’s calling and the second is to relate it to a personal calling that needs to be fulfilled.

Many Christians talk to people so that they can convert them to Christianity instead of just sitting down to just talk with them and get to know them as people, said Natalie Daratony, CCO campus minister.

“No matter what I’m doing, it comes down to the people around me,” Daratony said. She reflected back to her summer job where she spent a lot of time cleaning bathrooms and how the people with her helped to improve the situation.

In any situation, senior Ben Shenk said that major break-throughs come more often when people have conflicting ideas rather than when they completely agree with each other. That is why it is so important to be open to people instead of living inside a narrow box, Shenk said.

Another group discussed the difficulties of talking to others about their faith. Usually the conversation stops when she brings up Christianity, senior Cat Kelly said, which was why she was so surprised when someone kept asking her questions about Jubilee. Being able to share her experience ended up being the most memorable part of the conference, she said.

“It’s easier to be more reserved about your faith than open, especially in the world we live in,” Kelly said. 

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