During The Conference, writer, public speaker, and television host Jill Briscoe instantly captured her audience of several thousand when she told them about one of her favorite posters. It shows a dejected young sports enthusiast slumped alone on a bench. Clearly, he is in trouble—perhaps after a bad game. At the top of the poster, it says "I quit." In the bottom corner is the shadow of a cross, and underneath in small letters are the words "I didn't."

"This," said Mrs. Briscoe, "prompts the question 'What's it take not to quit?' " Turning to the theme of the conference, "Proclaiming Hope: On Christ the Solid Rock We Stand," she asked: "How do we proclaim hope when everything around us appears to be hopeless?"

In answer, she offered a profile of two men in the Scriptures who just wouldn't quit—the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch, his brave and faithful friend and secretary, whose name means "blessed of the Lord." They are a fine example, she said, of companionship, of servanthood, and of teamwork in the face of a chaotic situation nationally and internationally. "Together, they went on proclaiming hope to their own people—who didn't want to know—and to others, despite assassination attempts, the slime pit in which they couldn't feel the rock beneath their feet, the prison, and the stocks.

"It's an amazing thing to have that perseverance," she said, "that grit, that spiritual set of your chin that's going to take you into a hard place and keep you there until you've done what God took you there to do."

Divine purpose

Mrs. Briscoe identified several factors that kept those two men going despite the odds. One involved their awareness of being called by God, and their commitment and total surrender to a divine purpose (see, for example, Jer. 1:5).

She pointed out that these men of God concentrated on the common goal despite differences in personality; and they understood the role of persistence and of compassion. They also knew the importance of conviction, said Mrs. Briscoe. "If we are not convinced of the truth, conversant with the truth, committed to the proclamation of the truth and to the hope it offers to a lost and hurting world, we may as well quit.

"Today," she said, "too many sowers of the seed do not believe in the dynamic life within it, and so they don't sow the seed. But Jeremiah believed in it; and, most important, he did not clip away a single word that God had spoken to him. It is only if we are convinced that God's words are in our mouth, that His touch is on our life, and that His plan is written all over our face that we can proclaim the truth to others....

"Jeremiah and Baruch were able to remain committed to their God-ordained task not just because of their commitment to God, but because of God's commitment to them," she added. "As Jeremiah later wrote in the book of Lamentations: "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness' [3:22, 23]."

This theme of surrender to a divine purpose was also featured in a workshop titled "Beyond Belief?" in which an English couple, Ruth and Clive Calver, spoke of their work with World Relief, an arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, which takes "the great faith adventure" to many countries worldwide. Mrs. Calver said that when they were required to move from Britain to the United States to "gossip the gospel" further afield, their new home proved to be a "hard place" because it meant leaving two of their children in England to complete their schooling.

Those two boys of seventeen and nineteen questioned the goodness of God in "tearing apart" their family, and soon afterward stopped attending church. It wasn't until the unconditional love and prayerful support of their parents and friends helped to bring them a better understanding of Christian service that they returned. "One of them is now studying for the ministry," said Mrs. Calver gratefully, "and the other is already in missionary work in Africa. God could see the bigger picture. For a while, neither Clive and I, nor the boys could."

Choose joy!

Underpinning the discussion in many of the workshops was a new book written by Vision New England president Stephen A. Macchia, Becoming a Healthy Church: 10 Characteristics (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1999).

In its pages Mr. Macchia expresses the hope that Christians everywhere, of whatever denomination, will be found "faithful to the task of being the people of God serving those who need to hear eternal words of hope." He says that "the healthy church places high priority on communicating the truth of Jesus and demonstrating his love to those outside the faith," as is confirmed in the book of Luke: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost" (19:10, New International Version).

Part of this demonstration of love, says Mr. Macchia, is through the kind of joy he shared recently with his eight-year-old daughter Rebekah. They squeezed themselves into her small red plastic sled and enjoyed several exhilarating runs down a New England hillslope. "It gave us a new appreciation of joy ... joy in our love for God's beautiful creation, and joy in one another as God's children."

He hastens to make it clear, however, that the Christian life is much "tougher sledding" than this family outing. "No Biblical promises tell us it will be smooth sledding all the way," he says, but "the Scriptures are replete with examples of tough sledding that produces a faith that's joy-filled.... Joy is more than a feel-good emotion. It is rooted in God.... Despite our circumstances, distractions, occupations, or preoccupations, we can choose to receive joy from God."