ACU is saying “Enough” during Summit 2011.
Summit will incorporate the theme, “Enough: Hearing God through Isaiah” and will feature speakers such as ACU alumna Max Lucado, best-selling author and preaching minister at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio.
Brady Bryce, director of ministry events, said students have been requesting Lucado for years, and this year, Bryce said he seemed like a perfect fit.
“He shows up every year on lists. We get hundreds of recommendations, and he just seemed like a natural fit this year,” Bryce said. “President Schubert mentioned him in his opening Chapel address and was kind of taken by his newest book, and I thought, well this would be a good year, and Max had a cancellation, it really was a neat thing that it worked out”
Lucado graduated from ACU in 1977 and was Young Alumnus in 1991 as well as Alumnus of the Year in 2003. He said heconsidered the invitation to speak at Summit an honor.
“I’m very excited,” Lucado said. “I’m very proud of ACU and really excited about Dr. Schubert and his leadership. I don’t know him really well, but times I’ve spent with him were all really positive. I think ACU has a real, bright future and I’m really excited to come back and connect with everybody.”
Summit 2011 will mark Lucado’s first year as a featured Summit speaker and he will also present a Coffee Talk with co-minister Randy Frazee on neighborhood outreach.
“I appreciate the opportunity to have a little question and answer time on neighborhood outreach and the ideas that are really taking off for us,” Lucado said.
The Summit theme, Enough, comes from the book of Isaiah where God tells the Israelites he’s had enough of their sacrifices, offerings and external religion, and he calls his people to clean up their lives and then come into worship.
“The thrust of it is, we’re hearing God say this phrase, ‘I’ve had enough.'” Bryce said.
And, he said, this message clearly relates to students, faculty and staff at ACU.
“I think students at Christian colleges tend to just have enough of God; I think they get over full of God and when God is almost like wallpaper, it’s easy to take God for granted,” Bryce said. “So all of us – students, faculty, staff – all of us who have this God language around us all the time, we need to hear God screaming at us, ‘enough.”
Hearing God could mean simplifying or eliminating things from our lives, Bryce said, but also he said it’s about examining our relationship with God.
“It’s calling us straight to the heart of our relationship with God and really having to look in the mirror and see if it’s all just external or if there is something deeper there,” Bryce said. “It’s just a major danger when God is treated pretty casually.”
Students were able to participate in Summit early this year by submitting a design to be used during Summit.
Leanne Kawahigashi, freshman graphic design major from Fort Worth, won the contest with her design of circles.
“The white circle in it kind of defines God and purity,” Kawahigashi said. “There’s identical circles that aren’t white, they are gray and shades of gray, but nothing is as pure as white. God is enough, because there is nothing like him.”
Kawahigashi said she initially entered the contest to appease her mother and spent little time on the design. She was surprised when she found out she’d won.
“I didn’t have confidence in my piece because it took so little time, Kawahigashi said. “So I’m glad she had confidence in me.”
