DEPARTMENT NEWS
COLORBLIND?
I
t was a fantastic weekend. A young adult who attended rightly said, "Thank you, Pastor Lyle. I came away from this weekend comforted, nurtured, empowered, and supported!"
Wow! Those are the kind of words you want to hear as a youth director. It was the weekend of "Control+ALT+Delete." Control+ALT+Delete was a popular keyboard command on IBM-compatible computers. If something was wrong with your computer and causing disruption, all you had to do was perform the three-finger salute, as they call it, and your computer would automatically reboot (i.e., restart). It was a way to refresh your computer. This Central Alberta youth empowerment, being hosted at the Red Deer Church, was precisely that: a reboot; a restart; a refresh for our young people. The weekend was filled with praise and worship, fellowship, food, and strong, spiritually empowering messages from Pastor Orlando Pule. Pastor Orlando was born in New Zealand with strong Samoan and Tongan roots. He grew up in Toronto, received a call
38
Alberta Adventist News
JUNE 2022
Pastor Orlando Pule delivering his Control+Alt+Delete empowerment presentation.
to ministry, and studied at Andrews University, where he met his beautiful wife, Liz, who is also a pastor. Together, they have a unique role at the Ontario Conference, serving as Men's Ministry, Women's Ministry, and Family Life directors. It was so fitting to have Pastor Orlando. He is currently working on a doctorate in organizational leadership, focusing on the theology of advocacy and social justice. On the Friday night, after engaging the youth in a participatory activity, he waxed eloquently on the idea that after this pandemic, God is expecting our world church to do something new and fresh within our local
communities—something that has never been done before—because we are in a time in history we have never experienced. Pastor Orlando shared a powerful story of how Blockbuster used to be the famous movie store giant, but because they did not want change, they closed down, and Netflix overtook them. Pastor Orlando finished off the night with this statement: "I believe that God's spirit is greatly experienced, not within the four walls of the church; God's spirit is greatly experienced outside of the four walls of the church because out there, it cannot be controlled." Sabbath morning started with a creatively intriguing
