Wall Street Investor, Others Tell Their Stories at Prayer Summit

Bill Hwang had just had a banner year as a hedge-fund manager in New York City when he realized something was missing in his life. That something was God.

Kate Shin, a financial manager turned developer in Manhattan, has a similar story to tell. Although she had reached a dream of converting a building in the city into a space for artists from around the world, she too felt empty and without God in her life.

During the opening session of the CRC Prayer Summit 2015 on Tuesday, each of them talked about how prayer and meeting with other Christians have helped to turn things around for them.

Throughout the day, there were videos, ample times to pray, presentations on such topics as magic and prayer, and, of course, the stories.

Hwang is founder and CEO of Archegos Capital Management, a company that specializes in media and financial stock investments in the U.S., China, Japan, and Korea.

By 2008, his management fund had grown from having $16 million in assets to $10 billion—and he made millions of dollars that year.

“I was happy for a couple of days until I realized I had friends who were above my rank,” he said.

He began to realize through that experience and a long struggle with a project in Hong Kong that something needed to change, he said.

“I loved what God had done for me, but I didn’t really know or love him really well,” he said.

Being so busy with his work, he didn’t seem to have time to sit down and read the Bible or to pray.

But then, he said, “I began to listen to audio books on the Bible, and that made a major difference. I knew I needed to share it with my friends.”

Two times a week, people now gather at his office to listen to these audio books from the Bible and to fill themselves with words that give them joy, hope, and renewed purpose, said Hwang. They meet two other times a week to read and discuss a book.

“God has given us this amazing technology—these audio books—allowing us to listen to God’s Word together.”

Kate Shin shared a story about her own transformation, recounting how she had been holding an event a couple of years ago at Waterfall Mansion, the property for artists she had developed, when someone approached her warily.

“They told me they had been standing on the roof on my building that day when God told them to pray for me,” she said. “When I heard that, we went right ahead and prayed.”

She now gathers a group every week at the Waterfall Mansion to pray. “I had had this great personal achievement, but had felt so lost and without purpose. Now that has changed.”

Also in the morning session at the Prayer Summit, there was a time of guided prayer, led by Kari Kristina Reeves, a former ballerina and founder and principal of Atlas Spiritual Design, Inc., a creative and spiritual direction company.

The company is also based in New York City and has a focus of promoting the book Canyon Road, a book of 300 prayers offering examples of 16 different types of prayer.

As the lights were dimmed in the sanctuary, she told people to sit or kneel or stand or walk around as she prayed.

“You are our power and strength, Lord, from everlasting to everlasting to everlasting,” she said in a soft voice.

“Your ways are not our way. ... Give us the courage to change things in our lives. … You are holy, you are good, and you free us from what binds us.”

In the afternoon there were a number of breakout sessions, including one titled “Praying vs. Magic” and another titled “Prayer Beyond Just Getting Along.”

David Crump, a professor of New Testament at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., discussed the ways in which magic interplays with and is separate from Christian belief.

He also defined the dimensions of what makes magic.

“There is immediacy with magic, the desire for something to happen right now,” said Crump. “It also involves technique, doing things the right way.

“It also has to do with the manipulation of power and is something that involves hidden knowledge.”

In all cases, he said, Christian prayer really has nothing to do with any of these qualities.

“In the New Testament, Jesus constantly reminds us that in prayer we are entrusting ourselves to our heavenly Father who listens and sometimes gives us something we want.

“But we always pray remembering that it is his will and not our will being done.”

We don’t use magical techniques or need to have special powers to pray to God, he said.

Reggie Smith, pastor of Roosevelt Park CRC in Grand Rapids, Mich., offered a breakout session titled “Prayer Beyond Just Getting Along.”

“I want to talk about crossing borders when people don’t expect us to do that, and we give up being awkward and uncomfortable,” he said.

As part of his presentation, he told a story of how he and about 100 members of his church left the Sunday service one morning and walked to a nearby house that was home to gang members.

They linked hands and prayed and sang. As they did, gang members came out of the house and taunted them. But, said Smith, their taunts made no difference. Members of the church had crossed a border for the good of the gospel.

A few weeks later the gang members moved out, and the home has become a healthy addition to the neighborhood. He said his church is committed to staying where it is and doing more than getting along.

They want to be a strong and stable influence in the largely Hispanic neighborhood.

“We need to believe God goes with us when we pray across races and cultures and play our role in bringing peace and shalom to our communities,” he said.

The theme of the evening session was the world church.

The keynote speaker was Dawn Michelson, who has served as an evangelist with her husband, Gene, among the Fulani people in West Africa since 1988.

She too told stories, mostly about the many Fulani Muslims with whom she has worked, often teaching them to read through use of the Bible.

She spoke of a Fulani woman who grew interested in Christianity after learning about Jesus in the book of Matthew.

Then, when a dream she had had many years earlier came true on the way to a conference where she was to learn more about Christianity, the woman decided to become a Fulani follower of Jesus, said Michelson.

“It was a simple dream about driving down a river embankment in a white car, but it came back to her, and that made a difference,” said Michelson.

Michelson said her years on the mission field have taught her an especially important lesson when it comes to evangelism.

“I had to admit to myself that God works in mysterious ways and that the answer was not to just pray for those likely to follow Jesus. I’ve learned to pray that God will show me where the Holy Spirit is already working.”

The evening ended with a video that included interviews about the significance of the February beheading of some 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians by the terrorist group ISIS.

Filmed in Egypt, several people on the video spoke of how the Coptic Church, which traces it roots back many centuries, has had a long tradition of its members being martyred. As has happened over time, these killings—including the recent ones that were filmed by ISIS along a seashore in Libya—have only bolstered the faith of Christians.

After the video finished, there was a prayer for the persecuted church in the Arab world led by Maged Fayez, the Egyptian pastor of a CRC congregation south of Los Angeles. He visited Egypt last year and saw first-hand the struggles that Christians there face.

“God is using persecution to expose the enemy, and many people in the Egyptian church are on their knees. They are not afraid to cry out, ‘Jesus!’” he said.