GYC 2011: Rosario and Asscherick Seminar

It was Thursday morning and relatively empty in the carpeted side halls on the third level of the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. The noise of the few thousand GYC attendees heading up from the morning devotional in the main hall to the large area where breakfast was located could be faintly heard. I had grabbed a bite to eat at my hotel’s complimentary breakfast and was on the hunt for a specific room: General Assembly A. With my backpack packed with essentials (Bible, Macbook, and snacks), I scouted the quieter side halls until I found the room I was looking for, and though I was not the first person inside, I was able to secure a front-row seat.

If you have never attended a GYC (Generation of Youth for Christ) conference, then let me explain why I would hunt down a room to secure a front-row seat about an hour early while the majority of the conference attendees are eating breakfast. At the GYC, over a dozen speakers present three-part seminars (the parts can build off each other or be stand alone sessions). This year all of the seminars would focus on subjects related to the Holy Spirit, in line with the 2011 theme Fill Me: Our Earnest Plea. With a roster of very interesting and dynamic speakers with, no doubt, equally interesting messages, it can be difficult to choose which seminar to attend. It is understandable that the seminars given by some of the more well-known speakers would fill up the fastest; however, I did not want to choose a seminar to attend based on familiarity with or even personal preference towards the speaker; I wanted to attend a seminar for the message. After much prayer Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, I felt impressed to attend Jeffrey Rosario and David Asscherick’s seminar, which would focus on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

The tag-team-styled seminar was profound, thought-provoking, and, at times, humorous. The interaction between Rosario and Asscherick was almost like observing a casual theological discussion among friends, both with extraordinary knowledge and the ability to think in complex, abstract, yet logical and easy to follow ways. There were some jests and humor thrown in now and then, like when—to illustrate a point Rosario was making—Asscherick laid down on the floor with his hands on his chest like a corpse; when, after a comment by Asscherick about certain people not having children, Rosario’s retort impled that he had “adopted”, sort to speak, an adult that was child-like in reference to Asscherick; or when Doug Bachelor’s seminar next door (we shared a door) was laughing loudly so Rosario and Asscherick encouraged us to laugh loudly in response.

Humor, amusement, and wit aside, the seminar was deep and not for the casual conference attendee looking for some “feel good” message or superficial Biblical teaching, which may explain why only a few dozen of us remained for all three sessions (“modules”). Without hesitation or apology, Rosario and Asscherick plunged us into topics such as the triune nature of the Godhead and the Personhood of the Holy Spirit. We delved into the Bible, the Spirit of Prophecy, history, and, in the last module Friday morning, branched out into apologetics.

Some of the discussion even plunged into areas that I have never given much thought to, such as the breadth and depth of the concept that God is love; why only God Himself and not a created being could answer the charges that the adversary laid against Him; that God put Himself, heaven, and all of the universe on the line to redeem humanity; what would have happened—not only to humanity but to EVERYTHING, even God Himself—if Jesus Christ had failed, given in to temptation, or sinned?; what constitutes personhood; co-equality among all three Persons of the Godhead; the role of the Holy Spirit; and responses to non-Trinitarian objections to the triune nature of God. At the beginning of the first module, Rosario warned, “It is essentially impossible to fully grasp the idea of the nature of God.” Asscherick added, “Even if we had the perfect language, who God actually is is an infinity beyond.”

It was intense and fascinating.

As I sat listening intently while typing and watching Asscherick’s dynamic, full-body gesturing, I felt intellectually challenged. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge after a few years of not experiencing a discussion or topic requiring such a high level of contemplation and evaluation. (I have been working on my Bachelors in Multimedia Design and Development with an emphasis in web design and development, but this area has been my hobby since 1998 and my profession since 2008 so much of my courseload was not new or challenging for me. But I enjoy—perhaps it is best described as thrive under—challenges.)

In the front row with my Macbook on my lap and fingers a’blur, I was able to take decently detailed notes of the entire seminar presentation and even snap a few photos (which was more difficult than it ought since the assembly hall was rather dark, Rosario stayed on the other side of the room, and Asscherick can barely remain still for a few seconds). The notes I took are available in PDF below if anyone is interested, and the audio recording of the seminar is now available on GYC website. As a disclaimer, the following notes may have some spelling and grammatical errors, and I may have missed in my review writing out some of the abbreviations I used when typing; for example, HS = Holy Spirit, OT = Old Testament, NT = New Testament, etc. However, in spite of a very busy schedule with hardly any free time, I did look up and include the Spirit of Prophecy references and also confirmed a few other details including book titles, historical events, names, dates, etc.

Module I: The Holy Spirit – Foundational Principles
Part I Audio | Part II Audio | PDF Notes

Module II: The Holy Spirit – Theological Realities:
Audio| PDF Notes

Module III: The Holy Spirit – Apologetic Issues:
Audio | PDF Notes

Instead of repeating the seminar nearly word-for-word, I will simply allow Asscherick and Rosario to do the talking in the audio recordings (now available). In summary, I will leave you with the four-fold work of the Holy Spirit, as articulated by Rosario and Asscherick. “The primary work of the Spirit of God is to magnify Jesus, so if we do not intend to magnify Christ in our lives, the Holy Spirit will have no place in our life,” said Rosario.

The Holy Spirit works:

1. on us to convict and convert (See John 16:8.)
2. in us to confirm and change (See Romans 8:5-10 and Galatians 5:17)
3. for us to comfort and communicate (See Romans 8:20)
4. through us to co-labor and reach the community (See the book of Acts)