Revolution -- Saturday

The next day, we got them all up and headed down to the convention center for the morning sessions. Robin, Kim and I left to go to a youth leader session. It was incredible to be in a room of several hundred youth leaders. Greg spoke to us about what we should do to follow up and keep the revolution going. The main focus was that groups tend to think they can only go deep or go wide, but not both. He thinks not only can we, we must. It was very confirming in what I had felt God placed on me as a vision for this group. One of the interesting stats he threw at us was that 90% of teens say they would come to group if invited by one of their friends.

After that, we headed back into the main area for the last session before lunch. I guess that the first session was about Looking Up, this one was on Looking In. Its focus was on how to transforming the way you look at yourself. You can then find what your natural skills are and what your supernatural skills are. All in all a pretty good session. We then broke for lunch and had a nice walk outside. We then came back for the last session which dealt with the G.O.S.P.E.L. Journey. This was teach the kids about sharing the Gospel with someone. We each learned what style we had (I am a Buddy). We then practiced sharing with each other. Then we all piled in to the cars and headed out to our neighborhood.

This was the most emotional part of the conference. The things that I felt were amazing. I was scared, nervous, excited, hopeful. Just knowing that we were going to share was amazing. I could feel the energy from the kids. Then it turned to fear when we got out of the cars and looked around. A good friend once said you can walk in fear or you can walk in faith, but you can't do both. I chose to walk in faith. Once we drew our circle and prayed, we all went our different directions.

Let me tell you, these people amazed me. Some of our kids said that they though that they should be bringing them food, not asking for any. My two girls did great. They started off slow, but after awhile, it became easier and easier. I had reports from the other groups that were similar. One of our kids came up to me just beaming because she got to share the Gospel with someone. It was an amazing feeling to see them so excited. Our afternoon was capped off with the same kid as before sharing the Gospel again and one of our leaders leading two young men to the Lord. Most of the group was around by this time and all got to share in this blessing. We continue to pray that they will find a church to get themselves plugged into.

Then back to the C.C. to drop off the food, grab some dinner for ourselves and back for the final session. This session was to cover what giant was in our life that we needed to overcome. "So David triumphed over the Philistine giant with only a stone and a sling." 1 Samuel 17:50 That was the theme of the whole weekend, becoming a giant slayer. Finally a concert by Starfield that was great. Loud music, bright lights and kids jumping up and down. What more could you ask for. It was just a beautiful day to spend with Him.

Look out, the Revolution has started! "Friday"

What an amazing event! It was all that I had thought it would be and more. For those that have not gone to one of these Dare2Share conferences, I would highly suggest it. Here is the rundown of the weekend.

Friday nite: Welcome, some praise and worship, and a drama to make you think.

Saturday: Teaching sessions all morning and one after lunch, Outreach, session and concert.

Seems short and sweet, but man what a punch it packs. The whole idea is to equip teens to share their faith. This is something that I struggle with and when the chance came up for us to go to this, I jumped at it. I have felt for awhile that this was the direction God was taking this group. We need to be out reaching the teens in our neighborhood. This was the first step. So how was it? I will post testimonies as the kids get them to me, but everyone was affected by going. I have so much to say, that I don't even know where to start!

We arrived friday at our host church Beechwold Christian in Columbus and met some very nice folks trying to make our visit great. We then headed downtown and got in the conference and started right away with some praise and worship. Then Greg gave an opening welcome and then a prayer for the kids to commit to become LOSERS! (This is based on Matthew 10:39). We then watched a drama that brought tears to my eyes. One of our boys was affected by this, but did not want to say what was wrong, so we just prayed for him. (more on him later) We then went back to the church (which had pizza waiting for us) and had a small discussion about what happened and what was expected the next day. Lots of good questions and plenty of discussion (thanks to all my youth leaders that came with us). Then they were kids and stayed up till around three in the morning.

Here we go again!

Well, I hope that all of you had a great holiday season. Now that the festivities are all over, we are all probably trying to stick to our new years resolutions. Did you all make any? I don't really think that I did. I did however try to recommit myself to be more diligent in certain areas of my life that I have let slack (so maybe that is making a new year's resolution).

I had an interesting conversation with one of my youth over the break (not so much a conversation as blogs and email) over her feelings towards youth group and God in general. In her personal life she has told me about several ups and downs and that may have led to her certain feelings towards all things related to God. She assured me that her relationship with God had not changed. I truly do believe her, but I am worried about her anyway.

In my reading (thanks again to Jim Cymbala) God has pointed me to Psalm 51:10-12:

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Thy presence, and do not take Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit."

This is incredible and I think I am going to try and make it my prayer for myself this new year. Let me point out three key parts here (again, thanks to Jim Cymbala).

First "Create in me a clean heart..." shows that he (David) is tired of telling God I'm sorry. I promise that I won't do it again (how many times have I done that). He realizes here that he can't do that anymore. So he asks God to "create" something new. Having a pure, clean heart is the core to becoming more like Christ.

"...renew a steadfast spirit within me." Here he is asking for a steadiness. This race that we are running is long and we need endurance to make it through. David is tired of all the ups and downs that came in his life (sound familiar). He not only wants to resist the temptations of this world one day, but every day. The key here is that he knows that he can't do it without God's help.

Finally, "... sustain me with a willing spirit." Not only does he want to be clean and steady, he wants to be willing. When God tells you "you should go talk to them" or "I don't think that would be good for you" we need to be willing to submit to Him and obey. The only way to do that (and David knew it) is by the power of God.

So how does all this tie in. As our youth (and us as adults as well) are faced with this world every day, I desire that they will learn who they are in Christ and to not to be swayed. I don't think any of us really want to have the roller coaster rides of life that we have. We need to believe that God's power can change our hearts. He can make us clean, steady and willing. All we have to do is come to Him knowing that he can do it!