Youth Celebration = a great weekend!

So this weekend I was honored to be a part of the team that was involved in shaping the South Georgia Conference’s Youth Celebration event. I was one of the two folks who helped write all the talks, devotions, small group times as well as recruit talent (worship leaders, speaker and drama folks.) This event is a great one that serves smaller churches in the conference extremely well. The average youth group there seemed to be in the 10-12 kid range and was ran by part-time or volunteer youth directors. I love those kind of groups and seeing God at work in them. All total there was just over 500 people there.

Some of the highlights for me:

• Being able to partner with Keith, Brianna and Kevin. All three of them were put in my life path during my time at Cornerstone. All are excellent people and gifted. They gave up a weekend when there was much more for them to do in order to share their talents. It was bittersweet in the fact that I still wish we were all in one place, sharing life and ministry together. But who knows…. maybe our great God may pull us back into one place again. (Consider this a free opportunity for you all to move to Franklin at any point.)
• Being in ministry with my friend Brian. He and I were once part of a fantastic retreat ministry that slowly fell apart, with my departure first and his second. There were some significant wounds there but over time, God has allowed us to slowly come back together and do ministry together. And he did a fantastic job in delivering talks and sharing his heart.
• Watching people. It is very cool to be in an event where you aren’t carrying a lot of water yourself. I was able just to chill, worship and watch others worship. I was really touched by an older kid reaching out and encouraging a younger student in worship on Saturday morning. A little picture of what I’d like to see us grow into here at my church.
• The band. These were all guys I knew from different places and they pulled together and made it work. All of them are involved in ministry and all of them put worship before performance. They connected with the crowd (both on and off stage) and they did well. Highlights: Seeing them perform “Jesus Freaks” and their Saturday rendition of Redman’s “You Never Let Go” which was a theme song for me from May through July.
• Just being able to be renewed. This last stretch here has been a challenging one for a lot of reasons, without an obvious place for me to renew and refill. This weekend was a great one for that reason.
• Knowing lives were changed. All weekend we looked at different people’s encounters with Jesus and how their lives are changed. We looked at Zacchaeus, (How do we see God?), the Rich Young Ruler (Are we willing to give up the idols in our lives), the woman caught in adultery, (Jesus changed her past, present and future) and the woman at the well (Sharing with others when Jesus changes your life.)

Sometimes I am blown away by how great and good God is to me and allows me to work with His people...