Alabama Youth Convention 2008
This past weekend our youth ministry “2Eleven” took a group of 20 students to Birmingham, AL for a youth convention. It was an awesome time! Basically, it was a conventions about getting closer to God in experience and challenging the student to step out in faith and use their mouths as a weapon. A weapon to conquer the world… for Jesus Kingdom, of course. That was just one of the messages, but that was one that stuck out to me. There was a challenge to use our mouths to tell others the Gospel. That being a Christian isn’t just about “not sinning.” It’s about being holy as He is holy, yes, but it’s about seeing people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus. That is the only currency that matters in Heaven, lost souls being saved. So not sinning is important of course and it’s one of our goals, but it’s not for the sake of being good. We must live holy to 1. obey God and 2. it helps to confirm our witness.
Like i said, that was just one of the many things that was mentioned this weekend.
It was awesome seeing all of the students that went on this trip connect with God. I really believe that God did some lasting things in their lives and i’m looking forward to seeing those students live their lives out in the open for the sake of the Kingdom of God. He really helped the students to connect with each other too. And of course, we as leaders, were able to connect with them. A great weekend.
One thing that God spoke to me goes right along with “blessed are those who have not seen and still believe,” what Jesus said to Thomas after he raised from the dead. It’s this, blessed are those who believe even when they don’t FEEL it. This in my mind has more to do with emotion. Sometimes i’m emotional and other times i’m not. God showed me that He will honor our faith and trust even when it’s hard because we don’t “feel” it. Of course i knew that, but it IS harder to believe when you don’t feel or your emotions aren’t worked up. I believe that our emotions will follow our faith, we can’t let our faith follow our emotions… because God knows what our emotions are like at times.
I hope anyone who read this didn’t think it was too long and rambling!
Thanks to Jeremy, Melanie, Cody, Shellie, Ashlee, and of course Bethany for all your hard work and help this weekend. It was awesome to see you all connecting with our students!
