a new perspective.

"The people had a great impact on me and I believe I returned home with a different outlook from many who go on missions trips. People return to America and have this gratitude for all they have… but those are just things. These people have the power and presence of God. They have community, family, and are the true church. We need them to be missionaries here in the States."

This quote was posted on the Unmuted blog by Britney following her trip to Panamaquin, Guatemala. These thoughts have been stirring around in my mind...am I just feeling thankful for what I have? I know that these were my thought last year as I returned from the Mexico trip. This year, I want thoughts like Britney's when I go to Mexico and Zimbabwe. Lord, please give me a deeper understanding of these people and who they are.

sugarpine oh-nine.

wow, winter camp was amazing. there were so many powerful things that happened in the students that i couldn't even describe them all to you in one setting. i can say that i am so glad that everyone that went ended up there because everyone walked away with a new understanding of who God is and where He is leading them.

there was more snow on the mountain this year then i have ever seen. epic built a fort in the middle of the field, and everyone else turned on us. there was a huge snow ball fight on saturday that lasted for hours. i was attacked, josiah was stuck in the fort, and we created sneak attack plans. during the fight, adrianne and i got stuck past our waist in the snow and i thought we were gone forever (or at least for a few weeks until all that snow melted).

worship was awesome, as always. kevin and the team were completely open to the spirit and were able to take the students to new heights in their worship. the speaker was awesome, as always. steve chavez brought the word in a hard, fast, and great way. he is possibly one of the greatest speakers i have had the opportunity to listen to.

all in all the weekend was amazing. i met some great new friends and reconnected with old ones. i created some friendships that will last a lifetime. there was insane hype surrounding winter camp, and it lived up to it and more.

on the road, again.

in about four hours i will be on the road again with EPIC. this time, our destination is sugarpine for winter camp. for me, winter camp is one of the greatest weekends of the year. we get to hide out in the beautiful mountains, with snow and friends for an awesome time of worship and reflection. there is just something about being far away from our everyday life that brings us together, and i love that feeling. bonus, kevin doyle is one of the best praise and worship leaders i have ever had the privilege of listening to, and he leads worship at winter camp every year. his ability to bring the worship out of every student is amazing to watch. plus, i actually get a chance to worship, something i miss from time to time being that i am a major part of the sound/tech aspect of both our youth services and sunday services here at home.

so, be prepared for a trip recap come tuesday. see you on the other side of the weekend.

another wednesday.

christmas is making me crazy. i have so many things to get done, and i feel like i have no time to get it done in. this happens to me every year, because i am a HUGE procrastinator. i have to finish MAKING 9 christmas presents, buy two more, rap at least ten others. whew. christmas is making me crazy.

in other news, tonight is the last EPIC youth night of 2008. its been a great year, and i hate to see it go. but, i know that next year is going to be crazy. i can't wait to see what God has in store for our little youth group in the months ahead. also, tonight is the last night Lorel will be joining us at EPIC for a while. she leaves in 12 days for basic with the army reserves. what am i going to do without my other half for a whole six months?!

also, only 196 days until zimbabwe. i cannot begin to describe how anxious i am for this trip to take place. i wish i could go right now, but i know that i have to be patient and wait for july...i just wish july was the next month and not january.

a thought just hit me regarding wednesdays and my youth group. we only have 52 wednesdays a year. when you cut out holidays and the like, this means we only meet for EPIC about 48 days a year. and from there, it could further be cut down because of theme nights, and trips where we don't see some of them. that means there is only about 40 days a year that we see these students, and only for about 2 hours a day. that's only 80 hours of the 8760 hours that they have for a whole year: .9% of their time is spent at church. less than 1%. what are we feeding them, spiritually, in these few moments we are together? are we equiping them enough to deal with the other 99% of their year that they don't spend with us? sure, they go on maybe one or two trips with us a year, and they might come on sundays, or to bible study every now and then. but, are we dealing with the ones who only come on wednesdays? or are we just telling them to come spend more time with us, but getting nowhere in discipling them?

goodness, i now see why kelly wants us to shake up how EPIC happens. i understood that he wanted us to go somewhere else, but now i really think i get it. i want the students to feel that they can turn to me with questions when they are out facing the world in those other times we aren't together. i want to make sure that with the 1% of time i have to show them how to fight in this spiritual battle they will be able to do just that in the other 99%. i want them to understand that they don't have to fight alone. with the 1% of time we are together, i want a community to be created. one where life can be shared outside the 1%, so maybe their 99% doesn't seem so unatainable.

my brain feels like it may explode....

meeting a hero.

yesterday was such an awesome day. alan and dorothy graham were in town to speak to the kids about missions and zimbabwe. but, before they spoke with the youth, shannon held a luncheon for them and some special guests to help getting funding to start up the graham’s new orphanage project “jabulani.” now more than ever, i am STOKED for zim. getting to meet the people who changed my life two years ago when i first heard about their life in zimbabwe was so amazing.

you might be asking yourself, how did they change her life without her even meeting them? well, the answer is simple: hearing their story and learning about the problems facing zimbabwe, i feel in love with the country. they changed the way i view my life here in the states, and how i view the world. they opened up my eyes to a part of life i had never seen, heard of, nor experienced.

and when i left last night, i said my good-byes to alan and dorothy. it wasn’t sad at all to see them go because i know i will see them again come july, only next time they will have the home field advantage…

youth convention recap.

wow! this year was totally different, in really awesome ways. for this year, each room was to stick together and do pretty much everything as one group. i thought that this was a great idea because it formed some really unique friendships among our students. here is a list of my top 11 moments from youth convention oh eight:

1. planetshakers live. their energy is infectious. because of their appearance at convention, i want to go an buy their cds and learn their songs. the lady that led all the slow songs was so powerful. she would speak words of encouragement during the chorus while everyone else was singing, and it was awesome.

2. jeff deyo. he did not disappoint the year. even though he was only there for two services, it just wouldn’t have been yc without him.

3. francis chan. he was the speaker for both night services, and he did an amazing job. he described what God is in a way i had never thought of before. he read from revelation where john paints the picture of what seeing God in heaven will be like. it was insane! then, after describing how great and awesome God is, he ended by picking up his little daughter and them embracing, asking in a small voice, “does your relationship with God look like this?”. WOW! he also gave some great insight into prayer. amazing.

4. seeing students lives change. this one speaks for itself. but i really love seeing a room full of 5,000 students with hands raised in worship to their Creator, crying tears of joy because of the peace they have made with Him, and with themselves. it was especially awesome for me this year because i am so much closer with the students then i have been in years past. plus, my brother was at convention this year.

5. the security. it just wouldn’t be youth convention if we didn’t get in trouble with security. this year was far worse, in a good way, then we have ever had. during switchfoot, we had at least six security guards watching us. michelle almost got kicked out, tyrone was chased by a little female guard, kelly got lectured twice by them. still, i’m pretty sure we had the best time of any youth group there.

6. insulin! ya, if you weren’t there, you won’t get this. but it was very funny. the same yell pattern was also used for words such as salad, ice cream, ice cold insulin, and various other things.

7. deliverage. the cool mix of vanguard’s delivery boys and entourage sketch comedy groups for just EPIC was a really fun way to end saturday night. we were laughing so hard, most of us left in tears.

8. all the pranks. i won’t go into details to describe all of them, but EPIC is full of people who just like to have fun and mess with other people in our group.

9. seeing a vision from ministry tour become reality. when we were at our last church on ministry tour, everyone was praying for one another, and when i went to pray for lorel, something weird happened that i had never experienced before. when i touched her, i saw a single flame rapidly becoming multiple flames spreading like wildfire through this area of land. i immediately started crying. her and i talked about it for a long time after that, and we didn’t really know what it meant. as the months rolled by, i didn’t think about it much. then, we were doing the see you at the pole post-rally, where chloe started a flame and we lit up the room, and i saw it again. this time, i was pretty sure why. i talked with lorel, and i discovered it was about paige. but, God told me to wait to talk about it. then, on saturday night at convention, i saw her go up for the altar call, and i knew it was time to let her in. i went up, told her the story, and we cried and hugged for a long time. she got it; she knew it was for her. i can’t wait to see where her flame ignites. this was a over five month wait, but it was so worth it.

10. the stairs. we were on the sixteenth floor, and taking the stairs was no fun at all. especially the time that no one told us we should get off on the fourth floor and dwight, tyrone, summer, cristel, brooke, and i ended up outside.

11. the trip home. it was going smoothly, then we stopped for food, and that is where it all began. coral face planted, and luckily there was a nurse in del taco to help make sure she was ok. then, a car accident happened right in front of arby’s, and jarrod had this weird sixth sense (what my brother called a seventh sense) that made him move like lightening to the cars to make sure everyone was alright before calling 911. after we left the lunch madness, we started our trip home. our bus began to lose tire pressure and the brakes were being funny, so we stopped to check that out. there, we saw what we swear was dog the bounty hunter, so we videotaped and waved at him. our tires were still being funny when we took off again, so the bus driver called for a new bus to come get us from a rest stop. the new bus, 10 seats less then our current bus. so, i crammed in the van full of boys for the last 45 minutes of the trip home.

all-in-all it was an amazing weekend. i just wish it would have been a little bit longer.

music is the greatest...

Just when I start to doubt my calling, God shows me in multiple ways that this is what I’m called to do. When insecurities take over, it is hard for me to get back in control of my thoughts, feelings, and emotions. I start to fear that all my failures make me inadequate for a life in ministry. Just as I was thinking this last night at EPIC, the praise and worship team began to play the final song, Mighty to Save.

"Saviour, He can move the mountains. My God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save. Forever, author of salvation. He rose and conquered the grave, Jesus conquered the grave.

Everyone needs compassion, love that's never failing, let mercy fall on me. Everyone needs forgiveness, the kindness of a Saviour, the hope of nations.

So take me as You find me, all my fears and failures, fill my life again. I give my life to follow everything I believe in, now I surrender.

Shine your light and let the whole world see we're singing for the glory of the risen King, Jesus. Shine your light and let the whole world see we're singing for the glory of the risen King."

The part that I made bold is the part of the song that got to me. And, to top it all off, Kelly told Jennifer Grasinger when I was standing right there that I was going to make a great pastor (apparently Katrina has been telling her the same thing at home).

Thanks, God. I hear you loud and clear…

where the rubber hits the road...

Sunday was by far the longest day of my life. When I finally arrived home after being gone over 13 hours, I felt drained, both physically and spiritually. The day started off pretty good, but as the hours rolled by, tension began to fill the air. I knew that it was going to be a different sort of Sunday, with Kelly being out of town and all, but I didn’t know it was going to be THIS different.

I won’t go into extreme detail here, but evil was taking hold of our youth worship team, and was trying to destroy everything they had been working so hard to attain. Egos were building up and crushing others, tempers were flaring. In the end, it seemed to be just a complete misunderstanding. However, this misunderstanding will have lasting effects on the hearts of the team. I know they can bounce back, but will it ever be the same?

So, why do we go through these things? Most of the time it is for us to realize that we must rely on God for everything. For when we lose sight of Him for just one moment, we can begin to sink fast. These struggles are also for us to realize how much we depend on each other, how much unity is a factor when it comes to us conquering evil. I learned Sunday that this conquering is a daily struggle. I learned that no matter how hard you try, you cannot get away from it once and for all. But I also learned that it is through God that we can overcome these little bumps in the path to Him and His plan for our lives.

On days like Sunday I begin to wonder if I really am cut out for this youth pastor thing…but it is also on these days that I really begin to understand why I am called to be a youth pastor…

Its complicated, but could I really live my life any other way?