Helping spiritually hungry students experience God and discover purpose and destiny.
// July 2nd, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Youth Ministry
I love the Skit Guys. I generally get to see them live at least every other year or so at the National Youth Worker Conventions that we attend. Most of you will probably recognize them from our opening camp video this past weekend: the “Pduh” safety video. “Click them out” here…
…and here’s a direct link to the “Pduh” video.
// July 1st, 2008 // No Comments » // Elevate Update, Gallery
Okay, wow! That was an amazing week of camp. I am SO BEAT and ABSOLUTELY TIRED, but at the same time SO FIRED UP and completely FULL OF GOD! It’s such a good feeling to come out of camp on the other end with so many students feeling like they met God “full on”!
Our guest speaker this year, Barry Bliss, of Black Buffalo Global Ministries, did an incredible job of challenging us with the EPIC challenge of the Gospel to go into all the world and love. We came home with flyers for details on a missions trip to Central America next summer and I couldn’t be more exicted! The testimonies that we’ve been hearing from the students have been nothing short of inspiring. I believe that everything we asked God for was accomplished this week. Check out these numbers:
I’m back at home now, resting before an evening softball game with one of my girls. Here’s the last “video of the day” from camp week, this one featuring several student testimonies…
// June 30th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Elevate Update, Gallery
Each day just keeps on getting better and better…
// June 30th, 2008 // No Comments » // Elevate Update
Another great day at camp and another video to show you what we’ve been up to…
// June 28th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Elevate Update
Wow! What a whirlwind… I hardly knew it before it was over…
We’re up here at Camp EPIC, the 2008 summer camp we hosting for our students at Kamp Kinship, twelve miles out from Deadwood/ Lead. …and day 1 is done!
Thanks to a team of great volunteers (and a incomparable summer intern), everything (set-up, registration, sound, lights, settling in, etc.) went so smooth. In fact, I had a hard time fathoming that I had a few extra minutes to just hang with students right before dinner. It was great!
God started moving on my heart, right from the start. I’ve come with such expectation that I kind of think I was almost bursting at the seams by the time I got here anyhow. The prayer time before the chapel was so meaningful to me. Even in the practice session with our worship band, I was tearing up over the goodness of God. God is just so good!
When we finally got to our first evening session, I think the anticipation in the students was high, too. I’d never seen our students jump in so easily to our praise and worship on the first night. WOW! We started with a Nooma video and a selah-moment. Tyler then shared a vision he had of clouds decending upon us and we jumped into singing “Tell the World” and “Sing Like the Saved” — so fun!
After that, we moved into a time of deeply personal worship with “Center”, “Refuse to Be Denied”, and “Rescue”. This is where I began to lose my composure. I felt led to lead students in a declaration and pray time for those wanting to “let themselves go” during worship time — and, for several, I think they did for the first time. Students were raising their hands, eyes closed, bowing down on their knees, tearing up all over the place. I had a hard time singing. Together, we made some big commitments and saw some pretty cool stuff that God was doing even before the worship was done.
As Barry came up to share for the first time, you could sense his heart and his passion for the students. He talked about the love of God, how our lives should be lived in an EPIC way for his glory, and also about the EPIC problem of sin. But we have an even bigger answer to that! There was at least one salvation last night and several that came up front to lay down some personal struggles at the altar. So incredible!
The late night activity was a lot of fun, too. We handcuffed and mouth-gagged our four GL’s (adult group leaders/chaperones) and had their students — in their coresponding teams — go out and search for them with flashlights. There was a very adventurous and “action-hero feel” to the night.
After that, the students got with their GL’s for group reflection before lights out and I went to the activities lodge to edit the following video to catalogue our first day. I hope you enjoy it!
Get student ministry updates via cell phone
