One of my favorite things to do with my youth group is have late night worship. These are the times when we get rid of all of the craziness of daily life and focus solely on God and worshiping him. They are some of the most impactful times in our relationship with God.
We all show up at our church at 10:00pm and listen to worship music, have times of prayer, read scriptures and just spend our time in worship of God. Sometimes we would take breaks for snacks and time to fellowship with each other. However, most times we were just so in the presence of God that we don't realize how fast time was going past.
These times were when we would be able to refresh, to get back on track with God. It's when we were able to put aside whatever was going wrong that day or week and to just be in awe of who God is.
Worship is what we were all born to do. Whether you worship by singing, painting, dancing, playing an instrument, it is what we are on this Earth for. We are not here to make a lot of money or to have the most stuff, our entire life and being is to glorify God.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Irritating the Old
One thing my youth group loves to do is talk to other people about Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the way that He works in our lives and in our youth group. We all love talking about Jesus and worship and just being active members of the Body of Christ. However, the older people in our church do not really appreciate it all as much as we do. They do not approve of the worship music we listen to or the idea that we talk a lot and function in the Holy Sprit.
As a youth group we decided to have a youth Sunday. This meant that the youth were in charge of the whole service. We decided on the songs, we told testimonies, we picked the scriptures, we said the prayers, and Ryan gave the message. It was totally run by the youth and our youth pastor. The best part was we never told the congregation before hand that we were doing this, we didn't tell them so that the old members would still show up.
Most people in our churched loved the service. A lot of them were amazed by the testimonies we had of the total strangers we prayed for. Quite a few came up to us saying "I can't believe you guys prayed for total strangers. I never would have had the guts to do that". It was very cool to hear how proud of us they were. However, it was a little disheartening to hear that they didn't think they would be able to do the same thing.
The biggest disappointment about the whole service was that most of the older people couldn't get past the music. They could not see beyond the fact that we played music that had drums and lots of singers and was incredibly up beat. That was all they focused on, they did not see anything about the rest of the service because they only saw the loud music.
I think this happens to a lot of us. We see one thing about a church, a person, or whatever it might be, and that's all we focus on. We do not allow ourselves to look beyond those things and then we miss out on all the incredible things the person, church, or group has to offer.
As a youth group we decided to have a youth Sunday. This meant that the youth were in charge of the whole service. We decided on the songs, we told testimonies, we picked the scriptures, we said the prayers, and Ryan gave the message. It was totally run by the youth and our youth pastor. The best part was we never told the congregation before hand that we were doing this, we didn't tell them so that the old members would still show up.
Most people in our churched loved the service. A lot of them were amazed by the testimonies we had of the total strangers we prayed for. Quite a few came up to us saying "I can't believe you guys prayed for total strangers. I never would have had the guts to do that". It was very cool to hear how proud of us they were. However, it was a little disheartening to hear that they didn't think they would be able to do the same thing.
The biggest disappointment about the whole service was that most of the older people couldn't get past the music. They could not see beyond the fact that we played music that had drums and lots of singers and was incredibly up beat. That was all they focused on, they did not see anything about the rest of the service because they only saw the loud music.
I think this happens to a lot of us. We see one thing about a church, a person, or whatever it might be, and that's all we focus on. We do not allow ourselves to look beyond those things and then we miss out on all the incredible things the person, church, or group has to offer.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Coming Back To Reality
This week I am going to talk a little bit about what it was like coming back from our week down in North Carolina. Honestly coming back is one of the hardest things. When you are at a retreat or a work camp you are in a little bubble where you are constantly surrounded by Worship and people who are just focusing on God. We did not have our phones so we didn't have any outside influence. The whole week was just purely focused on God and doing work for His kingdom.
The worst part about coming back is being bombarded by temptations and evil. During the week we were in North Carolina when we had free time we would read scripture or play games or be in times of worship. There was not Facebook, no Twitter, no T.V., there was no media of any kind. Coming back home and having media all around you again is incredibly draining. We were so connected with God that week because we were free from the distractions of media and other such things. Once we were back home we were all under attack from the enemy and just distracted by media and the stresses of everyday life.
In order to keep that solid connection with God we had to work so much harder than we did during the work camp week. To be honest, I don't think any of us succeeded. It is so incredibly difficult to be so connected to every one and everything and still have such a strong connection to God.
I want to challenge you to take an hour, a day, or a week and disconnect. Wether you do it now, or sometime this summer, you should definitely try it. Taking a step back from social media, your cell phone, T.V., movies, and secular music can do amazing things to strengthen your relationship with God. Now, just because you aren't doing those things doesn't mean you should fill all of that extra time with random things, or just nothing at all. You should spend the extra time you have in prayer, reading scripture, and listening to worship music. It is a wonderful way to become closer with God and start a more personal relationship with Him.
The worst part about coming back is being bombarded by temptations and evil. During the week we were in North Carolina when we had free time we would read scripture or play games or be in times of worship. There was not Facebook, no Twitter, no T.V., there was no media of any kind. Coming back home and having media all around you again is incredibly draining. We were so connected with God that week because we were free from the distractions of media and other such things. Once we were back home we were all under attack from the enemy and just distracted by media and the stresses of everyday life.
In order to keep that solid connection with God we had to work so much harder than we did during the work camp week. To be honest, I don't think any of us succeeded. It is so incredibly difficult to be so connected to every one and everything and still have such a strong connection to God.
I want to challenge you to take an hour, a day, or a week and disconnect. Wether you do it now, or sometime this summer, you should definitely try it. Taking a step back from social media, your cell phone, T.V., movies, and secular music can do amazing things to strengthen your relationship with God. Now, just because you aren't doing those things doesn't mean you should fill all of that extra time with random things, or just nothing at all. You should spend the extra time you have in prayer, reading scripture, and listening to worship music. It is a wonderful way to become closer with God and start a more personal relationship with Him.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Friends To Family In Just One Week
Okay, so by everything that I've told you so far you might be thinking that since my youth group is so small and we do lots of awesome stuff together that we have always been incredibly close and very good friends, well boy would you be wrong. Now that's not to say that we weren't all friends the whole time, but we weren't always as close as we are now.
In our church the one thing that the Senior High youth group (grades 9-12) got to do every summer was go on a work camp. Growing up in the church my friends and I were all so excited to be in the Senior High so that we could go on the work camps and retreats and all the fun stuff that they got to do. Well, lets just say we were disappointed. I was in the youth group for 4 years, and only ever went on one work camp. Now, this is not me being all angry and upset that everyone else got to go on four and I only got to do one, that's not the point of this at all. You just need to understand that we were just frustrated at the time because it was something that was expected and once my class became freshman the whole idea of work camp seemed to be thrown to the way side.
So it was my Senior year of high school and I had never been on a work camp, and lets just say the whole youth group, myself included, was determined to make sure that the summer that coming summer we would be going on a work camp. Believe it or not, we got it all stored out. Our youth pastor, Ryan, found us an organization to go with and we found a week and place and it was all set. We spent the week of July 13-20 2013 in North Carolina.
Lets just say if we thought we were close and all good friends before we went down there, we were dead wrong. There is something about a 14 hour van ride with ten people and then working in the July heat and humidity in North Carolina that really brings people together. If you ever feel like you need to be closer with someone sign up to do a summer work camp with them somewhere in the south, it will really bring you together!
We left to go down there as a youth group and we came back as a family. I grew closer with those nine other people in one week than I had the whole 18 years I had been going to that church. That's not to say that I was not good friends with them before, but during that week our friendships were tested, pushed, and ultimately strengthened.
I will let you guys in on some of the details of the trip in one of my next posts, but for now I just want to encourage you that if you are thinking about volunteering to do a work camp or even just work in your community this summer that you should definitely get some people together and do it. It will bring you all closer to God and each other and will be an experience you will never forget!
In our church the one thing that the Senior High youth group (grades 9-12) got to do every summer was go on a work camp. Growing up in the church my friends and I were all so excited to be in the Senior High so that we could go on the work camps and retreats and all the fun stuff that they got to do. Well, lets just say we were disappointed. I was in the youth group for 4 years, and only ever went on one work camp. Now, this is not me being all angry and upset that everyone else got to go on four and I only got to do one, that's not the point of this at all. You just need to understand that we were just frustrated at the time because it was something that was expected and once my class became freshman the whole idea of work camp seemed to be thrown to the way side.
So it was my Senior year of high school and I had never been on a work camp, and lets just say the whole youth group, myself included, was determined to make sure that the summer that coming summer we would be going on a work camp. Believe it or not, we got it all stored out. Our youth pastor, Ryan, found us an organization to go with and we found a week and place and it was all set. We spent the week of July 13-20 2013 in North Carolina.
Lets just say if we thought we were close and all good friends before we went down there, we were dead wrong. There is something about a 14 hour van ride with ten people and then working in the July heat and humidity in North Carolina that really brings people together. If you ever feel like you need to be closer with someone sign up to do a summer work camp with them somewhere in the south, it will really bring you together!
We left to go down there as a youth group and we came back as a family. I grew closer with those nine other people in one week than I had the whole 18 years I had been going to that church. That's not to say that I was not good friends with them before, but during that week our friendships were tested, pushed, and ultimately strengthened.
I will let you guys in on some of the details of the trip in one of my next posts, but for now I just want to encourage you that if you are thinking about volunteering to do a work camp or even just work in your community this summer that you should definitely get some people together and do it. It will bring you all closer to God and each other and will be an experience you will never forget!
Thursday, March 20, 2014
The Search
This week I am going to take a step back from going through the whole explanation of what my youth group has been up to and the things we have been learning and doing. Instead I am going to talk a little bit about what it was like coming to college and starting to attend a church here. As I mentioned before I had never been to a Sunday service other than the one at my church, so coming to college and going to a bunch of new churches was quite an experience.
The hardest part of the transition to college was not finding, trying, and exploring new churches, but it was the fact that I wasn't going to be at my church every Sunday. My church is relatively small and everyone knows everyone else, and to be honest we are all related to at least 3 other people in the church, outside of our immediate family. We are all close knit and leaving that was difficult. There is something comforting about knowing everyones name and having them all say hello to you and catch up with you each week.
It was especially hard leaving my youth group because they have become my brothers and sisters and I don't like not being able to see them each week. But as we all grow up we are going to start to move away from each other, that just makes the times that we are together even better though.
So the search for a church here began at a very large church that was in New Jersey. I don't know if you know anything about Hillsong churches but it reminded me of a Hillsong church. It was big and there were lots of people and a big worship band with lots of lights. I liked it a lot, however, I knew that it would not become my home church for college. As the weeks progressed and I tried numerous different churches, I eventually found a church that I enjoyed going to each week. It was very quaint and homey however, I was still incredibly aware of the fact that it was not my home church. In the end I came back after my first semester and found a church that I liked just a little more and have been attending there since.
Going to church at college is very different. After having a church where I feel so at home and then not being able to go there each week, is difficult. However, it is nice to experience different churches and see how different congregations join in worship. I am still very much partial to my home church and do miss attending there all year long, but with each passing week I am becoming a little more comfortable with the church that I am going to here.
The hardest part of the transition to college was not finding, trying, and exploring new churches, but it was the fact that I wasn't going to be at my church every Sunday. My church is relatively small and everyone knows everyone else, and to be honest we are all related to at least 3 other people in the church, outside of our immediate family. We are all close knit and leaving that was difficult. There is something comforting about knowing everyones name and having them all say hello to you and catch up with you each week.
It was especially hard leaving my youth group because they have become my brothers and sisters and I don't like not being able to see them each week. But as we all grow up we are going to start to move away from each other, that just makes the times that we are together even better though.
So the search for a church here began at a very large church that was in New Jersey. I don't know if you know anything about Hillsong churches but it reminded me of a Hillsong church. It was big and there were lots of people and a big worship band with lots of lights. I liked it a lot, however, I knew that it would not become my home church for college. As the weeks progressed and I tried numerous different churches, I eventually found a church that I enjoyed going to each week. It was very quaint and homey however, I was still incredibly aware of the fact that it was not my home church. In the end I came back after my first semester and found a church that I liked just a little more and have been attending there since.
Going to church at college is very different. After having a church where I feel so at home and then not being able to go there each week, is difficult. However, it is nice to experience different churches and see how different congregations join in worship. I am still very much partial to my home church and do miss attending there all year long, but with each passing week I am becoming a little more comfortable with the church that I am going to here.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
The Very First Time
So, I have talked about these "treasure hunts" before, and I'm sure you are all dying to know more about them and the experiences and stories that my youth group and I have acquired from them. So I will start with the first one that I was a part of. Due to circumstances which I do not remember, I was not able to attend the very first one so I do not have much information about it because although I was told about it I do not really remember much since I was not involved. So I will tell you about the whole groups second one, which was my first.
The very first time we were planning to go to a Hospital that is near our church and pray for some people. So we met at my church and went down to our youth room in the basement of my church. We all sat around and started with some worship music. All we did at first was let go of everything that was standing between us and God. All of those things that we were upset about or worried about whatever it might be we turned it over to God. We emptied ourselves out so He could fill us up with The Spirit.
After we had done that we just sat a listened. We were just listening to what God wanted to tell us and the clues He wanted to give us. Some people got words or phrases, others got images of people or objects, and some just got colors. Somethings were very strange and others didn't seem that weird.
I remember that night someone got the word baby, someone else got an image of a security guard, another got the color blue, and I got an image of someone with a cast on their arm and there were other words and images that people got as well. So we took our clues and set off to the local hospital.
Upon arriving there much to our surprise there was no one in the whole emergency room, not a single person. So we ventured on through the hospital trying to find people who matched our clues. We were struggling at first but then we decided that well, since someone has baby why not try the pediatric section. We headed towards there and to be honest we weren't expecting much because the hospital seemed pretty empty. When we got there the head nurse at the nurses station informed us that they only had one kid there, and guess what, it was a baby. We asked her if we were allowed to go back and pray for the baby and it's parents. She told us that she was only allowed to if the parents said it was okay, so we all said a quick prayer as she walked back to ask. When she came back she unlocked the door and let us in.
When we got back to the room we were greeted by a young couple who was standing next to the crib of their tiny little baby who was sick. They informed us that they had been there for a few days and that the doctors weren't really sure what was wrong with their child. After talking with them for a few minutes we asked if it would be alright if we prayed for their baby. Thankfully, they were very willing and allowed us to pray, so we prayed healing over their baby and when we were done the two incredibly grateful parents gave us a peaceful thank you, and we left.
Later, as we were leaving we did see a security guard and we were able to talk with him for a bit and then he let us pray for him. He didn't really have much he needed prayer for so we just prayed for whatever God spoke into us. After we prayed for him he showed us a few very cool magic tricks and entertained us for a while. It was wonderful to see the delight on his face every time he fooled us with one of his tricks.
No matter how many of these treasure hunts I do I will always be amazed by the crazy things that God throws into your mind that you think are so weird and will be of no relevance but ends up meaning the world to someone. It's amazing how many times you say one word and see it cut like a knife through people and they know that word was not from you but was from God because there's no way a total stranger would have known that.
I encourage you guys to start stepping out in your faith. You can practice this on your friends. To be honest it's much harder and more intimidating to try and get words from God for your friends because you already know so much about them so it's harder to tell if it's from your own mind or from God. However, it is good practice!
The very first time we were planning to go to a Hospital that is near our church and pray for some people. So we met at my church and went down to our youth room in the basement of my church. We all sat around and started with some worship music. All we did at first was let go of everything that was standing between us and God. All of those things that we were upset about or worried about whatever it might be we turned it over to God. We emptied ourselves out so He could fill us up with The Spirit.
After we had done that we just sat a listened. We were just listening to what God wanted to tell us and the clues He wanted to give us. Some people got words or phrases, others got images of people or objects, and some just got colors. Somethings were very strange and others didn't seem that weird.
I remember that night someone got the word baby, someone else got an image of a security guard, another got the color blue, and I got an image of someone with a cast on their arm and there were other words and images that people got as well. So we took our clues and set off to the local hospital.
Upon arriving there much to our surprise there was no one in the whole emergency room, not a single person. So we ventured on through the hospital trying to find people who matched our clues. We were struggling at first but then we decided that well, since someone has baby why not try the pediatric section. We headed towards there and to be honest we weren't expecting much because the hospital seemed pretty empty. When we got there the head nurse at the nurses station informed us that they only had one kid there, and guess what, it was a baby. We asked her if we were allowed to go back and pray for the baby and it's parents. She told us that she was only allowed to if the parents said it was okay, so we all said a quick prayer as she walked back to ask. When she came back she unlocked the door and let us in.
When we got back to the room we were greeted by a young couple who was standing next to the crib of their tiny little baby who was sick. They informed us that they had been there for a few days and that the doctors weren't really sure what was wrong with their child. After talking with them for a few minutes we asked if it would be alright if we prayed for their baby. Thankfully, they were very willing and allowed us to pray, so we prayed healing over their baby and when we were done the two incredibly grateful parents gave us a peaceful thank you, and we left.
Later, as we were leaving we did see a security guard and we were able to talk with him for a bit and then he let us pray for him. He didn't really have much he needed prayer for so we just prayed for whatever God spoke into us. After we prayed for him he showed us a few very cool magic tricks and entertained us for a while. It was wonderful to see the delight on his face every time he fooled us with one of his tricks.
No matter how many of these treasure hunts I do I will always be amazed by the crazy things that God throws into your mind that you think are so weird and will be of no relevance but ends up meaning the world to someone. It's amazing how many times you say one word and see it cut like a knife through people and they know that word was not from you but was from God because there's no way a total stranger would have known that.
I encourage you guys to start stepping out in your faith. You can practice this on your friends. To be honest it's much harder and more intimidating to try and get words from God for your friends because you already know so much about them so it's harder to tell if it's from your own mind or from God. However, it is good practice!
Thursday, March 6, 2014
An Unintentional Subculture
My youth group had been experiencing some incredible stuff through the power of The Holy Spirit. We were starting to dive deeper into scripture and worship. We were becoming totally consumed and were crazy in love with God. The only problem is, the rest of our church wasn't, and still isn't. Very slowly some people are starting to experience God the way we are and are joining us on our journey.
However, over the next few months we were all giving different testimonies in front of our church about the experiences we had praying for others and the different things we had been doing through The Holy Spirit. Every time we would share our experiences most of our congregation would come up to us and tell us about how brave we were to pray for strangers and how they would never have the guts to do that and that we were doing great things. Although, none of them seemed to be interested in what we were really doing. They thought it was cool for us to be doing all of this stuff, but they didn't really know how they felt about it or want anything to do with it.
Since we were experiencing all of these things and we were so in love and completely consumed by our relationships with Jesus and the rest of our church was not it was like we had a mini subculture growing within our church. We didn't mean for it to happen and it is not necessarily a bad thing because no one is rude about any of it. It's just rather interesting to observe.
The two groups of people in my church are divided by one thing, but incredibly connected by another. We have our differences, but everyone does. We have learned to get along harmoniously and work well together as a body of Christ. It still bothers some of us that they aren't experiencing or understanding The Holy Spirit the way we are, but you can't force anyone into it so we just do our best to love on our church and let God do His work.
My church has its own website which you can find here if you would like to check it out. They keep an up to date calendar so you can see what we are up to and there is also different information about our church and the different things we do within the church.
However, over the next few months we were all giving different testimonies in front of our church about the experiences we had praying for others and the different things we had been doing through The Holy Spirit. Every time we would share our experiences most of our congregation would come up to us and tell us about how brave we were to pray for strangers and how they would never have the guts to do that and that we were doing great things. Although, none of them seemed to be interested in what we were really doing. They thought it was cool for us to be doing all of this stuff, but they didn't really know how they felt about it or want anything to do with it.
Since we were experiencing all of these things and we were so in love and completely consumed by our relationships with Jesus and the rest of our church was not it was like we had a mini subculture growing within our church. We didn't mean for it to happen and it is not necessarily a bad thing because no one is rude about any of it. It's just rather interesting to observe.
The two groups of people in my church are divided by one thing, but incredibly connected by another. We have our differences, but everyone does. We have learned to get along harmoniously and work well together as a body of Christ. It still bothers some of us that they aren't experiencing or understanding The Holy Spirit the way we are, but you can't force anyone into it so we just do our best to love on our church and let God do His work.
My church has its own website which you can find here if you would like to check it out. They keep an up to date calendar so you can see what we are up to and there is also different information about our church and the different things we do within the church.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Driven By Desire
Growing up in a Brethren Church, there is one thing that no one really talks about, The Holy Spirit. Now, I'm not entirely sure why this is not mentioned much in my church. I think partly because the power that comes with The Holy Spirit scares a lot of people and when you go to a conservative church no one really wants to talk about it. That is not to say that we do not believe in The Holy Spirit as Brethren's, because we do. And it is talked about, but only in the sense of we believe in the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Aside from that, nothing else is really mentioned. We definitely never talked about the cool things you can do through The Holy Spirit, like speaking in tongues, prophecy, healings and so on.
So over the course of the next few months after my youth group and I had been introduced to true, passionate worship we had fallen head over heels in love with it and in love with God. We wanted to be in worship constantly and were driven by a desire to know Him more and see what He wanted us to be doing for His kingdom.
It was no longer enough to just stay confined to our church and be experiencing God's love and mercy there and keeping it all to ourselves. We wanted to spread His love. We wanted to be lights in our community and share with others. We could no longer contain the love we had for God and needed a way to share that. But not only that, we wanted to know more about Him. We felt this incredible love, but what could we do with it? We wanted to know how we could impact the world and make a change.
So Ryan felt that the next step in drawing closer to God would be to introduce us to The Holy Spirit. He started out by talking about it at bible study and giving us scriptures to read that talked about The Holy Spirit and finding our Spiritual Gifts.
After learning about this for a while he introduced us to some pretty inspiring videos. Now generally when we were told that we were going to watch a movie at bible study or in Sunday School no one was excited. We never looked forward to them because the movies we were shown were rather boring and cheesy. However, these videos were anything but boring, and far from cheesy.
We watched a series of videos put out by Wanderlust Productions. These videos wrecked everything for us, in the most beautiful and desirable way. The first video in the series is called Finger of God. This video was all about the miraculous. It is directed by a man named Darren Wilson who traveled all over the world recording miracles. That's not all it is though. The video is about the heart of God. It shows us how God is desperately seeking after us and how He wants to be close to us. It is about how God views each and every one of us and what happens when He places His finger in our life.
One of the most incredible parts of the movie was when Darren went to California. He visited a college that on Friday nights the students who attended there would do "treasure hunts". Now let me tell you, these are not your average treasure hunts. They are Godly, Spiritual treasure hunts. They start out with a time of prayer and meditation. The students would all sit in a room together and just pray out and then listen to what God wanted to tell them. He would give them words and images. Then, everyone would discuss what they got from God and they would go off into the town and find people who fit the clues. When they found the people they would pray for them and sit and talk with them and just love on them. They weren't shoving the Gospel down anyones throats, they were just loving on them.
These treasure hunts inspired my youth group to do our own version of them. We have done quite a few since watching the video for the first time. However, you will have to wait until another post to hear what they were like and what all happened during them. But these videos have radically changed how we view God and how we think God views us. Each one of us now has our own personal very intimate relationship with Him and it is the most amazing and precious relationship to have.
If you are like I was and do not know much about The Holy Spirit and what is possible when you allow The Spirit to work through you, I challenge you to start to seek that out. However, let me warn you, once you seek out The Spirit you will be wrecked. That's not something that should scare you, it should excite you. It will give you a whole new idea of what it means to be a Christian.
If you are curious about the videos by Wanderlust Productions you can find them on their website, www.wpfilm.com. The other two videos that he has put out since Finger of God are, Furious Love and Father of Lights. They are incredible and worth watching if you desire to know more about who God really is and what He is doing in the world right now.
So over the course of the next few months after my youth group and I had been introduced to true, passionate worship we had fallen head over heels in love with it and in love with God. We wanted to be in worship constantly and were driven by a desire to know Him more and see what He wanted us to be doing for His kingdom.
It was no longer enough to just stay confined to our church and be experiencing God's love and mercy there and keeping it all to ourselves. We wanted to spread His love. We wanted to be lights in our community and share with others. We could no longer contain the love we had for God and needed a way to share that. But not only that, we wanted to know more about Him. We felt this incredible love, but what could we do with it? We wanted to know how we could impact the world and make a change.
So Ryan felt that the next step in drawing closer to God would be to introduce us to The Holy Spirit. He started out by talking about it at bible study and giving us scriptures to read that talked about The Holy Spirit and finding our Spiritual Gifts.
After learning about this for a while he introduced us to some pretty inspiring videos. Now generally when we were told that we were going to watch a movie at bible study or in Sunday School no one was excited. We never looked forward to them because the movies we were shown were rather boring and cheesy. However, these videos were anything but boring, and far from cheesy.
We watched a series of videos put out by Wanderlust Productions. These videos wrecked everything for us, in the most beautiful and desirable way. The first video in the series is called Finger of God. This video was all about the miraculous. It is directed by a man named Darren Wilson who traveled all over the world recording miracles. That's not all it is though. The video is about the heart of God. It shows us how God is desperately seeking after us and how He wants to be close to us. It is about how God views each and every one of us and what happens when He places His finger in our life.
This is the cover of the movie case. If you ever want to go watch it this is what the front should look like.
One of the most incredible parts of the movie was when Darren went to California. He visited a college that on Friday nights the students who attended there would do "treasure hunts". Now let me tell you, these are not your average treasure hunts. They are Godly, Spiritual treasure hunts. They start out with a time of prayer and meditation. The students would all sit in a room together and just pray out and then listen to what God wanted to tell them. He would give them words and images. Then, everyone would discuss what they got from God and they would go off into the town and find people who fit the clues. When they found the people they would pray for them and sit and talk with them and just love on them. They weren't shoving the Gospel down anyones throats, they were just loving on them.
These treasure hunts inspired my youth group to do our own version of them. We have done quite a few since watching the video for the first time. However, you will have to wait until another post to hear what they were like and what all happened during them. But these videos have radically changed how we view God and how we think God views us. Each one of us now has our own personal very intimate relationship with Him and it is the most amazing and precious relationship to have.
If you are like I was and do not know much about The Holy Spirit and what is possible when you allow The Spirit to work through you, I challenge you to start to seek that out. However, let me warn you, once you seek out The Spirit you will be wrecked. That's not something that should scare you, it should excite you. It will give you a whole new idea of what it means to be a Christian.
If you are curious about the videos by Wanderlust Productions you can find them on their website, www.wpfilm.com. The other two videos that he has put out since Finger of God are, Furious Love and Father of Lights. They are incredible and worth watching if you desire to know more about who God really is and what He is doing in the world right now.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
It Started With One Man and a Worship Song
My youth group and church has gone through a lot over the years. We have had youth pastors come and go and different couples work to try and be advisors of our youth group. However, I'm not going to give you all of that background information quite yet. I'm going to start off with the beginning of a new journey we started.
It was my sophomore year of high school when we hired our new youth pastor Ryan. I personally was very skeptical of him because I had seen numerous other people attempt to come in and help the youth grow their faith and build a solid spiritual foundation. Most of those attempts did not end well at all. However, my parents told me they thought I would really like him and that he was different so I was suppose to give him a chance.
At first he seemed like all of the others. He would tell us the same exact bible stories that we all heard every year. At this point most of us could practically recite them word for word. We did not want to just hear those stories anymore, we wanted more than that. We all were looking for something deeper. We didn't want to just hear about the Jesus in these stories, we wanted to know him and have a personal relationship with him the only problem was, we had no idea how to do that. Thankfully, Ryan knew how.
He started with worship. He used one song in particular. None of us had heard it before, to be honest none of us really knew how to worship or what it meant. It was not something we were taught or did growing up. But Ryan knew all about it and was ready to show and teach us. So he played the song "With Everything" by Hillsong for us. He didn't tell us anything about the song. He just told us to sit there silently and listen, and we did. We sat still and quiet through the whole song and when it was over he asked what we thought. We all said we liked it and that it was a good song. Then he asked how long we thought the song was. We all answered 2 maybe 3 minutes. Much to our dismay the song was 10 minutes long. We had no idea. And that was it, we were all sold. We found a way to get close to Jesus, and it was through music.
This song was the start of everything. It was how we knew Ryan was different from all the other youth pastors we've had and how we knew he was going to change our lives and our relationship with Jesus. This song was the beginning of the journey for all of us. Below is the song. I hope you listen to it and fall in love with it the way we all did. It holds a lot of meaning to me and the rest of my youth group. Who knows, maybe this song will introduce you to worship and give you a deeper more personal relationship with Jesus.
It was my sophomore year of high school when we hired our new youth pastor Ryan. I personally was very skeptical of him because I had seen numerous other people attempt to come in and help the youth grow their faith and build a solid spiritual foundation. Most of those attempts did not end well at all. However, my parents told me they thought I would really like him and that he was different so I was suppose to give him a chance.
At first he seemed like all of the others. He would tell us the same exact bible stories that we all heard every year. At this point most of us could practically recite them word for word. We did not want to just hear those stories anymore, we wanted more than that. We all were looking for something deeper. We didn't want to just hear about the Jesus in these stories, we wanted to know him and have a personal relationship with him the only problem was, we had no idea how to do that. Thankfully, Ryan knew how.
He started with worship. He used one song in particular. None of us had heard it before, to be honest none of us really knew how to worship or what it meant. It was not something we were taught or did growing up. But Ryan knew all about it and was ready to show and teach us. So he played the song "With Everything" by Hillsong for us. He didn't tell us anything about the song. He just told us to sit there silently and listen, and we did. We sat still and quiet through the whole song and when it was over he asked what we thought. We all said we liked it and that it was a good song. Then he asked how long we thought the song was. We all answered 2 maybe 3 minutes. Much to our dismay the song was 10 minutes long. We had no idea. And that was it, we were all sold. We found a way to get close to Jesus, and it was through music.
This song was the start of everything. It was how we knew Ryan was different from all the other youth pastors we've had and how we knew he was going to change our lives and our relationship with Jesus. This song was the beginning of the journey for all of us. Below is the song. I hope you listen to it and fall in love with it the way we all did. It holds a lot of meaning to me and the rest of my youth group. Who knows, maybe this song will introduce you to worship and give you a deeper more personal relationship with Jesus.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
My Second Family
I'm Miranda Moore. I have gone to the same church since I was born. It wasn't until I came to college that I had ever attended a church service other than the church I had gone to my whole life. To some that may seem odd, but I wouldn't have had it any other way.
Before I jump right in and start telling you some pretty crazy stories about what my friends at church and I have experienced so far in our walk with God and just crazy stories in general I am going to need to give you some background information so that it will all make sense later.
The church that I attend at home and have been going to since I was born is the same church that my mother was raised in and has gone to all her life. It is called Akron Church of the Brethren. It is a rather small, conservative Brethren Church in Akron, Pennsylvania.
Most of you probably have no idea what Brethren is, or where Akron, Pennsylvania is. So let me explain, Akron is a tiny little town located in Lancaster County. Yes, where all the Amish are. No, I am not Amish, I am Brethren. Now on to what it means to be Brethren. The easiest way to explain it is that it is incredibly similar to being a Mennonite. So if you know anything about Mennonites we are kind of like that, but we also have our differences (it was once explained to me that the difference between Mennonites and Brethren is that Mennonites are good singers and well we Brethren are not at all).
There are many different forms of Brethren Churches; however, the Church I attend is like a combination of all of them. We are very conservative in some of our views: up until this year, we were not allowed to have drums in our church, we do not allow dancing of any kind to be done in our church, we believe in living at peace with everyone, and there are many other things.
There are also ways in which we are not as conservative, such as clothing. At my church we do not wear cape dresses and most of us do not wear coverings, although there are a few that do. The majority of us wear normal Sunday church clothes, nice pants, dress shirts, skirts, and dresses. There are even a few that wear jeans.
My church is relatively small and everyone in our church is related to at least 5 other people, so we are all just one big family. Since it is small that means we had small Sunday School classes growing up and an incredibly small youth group. My Sunday School class always consisted of me, my friend Kristen, and my cousin Matthew and that was it. Being that there was only three of us from the age of five until we were in seventh grade we got to be incredibly close.
Our youth group was a little bigger than three, but not by much. We generally have a total of eight people: Kyle, Cambrie, Jess, Megan, Kristen, Matthew, Ian, and myself. These are the eight people that I am the closest with and have grown so much with, both in my faith and just growing up. One might think that since there are not that many of us we wouldn't get along or we would fight a lot when we go on trips because we would get so tired of being with the same eight people all the time. Well, for us that's not the case. There's only eight of us so if you're mad at one person that only leaves you with six other people to talk to and well that would just get even more annoying. We are all very different but we all get along so well. Since we are so small there is no room for cliques so we all just hang out with everyone and we all love each other.
We have had so many adventures together and so many amazing times. I look forward to being able to share the good and bad times with you and hope that you are excited to hear about the crazy stuff we have done and the ways that The Lord is working in our lives and where we think we could be heading in the future.
Before I jump right in and start telling you some pretty crazy stories about what my friends at church and I have experienced so far in our walk with God and just crazy stories in general I am going to need to give you some background information so that it will all make sense later.
The church that I attend at home and have been going to since I was born is the same church that my mother was raised in and has gone to all her life. It is called Akron Church of the Brethren. It is a rather small, conservative Brethren Church in Akron, Pennsylvania.
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| My Church, Akron Church of the Brethren |
There are many different forms of Brethren Churches; however, the Church I attend is like a combination of all of them. We are very conservative in some of our views: up until this year, we were not allowed to have drums in our church, we do not allow dancing of any kind to be done in our church, we believe in living at peace with everyone, and there are many other things.
There are also ways in which we are not as conservative, such as clothing. At my church we do not wear cape dresses and most of us do not wear coverings, although there are a few that do. The majority of us wear normal Sunday church clothes, nice pants, dress shirts, skirts, and dresses. There are even a few that wear jeans.
My church is relatively small and everyone in our church is related to at least 5 other people, so we are all just one big family. Since it is small that means we had small Sunday School classes growing up and an incredibly small youth group. My Sunday School class always consisted of me, my friend Kristen, and my cousin Matthew and that was it. Being that there was only three of us from the age of five until we were in seventh grade we got to be incredibly close.
Our youth group was a little bigger than three, but not by much. We generally have a total of eight people: Kyle, Cambrie, Jess, Megan, Kristen, Matthew, Ian, and myself. These are the eight people that I am the closest with and have grown so much with, both in my faith and just growing up. One might think that since there are not that many of us we wouldn't get along or we would fight a lot when we go on trips because we would get so tired of being with the same eight people all the time. Well, for us that's not the case. There's only eight of us so if you're mad at one person that only leaves you with six other people to talk to and well that would just get even more annoying. We are all very different but we all get along so well. Since we are so small there is no room for cliques so we all just hang out with everyone and we all love each other.
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| My youth group and some others from a work camp in North Carolina. |
We have had so many adventures together and so many amazing times. I look forward to being able to share the good and bad times with you and hope that you are excited to hear about the crazy stuff we have done and the ways that The Lord is working in our lives and where we think we could be heading in the future.
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