So confession time…by Thursday I was over it. I was tired, we had some issues that day where some mistakes were made and tempers were lost. Not to mention that Eric may have had some combination of hypothermia, dehydration, and car-sickness. Watching him dry heave on the side of a mountainous Tennessee road was not the highlight of the week. Emotionally I was exhausted, physically I was exhausted, and I was frustrated that I thought some of the progress we had made during the week had been lost over petty stuff. Then God showed up…
The day’s theme was worship, and the overarching question was what do you worship? That morning we had made idols out of play-doh, and in what I suspected might be a lame attempt at an object lesson, we brought them to the main session that night. As we left the session mid-way through to spend some time contemplating our objects of worship we dropped our idols off at the door. To me (although I never would have told our youth this) it seemed like a lot of work for little payoff. But then something happened. As we crossed the threshold back into the chapel, we walked over a sheet of plastic that seemed squishy. I looked down and watched as the idols we made were trampled under our feet. I’m not sure why, but this was a cool experience. Even though Thursday had some bumps, at this moment I felt ready for worship. Obviously our group did as well…
Looking back Thursday gave me the opportunity to experience two pretty cool aspects of youth ministry. One was having the opportunity to take students to experience something they often don’t get to see in Tallahassee, and the other was watching as a student responded to the call of God in their life by committing their life to him in baptism. (One is more significant than the other, but I will let you guess which.)
Number 1. On Thursday we had some extended free time. So we packed up and headed to NC to a place known as Elk Falls. The water was cold, but it was pretty awesome. Here are some photos of our adventures:
2. Every night the sessions concluded with an invitation to “Move.” Most of these evenings I would spend time praying for our group, and/or what I felt God was saying to me. On this night Victoria came over and pulled out her cell phone, which I thought was odd. I watched as she opened her contacts and began to delete one name after another. Then she handed me the phone and asked me to keep it for the rest of the week. I guess idols come in all shapes and sizes, and even sometimes with unlimited texting plans. We started talking and she told me she wanted to be baptized. It was kind of cool to see how God took a day that I chalked up as lost and turned it into one of the most memorable nights of our week. Here are some pictures:
Make sure to talk to Victoria about her decision, and check out some more pictures at our Facebook page: Crossbridge Students.
