Christ In Youth Conference, Day Five

I don't know if it's because I haven't been in seven years or what, but I was really impressed with the CIY conference.

For one, I thought the speakers were excellent. In my past days at CIY, you definitely got some hits and misses. This year they were all hits. Also, I thought the worship band - Matt Bayless (or as I like to call him, Billy Ray Cyrus, he looks just like him) and his band did a great job.

As for the day:

I went to breakfast earlier than usual because we had an adult meeting before the morning show started. The morning show ended on a good note. Then it was to Encounter and D-Groups again, it seemed like everyone was a little bit tired and quite a bit ADD today.

After lunch, the group went to see a comedian, while I went back to the dorms and worked on some stuff for Sunday. I also went and bought a surprise that I unveiled that night. The reason I didn't go to see the comedian was (1) not a big fan of comedians, I don't know why, never have; (2) I needed to get that surprise; and (3) some of our group were going to be involved in the dodgeball competition during free time.

So those of us who did not participate in the competition went to cheer our group. They lasted a whole minute and 45 seconds in the first round, which was amusing to everyone. Then we went and played frisbee and another group challenged us to Ultimate Frisbee, where we got destroyed again. The good thing is our group are all good sports. I tore a hamstring muscle trying to catch up to a frisbee to knock it down, so for the rest of the trip I was hobbled. But it was all good.

One thing that I think I have failed to mention is that our group has attracted a few people from other groups who have felt out of place from their churches or who don't feel their churches are friendly. We got the comment all the time that we were easy to talk to and that it seemed we were honestly interested in each person. Which is awesome. In fact, one of them is going to visit us and possibly join our group. I was very proud of our group all week long at how they responded to other people (like the kicking us out of our spot incident).

We went to dinner where the dinner was actually good - for once, although all the lunches and breakfasts were good - and then it was on to the last main session. It was great. The speaker was from Flatirons Church, which is where my brother plays on the worship team once a month. He was awesome - he said things that have been resonating within me for the last few years, and I thought he tied in the whole week very nicely. At the end, we had four commitments: two rededicated their lives to God, one person dedicated themselves to ministry, and one person gave their life to Christ. Praise God! Afterwards everyone said goodbye to the people we met, and then we went to our youth group time, where we ate more ice cream, talked about our decisions and what happened during the week, and then we prayed. As we were praying for the student who gave their life to Christ, a funny thing happened (he'll have to tell you), and we all laid down on the basketball court and laughed for about fifteen minutes.

And I can't forget the surprise: we now have a student ministry mascot. And I'm going to say its name and what it is, and nobody will get the inside jokes except for our youth group. I presented "Smessica the Unicorn" stuffed animal to our group last night, and it was quite honestly the perfect ending to a perfect conference.

I have realized how much I truly have missed youth ministry. I feel like I'm making an impact on lives again through the Spirit. I love worship ministry and I'm glad I get to do it, but I think there's been a void in my soul because even though I guess it has an impact on certain people on Sunday mornings, I feel like I'm gifted through God to help bring change in students' lives. Although I'm much older than when I started youth ministry (which is good and bad, let's just say it's going to take me two weeks to recover from this past week), and sometimes I feel out of touch and place, I feel like I can make a difference.

Now we'll see what happens with our students, as we continue to challenge them to grow and MOVE from even where they left CIY to what God has in store for them this year.