Youth Challenge recap, Part I

It's been my privilege to be a part of Youth Challenge now for about 5 or 6 years, going on 4 years as a board member. For those of you who aren't familiar with Youth Challenge, we are a convention aimed at young adults aged 16-25. Held annually (always the last full weekend in October) in West Harrison, IN, Youth Challenge is a Thursday through Saturday event specifically for the young adults of the conservative holiness movement (check out www.holiness.cc if you don't understand the term "conservative holiness movement").

This was our 11th convention as well as our 10 year celebration. I know, I know, it sounds really confusing, but it's our 10th full year.

Anyway, we kicked things off with a Thursday evening concert featuring DC Praise, The Singing Friends, Vision, Wesley Whitaker, Celebration, and the Collingsworth Family. Hosted by Troy Keaton and Anthony Webb, the program was full of great music and fun-filled entertainment (most of the time). I personally enjoyed the Troy Keaton and Anthony Webb impersonation of Brent Vernon and Sam. Most of the time, their jokes hit the mark, but every once in a while...
Hey, I know what it's like to try to be funny while standing up in front of a dead, unimpressed crowd (e.g. AYC 2003, ARK extravaganza/Keith's most humiliating moments/whole 'nother story). Overall, the concert went well.

Friday morning featured the YC 3-on-3 basketball tournament. This year the team that one featured players all well over 6'2". The tallest guy was like 6'7" or 6'8". Congrats Jordan, Drew, Jamie, and Kyle!

I had to speak in the Friday afternoon session. Just a word of advice here: if you are asked to be the special speaker at an event in the Cincinnati area do not, I repeat, DO NOT, go to Skyline shortly before. I thought, man, surely a small 3-way dry and 2 chili dogs won't hurt! That's how giving into temptation starts. After Jon Plank, Jonathan Bender, and I downed our lunch I got back to YC with about an hour to spare before the 2:00 PM service. About 10-15 minutes before 2:00 I got extremely sick. I was feeling a little shaky by the time I finally got backstage. Scary!

God truly helped me to speak. I have rarely preached with that much freedom. My sermon topic was taking a life-check. It was exciting to see several teens come forward to give their lives to Christ!

In the evening service, Dan Stetler was the featured speaker. He, too, went to Skyline shortly before the service. I didn't notice the ill-effects that I was plagued with (thankfully; didn't want to notice). The service also featured music from the YC Orchestra (conducted by Lori). I have never heard 30 violins, 2 trumpets, and a drum sound so good! Fantastic! The Youth Challenge Choir also sang in the service. There are very few things more enjoyable to me than conducting a choir. They did an outstanding job while singing the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir song "Total Praise". We rehearsed for 30 minutes and pulled it off. Beautiful! The evening service closed with hundreds of teens coming forward and answering in the affirmative the question "Will you keep the holiness heritage alive?".

The afterglow that night was a massive birthday bash for Youth Challenge featuring noisemakers, balloons, audience games, and much more. The host for the event was Sam (and Brent, the ventriloquist). Lots of fun!

OK, I have to run, but I'll be back with YC Update Part II.