Alright, I'm back. Saturday featured my favorite session of them all, the morning Praise and Worship session. This is an opportunity for young people to just be real, to share what's going on in their lives. We always mix the testimonies with music and it seems like this is a time where teens are able to be vulnerable, to be open about what God is doing and the lessons they are learning. It was great!
Robbie and Rachel England talked about a subject that is unfortunately taboo in a lot of churces: Sex. You know, I've never been able to figure out why we don't openly address the problem. I have worked with teens all over the country for the last 10 years and I'm telling you that pre-marital sex is a massive problem in the church. And yes, you have teens in your church struggling with this problem if you have a youth group. The scary thing is that the problem is beginning to reach teens who are 13, 14, 15 years of age. It kills me that there's this massive problem out there, but because of church political correctness we talk about it using vague generalities. Wake up, people! This isn't going away. I faced the temptation when I was in a church youth group, and I can guarantee you your kids are going to be there some day. We have to challenge our teens to live pure lives, living by biblical principles, instead of talking about fornication and using weird illustrations like Jacob and his daughter-in-law Tamar (yes, this has happened) and throwing out the conservative F-word (fornication). Let's be appropriate, sensitive to our audience, but most of all real about this sin.
Robbie and Rachel did an outstanding job on handling the subject. They weren't off-color, nor said anything that would have been inappropriate for a mixed audience. But they did get across the point, that purity is a gift and it's something that is to be treasured. If you buy any session of Youth Challenge (buy the DVDs at www.youthchallenge.net), I recommend this one. Great job!
Mike Avery, president of God's Bible School and College, spoke on the topic of living a life of conviction and principle. He was asked to speak primarily upon the "standards" of the CHM. He handled it extremely well. He also followed his session up with a Q&A segment. All I have to say is that I empathize with anyone answering the questions he was asked. Many of the questions were leading (at best) and dealt with areas of personal conviction, areas that aren't necessarily biblical in nature. He did a great job!
After lunch, this time at Penn Station subs, the best subs in the US, we closed with an afternoon session featuring Jeff Keaton. He tore it up, as usual, and challenged the crowd to live lives of faith, putting everything in the hands of God. Great stuff. We closed out YC with a balloon launch. Hopefully, I will have pics by the end of the week. It was a great convention!
Special thanks go out to "Smiley" Plank, Jonathan Bender, Vincent Dubbeld, Vision (and Sam), Celebration (I liked Troy's intro for them, "the only group here who has a promotional picture older than you"), Singing Friends (Trivia Question: Name their only drummer), DC Praise (Go Matt!), the Collingsworth Family (please buy their CD; it's in my top ten CDs right now; I'll do a review later), Soundkings extraordinaire Dale, Wes, and Allen, Wesley Whitaker (have him at your church for a concert; the boy can tear up the trumpet), Troy and A&W, the YC Boyz (Dan, Dan, John, Jonathan, and Troy), Eric Guntrum, Steve Shipman, Dwight Rine, Sufjan Stevens (OK, just kidding), Wesleyan Publishing House, visiting guests of super-group N'1 Accord, GBS, HSBC, PVBI, UBC, and the lady at Skyline Chili who was so sweet. Peace and love.
Out.
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