YFN

This past week some of my Revive youth students, myself and one of our leaders, Jon had the opportunity to go to Youth For The Nations. A summer camp ran by Christ For The Nations Institute in Dallas. All I can say is WOW! We were all totally wrecked by God in the best possible way! From the sermons for my students, as well as our Youth Leader/ Youth Pastor sessions for me and Jon everything was exactly what we needed to hear! I also had the privilege and Honor to meet Jeanne Mayo. The woman is A BEAST! She taught us things such as how to deal with rotten attitudes and spiritual hardness, and 5 non negotiable's for world class youth ministry. All of the info was dead on to what I wanted to hear, and what I've been longing to provide. When she talked to the students Tuesday night she had us all rolling! she called her sermon Beauty and the Beast and she talked about relationships. Not just sex. She kept it real and didn't bash the idea all together. She gave them good, solid advice for having a relationship in general. She talked about 2 samuel 13:1-19. In these verses Amnon tricks Tamar into thinking he's sick so she'll come in to his bedchamber and make him cake. He then reveals his true intentions, raped her, then hated her and sent her away. Jeanne's points were pretty simple and to the point. " God never consults your past to create your future" and "if what you've got isn't fir sale, get it off the menu!" But perhaps the most profound one was this. Refering to the cakes Tamar made in the story she said cake was anything that moves you closer to the bedroom of compromise, and asked "what's your cake?" She is who I aspire to be as a Youth Pastor, and I hope to be able to join her group, the Cadre soon! Everyone in my group that went released some pretty heavy stuff this week, myself included. I saw students with hardened hearts soften and allow themselves to cry, forgive themselves, as well as forgive each other and allow themselves to heal. It was definitely a life changing week!