:Praise God:
Here I sit, taking in all that went on over the last 6 days. All I can say is, my word.. God is amazing.
I'm in a complete daze because if you put everything together... the amazing opportunity to serve God in such a way, to have the possibility to minister to youth, to keynote a conference, the amazing hospitality of Matt & Karen, Vinny & Janice, and Vinny's parents, the amazing weather and amazing food... it has become a spiritual marker for my life.
since i've never been asked to keynote a conference before, i was very apprehensive at first. In fact, it took me weeks to actually say yes, as fear really prevented me from making the final decision. the only thing that made me actually agree was Mark sitting in front of me with Matt C on skype waiting for me to say either yes or no... going into this week, i went through weeks of preparation, doing hours of research, and going through constant battles with the Lord, the Enemy, and myself. in the end, it was actually Janice and that pulled me aside and said, you can prepare all you want, but in the end you need to let God move and you need to give him space to do so.
after that talk with janice, as well as a warning from Tom to not 'overprepare', i left what i did and just said to God, that's it... that's all i can do, the rest Lord, will be a move of your Spirit.
from the first talk i could tell that i connected with some of them. i'm not used to speaking to youth so seeing past their bored faces and their non-repsonses gave me tough skin. actually, my first 3 preaches at SNA/Flight852 made me ready for what i got during the conference. by the second talk i knew that the Lord was using me to speak to people as more and more youth came up to me and actually talked to me about what i shared.
the breaking point was Tuesday night. they scheduled our team to have a worship concert and they slotted a lot of time for our team to minster. i also had the most 'preachy' talk saved for that night. to be honest, i gave it everything i had. the atmosphere, the pumped up vibe, the lights and everything caused to me to give it just a little bit more than i usually did. i gave an altar call and so many youth raised their hands to receive Jesus into their hearts. over half the room made a commitment to the Lord. after a failed attempt at calling them forward we continued to worship, and then after a song, Tom called them again to not be afraid and to come out to receive prayer. then it seemed as though something broke, and then they started trickling, a few here and there... some youth crying.. then more.. then people started to pray for each other all over the room. for a moment, i took a step away and took a look out..... what i saw will stay with me my whole life.
as i looked i saw the whole room, either worshiping with all their heart, or in prayer. i saw all the leaders and councilors ministering to numerous youth. i saw tears of victory and received Love all over the room, i heard proclamations of reconciliation going out all over the room. It was then i felt that God had really used our team to impact these young people.
the last morning Janice and i conducted an commissioning service where we had our team anoint the youth with oil and send them back out to their schools and cities to reflect the Lord. At first many of the youth were taken out of their comfort zones. i guess i took my spiritual upbringing for granted, as i realised that many of the youth, and actually many of the leaders have never been anointed with oil before. there was a real wall that people had to break through. it was the same as the tuesday night conference. at first no one came up, and i was thinking Lord!!!!! what's going on??? how come no one is really wanting this anointing? but then i made another appeal and explained it in simple terms so that they would know what was happening. then one or two non-leaders came forward, then more, then all of a sudden we had a line up for anointing. then we had people returning to their seats and praying for each other. it was an amazing site. again, knowning that this was the last thing i would do for this conference, and not knowing if i'll ever be doing this again... i took a step back and enjoyed it.
looking back on the whole trip, i learned a lot about people, about my team, about being guests and about ministry. the best lessons that i learned may or may not come out here, but let's just say that in terms of ministry and building relationships with our brothers and sisters in the UK as well as our team.. this trip was a resouding sucess.
oh, and if you've read this far and want to know more, please leave a question in my comments thingy and in my next post i'll answer them all. thanks for taking the time and if you prayed for me thank you SO much, as the prayer last week was the difference, and there was definitetly times where we felt the supernatural lift that only comes with intercesion. again, thanks and blesings!
I'm in a complete daze because if you put everything together... the amazing opportunity to serve God in such a way, to have the possibility to minister to youth, to keynote a conference, the amazing hospitality of Matt & Karen, Vinny & Janice, and Vinny's parents, the amazing weather and amazing food... it has become a spiritual marker for my life.
since i've never been asked to keynote a conference before, i was very apprehensive at first. In fact, it took me weeks to actually say yes, as fear really prevented me from making the final decision. the only thing that made me actually agree was Mark sitting in front of me with Matt C on skype waiting for me to say either yes or no... going into this week, i went through weeks of preparation, doing hours of research, and going through constant battles with the Lord, the Enemy, and myself. in the end, it was actually Janice and that pulled me aside and said, you can prepare all you want, but in the end you need to let God move and you need to give him space to do so.
after that talk with janice, as well as a warning from Tom to not 'overprepare', i left what i did and just said to God, that's it... that's all i can do, the rest Lord, will be a move of your Spirit.
from the first talk i could tell that i connected with some of them. i'm not used to speaking to youth so seeing past their bored faces and their non-repsonses gave me tough skin. actually, my first 3 preaches at SNA/Flight852 made me ready for what i got during the conference. by the second talk i knew that the Lord was using me to speak to people as more and more youth came up to me and actually talked to me about what i shared.
the breaking point was Tuesday night. they scheduled our team to have a worship concert and they slotted a lot of time for our team to minster. i also had the most 'preachy' talk saved for that night. to be honest, i gave it everything i had. the atmosphere, the pumped up vibe, the lights and everything caused to me to give it just a little bit more than i usually did. i gave an altar call and so many youth raised their hands to receive Jesus into their hearts. over half the room made a commitment to the Lord. after a failed attempt at calling them forward we continued to worship, and then after a song, Tom called them again to not be afraid and to come out to receive prayer. then it seemed as though something broke, and then they started trickling, a few here and there... some youth crying.. then more.. then people started to pray for each other all over the room. for a moment, i took a step away and took a look out..... what i saw will stay with me my whole life.
as i looked i saw the whole room, either worshiping with all their heart, or in prayer. i saw all the leaders and councilors ministering to numerous youth. i saw tears of victory and received Love all over the room, i heard proclamations of reconciliation going out all over the room. It was then i felt that God had really used our team to impact these young people.
the last morning Janice and i conducted an commissioning service where we had our team anoint the youth with oil and send them back out to their schools and cities to reflect the Lord. At first many of the youth were taken out of their comfort zones. i guess i took my spiritual upbringing for granted, as i realised that many of the youth, and actually many of the leaders have never been anointed with oil before. there was a real wall that people had to break through. it was the same as the tuesday night conference. at first no one came up, and i was thinking Lord!!!!! what's going on??? how come no one is really wanting this anointing? but then i made another appeal and explained it in simple terms so that they would know what was happening. then one or two non-leaders came forward, then more, then all of a sudden we had a line up for anointing. then we had people returning to their seats and praying for each other. it was an amazing site. again, knowning that this was the last thing i would do for this conference, and not knowing if i'll ever be doing this again... i took a step back and enjoyed it.
looking back on the whole trip, i learned a lot about people, about my team, about being guests and about ministry. the best lessons that i learned may or may not come out here, but let's just say that in terms of ministry and building relationships with our brothers and sisters in the UK as well as our team.. this trip was a resouding sucess.
oh, and if you've read this far and want to know more, please leave a question in my comments thingy and in my next post i'll answer them all. thanks for taking the time and if you prayed for me thank you SO much, as the prayer last week was the difference, and there was definitetly times where we felt the supernatural lift that only comes with intercesion. again, thanks and blesings!
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