Friday, January 21, 2011

I Heart the CCC Youth

This post will probably be pretty random and unorganized. Not sure. I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve been busy with my birthday, getting together with my Baylor roommates for Create Your Own Coming Of Homies 2011, the youth garage sale and gearing up for tax season. If anyone has any good ideas to psych myself out for the mandatory overtime that I start on Monday, let me know. Also, if you have any good ideas for healthy snacks to stash in my desk for the long days ahead, those would be appreciated to. I probably won’t be able to post much in the next three months, FYI, but we’ll see.

Ok, random thought number 1. I played my “I don’t work for the church” card last night, which my hubby encourages me to use any time, and skipped out on youth garage sale work night #4. Instead, I worked out, then took a nice, long, hot bath, complete with bath salts and a good book. I have not delved into this much in the past because I didn’t have time to and it seemed boring to just sit in a bath tub. Wrong. I felt SO relaxed by the time I got out of there and headed to bed. I was in some sort of relaxation coma I think. Between that and reading my Bible-In-A-Year installment of Numbers 16ish (zzzz), I went right to sleep at 9:00. I’m going to have to get in the habit of truly going to sleep at 9 at the latest since I will soon be arising around 5:30 to work 6 am to 6 pm (ew). So maybe I will tuck this hot bath idea away and use it to wind me down for sleep. Although I’m sure in a few weeks I won’t have ANY problem going to sleep at any time.

Next.

Trent and I are still oozing joy because of youth group this week. It. Was. Awesome. We are just so amazed by these kids and the joy they bring to both of us. They weren’t afraid to ask hard questions and chew on tricky scriptures. We leaders weren’t afraid to say we didn’t know the answer. Trent had a lesson plan and a worksheet, but those soon got ditched and replaced by genuine, spontaneous discussion. We started out talking about the Holy Spirit, read part of Acts 2, discussed what we think the Holy Spirit to be in our lives. How can God and Jesus be the same person? How can Jesus be fully God and fully human at the same time? When Jesus cried out from the cross to his Father, wasn’t he just crying out to himself? Aren’t we all put on earth to “be Jesus” to others? What does that even mean and how can we do that as humans? How does the Holy Spirit fit in with God and Jesus? What are times when you felt the Holy Spirit present around you? One answer: there that night. We stopped only because it was 8:00 and parents were waiting. We ended with a popcorn prayer which just means everyone bows their heads and whoever wants to say a little prayer about anything just pops in and says it. It went on and on with heart felt prayers from the youth and the sponsors. Some popped in multiple times. Others remained silent. Some prayed for their own requests and some prayed for others. I got choked up listening. Do you know how hard it is for some people, especially young people, to pray aloud? These youth are comfortable with each other, trust each other and love each other. It is so amazing to see their cohesive friendships across ages and genders. And they have a hunger right now to learn about God. Even the kids who weren’t really paying attention to the discussion had their nose in a Bible and were just exploring. (Sidenote: The Message version of the Bible has really clicked with these youth. The Bible came alive to them once Trent got copies of The Message for the youth room and some for them to take home.) One was even exploring the Bible on an Iphone app…oh how times change. Which reminds me, we forgot to have everyone put their phones in the “cell cell”. I guess it didn’t matter since everyone was engaged and learning in some way. Just check out the facebook statuses following Focus:

“Just left church. Tonights talk was amazing. Almost cried at a few points. That's good, right?”

“Church was great tonight! I love my youth group! :)”

"_______, you are Psalm 1."

“God, the only one and only - ill wait as long as he says. Everything i need comes from him, so why not? He is solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, an impregnable castle: im set for life. - Pslam 62 1-2”

The best way I can sum this up is my own facebook status from that night:

“Love this youth group. Love the discussion we had tonight about the Holy Spirit. Love their questions. Love that Trent & I get to hang out with them.”

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