I liked club this morning because we sang "If We Are the Body" and Ash talked about unconventional love. He talked about how love is proof of the reception of forgiveness, and that a leader should always exude love, especially towards the kids. I love kids. If I had all the time in the world, I'd love to become super involved in a youth group, young life, high school, and everything else here and work and hang out with kids all day long. Ash's entire message just hit home. I felt like he was looking at me and talking to me the entire time; almost as if nobody else was even there.
After club, Brittany, Nikki, Sarah, and I went to a breakout session geared towards first time leaders. The speakers talked about the things that get in the way/make it difficult to be a leader. But the best part was when everybody came up with twice as many reasons to be a leader than excuses not to be.
The speaker in the next session I attended talked about how infinite God's grace really is and how to follow Jesus with a childlike faith. He showed this video and I smiled so big the entire time.
We had free time tonight, so we decided we'd all go downtown Madison with Martha and Lori from Fort Dodge, IA and walk around and eat. The capital is really pretty.
Our evening consisted of being turned down by multiple restaurants for having such a large group, remote control car starters, 60 mph in a 30, sneak attack snowball fights, GPS, and then sprinting through the hotel to get to club on time. No worries, the speeding and sprinting paid off because we got third row seats at club.
My favorite quotes from club tonight:
"This is Young Life. Our message is Jesus. Our method is relationships."
"Be extravagant lovers of Jesus Christ."
"What's your cross to bear?"
"This is God's story that He's allowing you to be a part of."
I can't really describe what happened at club tonight, but God touched my heart. I have never felt so connected in my entire life; it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. At that moment, I knew without a doubt that this was where I was meant to be. It was no accident that I attended this conference with these people. It is not by chance that these amazing people were the ones I shared it with. I am joining the Young Life Des Moines team, and I could not be any happier. These people are my family. I love and trust and admire and care about them so much, it's bordering on crazy. They all are so passionate and dedicated to Young Life, and I feel so honored to have the opportunity to join their team. I was talking to one of my friends the other day and we came to the conclusion that friendships where Christ is present are always the ones to last longer and be stronger and develop quicker. That's really the reason why these people feel like family to me.
After club, we all hung out and played games: Mad Gab with French accents, team Catch Phrase, and Catch Phrase without talking. Obvi, Catch Phrase without talking was the biggest hit. People were running into walls, on their hands and knees eating the carpet, dancing like fairies, and understandably getting way too competitive. Then we showed the Marriott that at DSM Young Life, we make it rain... rain playing cards. I wish I'd gotten a picture. Afterwards, Brittany and I got to chat for a while, and I am so thankful that Young Life brought us together. I'm so excited for us to be friends and take everything we learned this weekend and change kids lives.
Love this - "our message is Jesus, our method is relationships."
ReplyDeleteI feel like this theme of having Christ centered relationships keeps coming up in life. It is good. We need to have those in our lives in order to hold steadfast and to live fully as Jesus wanted us to. Love it. You speak such truth :)