Huddle Group

The people in my huddle group gave up a lot of junk, thanks to God's work at YFN. We talked about it last night after service, and I'm terribly excited for them. They're reading their Bibles and everything, but even more exciting to me, they're being made fun of and criticized for what happened to them, and what they've given up. Some have given up rap music, and others different things, but their families are already seeing a difference. Most parents aren't fond of their experience of being drunk in the Spirit, so I told them to keep that on the down-low, and focus more on what God did to make them more like Him.

I also told them that I'll be leaving in a month. Such cruel news!

And I learned that it might be smarter to call God "The Lord" when I talk about Him, 'cause peoples' ideas of "Jesus" and "God" might be completely different (i.e. Jesus is friendly, God is distant and angry).

YFN 2009 & Those of Lil' Faith

If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to look at yesterday's issue. There's a certain guy I know who happens to thrive in a pet peeve of mine. He tends to be on the side of arrogance and negativity. It's endurable when I'm not around him, but I spent much of yesterday with him. Negativity is something I deal with by slapping positive stuff on top of the other person's comments. With arrogant people, however, they try to outdo your comment. It only makes them look worse and they don't listen to correction. It irks me no end.
I choose my friends carefully.

To recap some of Paradigm's week of YFN...

Monday, Pastor Jaycee talked about the phases the demon-possessed guy in Mark 5 went through to be "crazy". It was really good and practical.

Tuesday, Pastors Adam and Banning both spoke for the morning sessions for the leaders' stuff. Pastor Banning, the leader of the whole Jesus Culture movement, spoke on "Pressure-Free Ministry", all about how to look at yourself and how to give your youth group the courage to go after God. One great quote from him in that was "You need to stop hurrying to the inner place of anointing and take time to die in the outer court." It was in reference to us being in a journey, a process, not just jumping into a place of crazy anointing.
That night, Pastor Banning spoke on how to get a passion for God, but what I learned the most was about how his view of worship was. I always viewed it as an exchange. I go crazy during worship and give it to Him, and He pours some love on me, and I send it right back at him. But Pastor Banning focused more on how you need to sit and just feel His love, and stop trying.

Wednesday, Pastor Adam McCain spoke on fearing God. He's not just your best friend, He is the Lord God Almighty, and it's the biggest privilege to worship Him and to have His love cover us. So good.

Thursday was quite a day. Banning switched what he was speaking on from prayer to holiness. One of the references he used was the verse in the beginning of Romans saying that Jesus' power came from His holiness. To be holy is to be set apart, and the only way to do that is to say one big "YES" to God and go all in, 100%. He was just explaining this and talking about a few miracles when he just says to the crowd "If you have scoliosis, please stand up and test to see if you still have it." All of a sudden people all over the room were shouting 'cause they'd been healed. Then Banning had people pray over whoever was standing, and people with dyslexia, injuries, arthritis, and all other kinds of stuff got healed. What I really loved about the way Pastor Banning carried it out was that he was simple, and he wasn't showy at all. He just let God do it all. He wanted to put it in our minds that we can do the same stuff he's doing if we just pursue holiness and chase after God. So good! Oh, and after all this, the junior high girls from my small group all got drunk in the Spirit. I'm so proud of them!

Throughout the week, I got to see like half of my Core siblings, which was so, SO very good. I miss them terribly.

After His Heart

I went to YFN on tuesday and heard Carey Robinson speak. The next day, at Paradigm, I heard him preach the same sermon. Somehow, the message finally got to me. "What do you want?" The immediate answer that came to mind was, "To follow God's will." But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if following God's will was my main goal, something is off. "To follow God's heart" came to mind as a more appropriate answer.

See, I get stuck in the workings of doing God's will so much that I don't make time to get to know Him. Lately, I've been feeling a lil' spiritually low on juice, and I wondered why, 'cause I know I've been reading my Word, so I should be in the clear. But then I realized that I've been munching on my Word, then poopin' it out without digesting it.

I need to go after the heart of God, to be personal and intimate with Him, rather than just doing His will.

Faith...Good Stuff

This past weekend, I relaxed. That's basically what happened. I also made a lot of progress with my One. Her best friend left her at the Dart rail and was a jerk to her, and this somehow got her back to God. I think she's gonna be committed.

Tonight, we had a YFN weekend squeezed into a night, complete with Pastor Jaycee and Regeneration. High expectations? Always. Trish cut my hair before service, 'cause we both hate my rat-tail. She did awesome. Props to her.

I'm gonna just spill a few things God told me. First off, in my Bible reading beforehand, I was in Luke 4:32+36. It talked about how Jesus was teaching at the temple. It says twice that "the people were amazed at his teaching". "Why?" thought I. To start with, they were amazed because He spoke with authority. He knew His capabilities, 'cause He had been filled with the Holy Spirit. In verse 36, the people are amazed again. This time, it's after He casts out a demon. His teachings are now amazing not only 'cause of His authority, but because He's got power to back it up.

I went for the alter call to have my faith-to-faith-to-faith strengthened, 'cause I was at the point that I didn't believe I would get accepted into any university, or that the things I had been obeying God with were gonna really have His ideal end result. I had a huge amount of doubt 'cause of Boston University, 'cause I had spoken it out in faith and felt like God had told me to go there. Then that whole deal fell through, my desire to go there with it. I was afraid to have faith that I would be accepted anywhere, lest I have a similar let-down happen again. But then God reminded me of something Pastor Benny Perez said. It's better to have faith in something and go down believing than to be doubting or uncertain about it. I think it's true. So I have faith that I'm going to UT.

During worship, I started thinking of an equation in Physics (don't worry, it relates). Energy is the ability to do work. Work requires displacement, or moving something to a new location. Power is a combination of all of these. It's the rate at which work happens. So, when Jesus worked in power, and when we work in power, it's energy causing a movement really quickly. When the apostles did deeds of power in Acts, their numbers grew by thousands. You know why? 'Cause the power of Jesus is a huge amount of energy moving hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits. It's science.

He also wants me to rewrite the angry letter I had written to Mr. Harber, apologizing for holding bitterness towards him, and making my points in a more kindly manner.

YFN 2008 As A Leader

Last week, I worked at Canton, made $150.00, then went to see relatives on the 4th of July. It was fantastic. I've never had a better time with them. This was due to several factors: Daniel Lewis was with me (if you don't know him, get to know him), Preston wasn't there and Chas was busy with his friends, the fireworks occupied a lot of attention, I got to play with Grace and Harry (my little cousins that Chas or Preston usually play with), and I had my Kenya blogs as a subject of conversation. Thank you Jesus! I talked to Mrs. Nickel a lot about Kenya, and then went home Saturday night. Sunday, we had a meeting where I told my specific expectations for YFN, which I believe have a very good chance of coming to pass. I said that I wanted the guys who are iffy in their faith (particularly the Black Hole group) to turn 100%.
Then came YFN. On Monday, the worship with Jesus Culture was friggin' phenomenal. Those guys know how to keep in tune with the Spirit, sing prophetic songs, and all the above. It felt like a Thursday night blowout. And I got to talk to Alex for hours into the night about his faith and where he's at. Good start, right?
So Tuesday came, and Pastor Jude Fouquier rocked the leadership sessions, and I got a whole new respect for him when I realized that he was Pastor Benny Perez's elder, and Pastor Benny Perez looked up to him. Then that night had Pastor Benny Perez as the speaker. His focus, like last year, was on deliverance, but it was so much more this year than last year. At least three people within five or ten feet of me manifested, and I heard that over 70 in the whole place got freed of demonic spirits that night. I had the privilege of explaining the supernatural things that occurred that night to several people from our church. I spent a great deal of time telling Josh Rackley and Alex Perez stories about the power that we have through Christ. The next day, the leader's session with Pastor Benny Perez was great. One big thing he stressed was reaching out to the junior highers. In our SL meeting today, I brought that up, and Pastor Tim Meister said, "That's a good point. Who is going to take all of your places when you're gone?" and there was silence.
Anyway, Wednesday night was mostly for those who haven't been filled with the Holy Spirit or spoken in Tongues, followed by Healings of things like growths and deafness and whatnot. I got to talk to Alex a lot that night, too.
Thursday, Pastor Jaycee talked in the session for longer than he was supposed to, then Pastor Jude Fouquier did the same, talking first about making a youth group grow, then turning the same points towards marriage. It was hilarious. That night flowed with the Spirit more than I've ever seen with any service, I think. Worship was incredible, and immediately following it, Pastor Jaycee came up and said, "If you need to use the restroom, do it right now, 'cause God wants everyone in this room to have a face-to-face encounter with Him tonight, and we wanna keep the Spirit flowing." Before they could get back from the restroom, Pastor Benny Perez said for all the young women who had had purity taken away from them to stand up (people who had gone to the restroom weren't allowed in during this time). He prayed for them from the stage and some were overcome by the Spirit (slain in the Spirit). Throughout this time and the worship before, and the rest of the service, demons could be heard screaming as they were forced to manifest, 'cause they cannot stay in the same place as the Holy Spirit for that long. He preached his message which, as he said, was short and simple, about not letting the negative things spoken over you in your life to have any control over you. Then he called the pastors onto the stage, and we/he prayed for them, and then they were released to pray for us. For those who didn't prophesy or whatever, Pastor Benny Perez said that God had erased all those negative things in the past, and they were enabled to do any of it as God called them to it. When one prayed for me, I was released to pray for others, and my gift of Faith, which I hadn't used in around five or six years, was released, and I prayed like crazy. Some of them just stood there, some cried, and some were overcome by the Spirit. Then Josh Rackley prayed for me, talking about how I didn't have to wait to start my ministry till after college, that it was already started, and that I would be able to witness at my school. Then I went on stage to pray for the band, and I accidentally placed myself in front of a band member, with everyone else behind him, which meant that I was leading the prayer. I didn't even know which instrument he played, but I kept on praying in faith. God had told me that morning to thank Pastor Jaycee for The Core, and tell him some of what it did to me, so I did it after service that night. Then I went and told David about how, when he goes back home, everything will be black and white, and he'll be able to see what's wrong with everything around him. Then I talked with Joel Elam, Lauren Anderson, Jonathon Tranel, Kim, and Ezzy, from last year's Core, for like ten minutes, and Ezzy sounded interested in the trip. Then we had a fun night cleaning and packing.
Friday morning, I woke up five minutes before service, so I was late, but I was a leader, so I got into service without a problem. On the way home, I told Chad Rush to work on making his humor less perverted, and to model it after the Davises.
Saturday, I slept in till three and lazed around the house till I mowed the lawn, then went to deliver Katie's Bible to her at Lakepoint, where she didn't really care to sit through the service, so we just talked the whole time. I also saw Mrs. Davis and Emmy there. After the service ended, I talked to Michelle and Bri, and a little to Meagan Ferguson (maybe I should be friends with her, since everyone around us is friends with each other).
This morning (Sunday), we had an SL meeting where we just told testimonies, then Trish, Pastor Nick and Liz, Pastor Tim Meister, Josh Newman, Josh Russian, and I all went to Chipotle, where the food was might delicious. I talked to Pastor Tim about deliverance and stuff for a long while during that meal. Then Trish and I went over to Pastor Nick's house to watch some Lost. Following that, I went back home, fell asleep for a few hours, and texted with Bri a lot while writing this.