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.

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.