Hi friends!
We're back from an incredible, life changing weekend spent in the company of brothers and sisters in Christ and in the presence of our Lord Jesus! It was a hard core intense weekend physically, mentally and spiritually! Anyone feeling sore? Haha. What a great reminder of our small sacrifices unto the Lord. Amen! Amidst a non-stop schedule of team building exercises, challenges of willpower, fasting from food, little sleep and chilly windy weather, we survivied! Not only did we learn to overcome near impossible personal and team tasks, each of us came closer to Jesus on a deeper level as we learned how to tune into hearing His voice, follow the Good Shepherd and understand what He requiers from us in obedience and servanthood.
Here we are fellowshipping on Friday night (2/24) - breaking bread together with some delicious food and snacks to fill our stomachs and store up energy for the weekend!
Here John and Pastor D are sporting the stylish retreat T-shirts which promote the camp theme: Knowing God, Hearing God & Following God! These two leaders gave us a run for our money when it came to sit ups, push ups, flutter kicks & scripture memorization.
One activity we did Friday night was to get into coed teams and practice on the spot evangelism. A few of our leaders would introduce a scenario (ie: having the answers to a test/cheating; gossping about a school sex scandal; living a casual lifestyle/sleeping over with a gf/bf; going to get high/do drugs to celebrate something; etc) This activity challenged us to step up in boldness in proclaiming the Word of God and ultimately showed us that we have a great need to LEARN the WORD of God so that we can be ready in season and out of season!
Friday night closed in a time of worship and communion as we dedicated our hearts to the Lord and prepared for what He had for us. In response, we wrote down on a paper, the true confessions of our hearts and tossed them into a fire to symbolize surrender of these areas in our lives over to Christ.
Saturday everyone fasted from 7am - 5pm to practice denial of the 'flesh' - the desires that our bodies have that we so easily give into, often without thought - that can often take precidence in our lives above Christ. Following the activity packed day of exercise and scripture memorization, we gathered as a group to hear Pastor Randolph from Calvary Coastline Venice share with us about "Following God with a pure motive."
He used the passages from Mark 1 and John 6:59-66 to help illustrate a few points. The first, found in Mark 1 was the idea that God uses our natural giftings that He has given us, in our regular lives and vocations in the world as well as our spiritual lives and tasks in which we serve Him. In this Bible story, Peter & Andrew were casting their nets while John & James were mending their nets, when Jesus came by and called them into service, to follow Him. As they drop their careers and step into their callings in the Lord, they find their skills quite useful as peter & Andrew 'cast' out the gospel to fish for men while John & James 'mend' relationships and bring healing to hurt people as they care for the body of Christ.
One of his main points taken from John 6:59-66 was that how we respond when discipleship is tested by Doctrine, is a true indication of where we stand with Christ. We must follow Jesus beyond any incentive or idea that we can get something of a reward, but rather because we recognize that He is the Bread of Life that brings ultimate satisfaction. As we strive to be sactififed, or move through the process of purity and towards a life that honors God and gives Him glory, we must filter out our impure desires and surrender them before Jesus.
Pastor Randolph also added a special note to all of us in our singles lives!! He emplores us to serve God faithfully and for the young adult men to find their wife at the well (and for the young adult women to focus on serving God). He gave Biblical examples of Moses (Ex 2), Isaac (Gen 24) and Jacob (Gen 29) who all found their women serving the Lord "at the well" and presented that metaphor to encourage servanthood and dedication to Christ to find a lasting and God honoring relationship & marriage!
Samuel & Steven (From CC Venice) brought us into a sweet time of worship and response as we were each anointed with oil in prayer. Sidenote: all of this took place in the dark as the power went out - a sign of spiritual warefare, and yet we did not stop praising and worshipping our Lord and pushed through in victory in His Name!
More pics & details to follow!
