Nic woke up the teens this morning with a very interactive reading of 1 Corinthians 12. He had them respond with a specific action for key words in the scripture. They would stand, clap, stomp and yell out as they heard the scripture and responded to their cues. After the lively reading of the scripture, Nic reminded the kids that they all have a part to play as members of the Body of Christ.  And then he asked, “Are you willing to finish what you started this weekend?”

“I know what God started, He is going to finish. But some of us are great starters but we aren’t great finishers,” Nic admitted. We can have a great momentum coming out of a weekend like this, with a lot of good intentions, and then we gradually lose our excitement. When things get rough, we tend to abandon our plan.

Continue reading

After an opening game of Family Feud between the speaking team and a team of teenagers – which the teens dominated, tbh – we spent the rest of this afternoon’s general session focusing on family relationships.

Katie Prejean McGrady began by sharing an awesome story about the birth of her daughter Rose; it’s impossible to summarize in a way that would do it justice, so you might want to give it a listen by clicking on the link above or watching it on our Live Stream.

The moral of Katie’s story is that family life is messy and chaotic and nothing like you’ll ever see in a Hallmark movie. And yet, the great news is that there can be beauty in the messiness.

“God does not call us into isolation, He calls us into relationship.”

Continue reading

Discernment means to cut away from until knowing what is best. Discernment is between two good things, while temptation is between a good thing and a bad thing. God is always speaking to us and we need to make sure we are speaking to Him because authentic discernment comes through Christ.

Father Martin broke down the steps of discernment

• Acknowledging what we are experiencing in our lives.
• Relate it to where we are currently at.
• Receive God’s message and listing to what He has to say.
• Respond to what He tells us.

Continue reading

During the session on relationships, Sarah outlined the ways that growing in virtue builds Christ-centered relationships.

Before diving into ways to build virtue, Sarah outlined what she calls the “emoticoaster.” It describes the pattern that a lot of people follow when they are getting into a relationship. She explains the journey from mental stalking to social media stalking to texting, flirting, and calling. Most people in the room raised their hands to say that they had seen someone riding the emoticoaster before. Sarah then walked through the many traps associated with the emoticoaster.

Continue reading

In his session this afternoon, Jimmy speaks on truth. In his talk he gives us permission to wrestle with the truth, but urges us not to settle for less than it. Jimmy Mitchell: Truth Revealed Jimmy is from Nashville and is founder of Love Good, a company which supports and invests in artists and songwriters with the goal of evangelizing culture with beauty that is rooted in truth. The logo for this company is a heart with an arrow through it. Beauty pierces the heart and, once wounded, the heart cannot help but want to trace that wound back to it’s source. The wound often in our culture is truth. The source? God.

Continue reading