Winter Youth Article

I'll probably go deeper on a few Winter Youth ideas later, but I thought I'd give you a glimpse of our time at Winter Youth. This is from an article I wrote for our Church newsletter, Intertwined.

Over Christmas break, nineteen High school students and leaders spent four wonderful days together with 900 other students at the Jantzen Beach Red Lion Hotel for CB Northwest's Winter Youth Celebration. We shared times of worship, teaching by Rick McKinley and Chris Seay, painting by Scott Erickson that reflected each of our speaker’s messages, reflection as a group, drinking coffee, square-dancing at a hoedown, a concert, and jumping around some crazy inflatables.

Pastor Rick McKinley of Imago Dei challenged us to expand our view of God beyond just a "little bit of Jesus," to one that includes God Almighty of the Old Testament. We looked at how God revealed Himself to Abraham, Moses, and David. Each one of them responded to God in fear: A fear that accompanied safety, one that comes with trust, a fear that keeps us from sin, one that causes us to care about the things of God, and a fear that leads to knowledge and life.

Rick showed us that though these men failed in big ways, they were still called a friend of God, a man after God’s own heart, and one who spoke face to face with God. The great news is that God is turning us into the image of Christ so that we reflect His glory.

Rick's last message was about placing and finding our security in God alone and not the things of this world, others, or what they think of us. We were tested in this when they sent all 900 of us out around the Portland area in XXXXL (yes, quadruple extra large) t-shirts. Imagine the sight of that! In a culture where we often find security in how others view us, it was a challenge.

Finally, we were asked to think of how we can love our neighbor as a group by taking a step, saying yes to meet a need we see. We spent time brainstorming and praying about this task for which we were made.

Pray with us as we find where God’s pulse is beating in our group.