Surprise! I’m back. :-) Yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted – but there are only a few people that would ever consider checking this blog anyway – so I don’t think anyone is terribly let down. But, a lot has been going on in our lives and I’ve had this big itch to try and start posting again. Events of this past weekend put me in a spot to start again – maybe it can become a regular thing – maybe not.
Laura and I had the privilege to speaking at our churches youth retreat. The theme was “God’s Surprising Love” – shown through gifts, words and family. The weekend was unique because the students had no idea what they would be doing – it was billed as a “Mystery Retreat” – only the parents knew what was happening. The students didn’t know that when they showed up, they would be split into two vans, guys and girls, and head opposite directions.
Friday night didn’t go exactly as planned because half of the students were taking part in a school dance and so the other students took part in a video scavenger hunt, ending at the school dance to “crash it” (they had the schools permission) and pick up the other students. Laura waited at one local camp for the girls and I waited at another camp at the other end of the county for the guys. Although it was a late night and weekend of little sleep – the students didn’t arrive until about 12:45AM – we both enjoyed preparing for the weekend and working together on the message for Saturday night.
My heart, when it came to the young men was to talk about one of the most overlooked gifts of the Christian: God’s Word. I tried to demonstrate through the weekend that we’ve been fed a diet lacking in Christian Worldview and God’s given us the very tool we need to form it’s foundation. We focused specifically on the Ten Commandments as the foundation of our Worldview and then talked on Saturday morning about what the world has to say about/to us (their worldview) and how we can respond.
We culminated the weekend last night giving the students a dare in the spirit of the “Love Dare” from the movie Fireproof. We called ours the “Honor Dare” and encouraged the students to honor their parents – putting their hearts and passion where God intends it to be at this stage of their life… their homes.
With that in mind, I’m going to attempt to augment the slightly-larger-then-a-bookmark size 14-day dare card with a brief story/encouragement dealing with the challenge of that day. Who knows if this will get me in the posting habit or not, but hopefully for the next 14 days (at least), I’ll have a few things to say.