Winter Youth Reflections

We have returned from another year at Winter Youth. I return very tired and very filled up. Tired because the lack of sleep and lack of nutritious food. Filled up because of what I saw God do in the lives of our students and staff. Filled up because of what God did in my life. It was an incredible four days!


Aaron Geist did a great job blogging while at the event. I encourage you to check out his thoughts.

The theme of the week was the Gospel. At first glance one may think, well what's so revolutionary about that? The Gospel is the good news of Jesus, the message that keeps us out of hell and gets us into heaven, and yet it is so much more. The Gospel is a way of life. It is a life that realizes that we need a Savior because we cannot save ourselves. A life that realizes that we are accepted just the way we are. A life that realizes that we win, because He won. Even as believers we tend to think that we must perform for God in order to receive His acceptance. That kind of living only leads to an overwhelming sense of failure.

As we understand the Gospel we come to understand that we don't engage in all the spiritual disciplines that we do (prayer, Bible reading, fasting, giving, etc.) to gain His acceptance. When we do, we fall into guilt, because we are going to fail. We must understand the why of all those disciplines. We engage them because He first engaged us. We live them out because He lived and died so that we might experience life and life to the full.

Throughout the week painter Scott Erickson was on stage painting as the speakers spoke. What came out of his work as He listened to God and depicted the the central theme of the message was simply amazing.

Thank you for those that prayed for us while we were at Winter Youth. God did tremendous things in each of us and I am confident that we will continue to do so as we continue to seek Him and understand that... He won...we won!

Go here to see all our pics.