Back in The Saddle After a Brief Hiatus

On Sunday and Monday I was in Lafayette, Louisiana at the Cajundome with our Youth Group from church along with 6,000 other students from across Louisiana.  It is an event that we always attend called YEC (Youth Evangelism Conference).  The Garden Baptist Church once again allowed us to spend the night at their church to save money on lodging and we appreciate them!

A gentleman by the name of Clayton King was the primary speaker and he kept the attendees on the edge of their seats with captivating preaching.  The theme of his talks was about deception.  He discussed the lies that we all believe.  He went on to say that, "the lies that you believe are leading you somewhere."

He listed 9 lies that the enemy uses to keep us distracted and away from God:
1. God is mad at me,
2. I can't forgive or be forgiven,
3. Money will solve all of my problems,
4. I'll always be alone and unloved,
5. Sex is no big deal,
6. Good people don't suffer,
7. I can't resist temptation,
8. I can't change,
9. I'll never be happy

As I thought about the list, I think I've believed every single one of them at one point or another.  He told the students that they can overcome and the way we overcome is from 1 John 1:9

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Although this blog is normally about some form of agriculture, this post is not.  Or is it?  There was definitely a harvest at YEC!  There were invitations for the youth to come forward after each of four sessions and numerous students responded to the call.  Here are some of the statistics from the conference:

Totals for YEC 2017
Students saved - 325
Rededication - 463
Call to Ministry - 212
Other decisions - 81
TOTAL DECISIONS—1081

I was a counselor during the conference and was able to pray with 4 young men.  Two were wishing to commit their lives to ministry and two were inspired and convicted by the preaching and wished to re-dedicate their lives to Christ.  What a blessing!

At the end of YEC, a Christian group named Building 429 put on a concert.  The kids really enjoyed it.  A high point of the night was when Building 429 played one of their biggest hits called, "Where I Belong."  6,000 kids, while shining the flashlights on their phones, sang the following to the top of their lungs:

All I know is I'm not home yet,

This is not where I belong.

Take this world and give me Jesus,

This is not where I belong.

Seeing the next generation excited about their faith in Christ gives me new found hope for the future!

YEC 2015

I didn't get to post an update yesterday or the day before.  I left my good wife with the chores around the homestead and took our church Youth Group to YEC 2015 (Youth Evangelism Celebration).  It is held each year in the Cajundome in Lafayette, Louisiana and is a great time of worship, teaching, and fun.  Our young people really enjoy it and I think it is an investment in our future.  Sometimes it is all too convenient to look at our culture and get really cynical about the future.  A trip to YEC is a perfect antidote for that!

Image Credit

We teamed up once again with our sister church in Elton, Louisiana and took over 20 young people to YEC, arriving Monday evening around 6 p.m. where we unloaded all of our sleeping bags and baggage into a church on University near the Cajundome, prior to making our way to the dome for the night's events that started at 7 p.m.  Christ Church Lafayette graciously allowed us to sleep on the floor of their fellowship hall and that saved us lots of money.  The guys and chaperones slept in one room and the girls and chaperones slept in another.  There was much excitement and energy in anticipation of what lay in store at the conference.

After attending the first night's events, we ate at Raising Cane's and then returned to the church to drink hot chocolate, visit and then bed down for the night.  As it neared midnight, the lights were off and it became very quiet in the guys' room.  We could hear a buzz of talking, giggling, etc. coming from the girls' room with no end in sight.  The pastor of the Elton Church said very seriously, "You hear that, gentlemen?"  We all listened intently as he continued, "It has been scientifically proven that women speak on average 20,000 words per day, dwarfing and nearly tripling the mere 7,000 words per day that men speak.  They're trying desperately to get their 20,000 words in before tomorrow!"  We laughed and went to bed, being awakened only a few short hours later by someone's cell phone alarm that blared bagpipe music louder than one might expect at 6 a.m.

We woke up quickly and ate a breakfast of cereal & milk and loaded up the van and cars and headed to the Cajundome for a full day of events, including praise and worship music by Voice of the People, a music group from Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, a Christian illusionist, Jared Hall and special guest speaker Acton Bowen, all intermixed with a DJ and a preacher/poet. Finally we were treated to a concert by The Vertical Church Band before heading home, returning to Jennings at midnight.  The conference was very well planned, with a nice mixture of Truth from God's Word, great Praise & Worship music, and hilarity from the MC/illusionist.

YEC 2015 Lafayette, Louisiana

Students were so moved by the teaching that they streamed down to the arena floor during the invitation time in numbers that reminded me of a Billy Graham Crusade.  Final numbers aren't in, but after the first night, over 130 students had made first time responses to Jesus Christ, asking Him to be their Savior and Lord. Hundreds more restored their commitments to Jesus.

In the conference, they passed out glow-in-the-dark necklaces that everyone wore. We watched a Youth Group in the top of the dome that re-arranged their necklaces to make:

A smiley face...

Jesus...

This one is hard to read, but it says, Praise!:

I could go on and on about the conference, telling you about how Acton Bowen explained what it means to "Take up Your Cross and Follow Him" or about how he talked about how the culture, the media, the world, wants you to believe that everything is all about YOU and how destructive that is, and it keeps us from living life as our Creator would have us live.  I'll leave you, though, with a powerful story (paraphrased) that he told the students, about how much Jesus loves them.

Acton Bowen said that after one of his speaking engagements, he was met by a man recently retired from one of our military Special Forces units.  Mr. Bowen was very interested to talk to him and asked him if he had any interesting stories that he might share.  The man told him the following, leaving out, of course, some of the information that was still classified:

Four missionaries were imprisoned in a country in which we don't have diplomatic ties.  The missionaries were thrown into a dungeon-like cell in the ground where they were given just enough food and water to keep them alive.  They didn't allow them any restroom facilities and the cage in the ground became very foul - like being imprisoned in a septic tank.  From time to time the guards would get bored and play cruel mind games with their captives, saying, "Hey the Americans have come to rescue you.  You are free!"  They would have them climb out of the cell and allow the missionaries to run through a field toward freedom. Then the captors would shoot above their heads and at their feet and catch them, beat them severely and throw them back in the sewerage-filled hole.

Pretty soon, the four men decided that embracing no hope was better than to have hopes that continued to be crushed time after time, not to mention the beatings. They decided that the next time they heard the guards telling them that they were free, they wouldn't believe it - they would instead kneel down, lock arms, look down and refuse to believe them.

After three years, America obtained intelligence that showed them the location of the four men and in the cover of darkness, special forces (including the man telling Acton Bowen the story) would fly in on a Blackhawk helicopter and rescue the men. Their commanders gave them 5 minutes to get in and get out.  If it took longer than that, they were to leave without the captives.

They quickly neutralized the enemy, found the cell in the ground, cut the lock off and yelled down to the captives that they were Americans and they were there to give them freedom.  The men knelt down, locked arms and wouldn't budge!  The special ops forces were stunned and pleaded with the 4 men to come quickly, but it was to no avail!  Finally, with the 5 minutes almost up, the man telling the story removed his helmet, weapons, and belt and descended into the hole.  The stench was overwhelming as he waded through human waste and bent down, getting on the captives' level, telling them, "We're Americans.  We're here to rescue you and give you freedom!"

Finally one of the men believed him.  The other 3 captives rebuked him, saying, "It's just a cruel joke. This is not real!"  The one captive said, "No, this is real.  Our captors would never do this.  Our liberator is the only one who would come down amidst our messy, vile filth and get on our level." The men were saved by their liberator and left the nasty pit of confinement and moved to freedom!

And that is exactly what Jesus did for us!

Acton Bowen with some of our Young People

YEC empowered and emboldened our Youth and the Leaders as well and all left with a renewed spirit.

YEC 2014 in the Cajundome

The weekend prior to Thanksgiving I took our church's youth group to Lafayette, Louisiana for YEC. YEC stands for Youth Evangelism Conference and is an annual conference for Christian Youth to encourage this generation to live out their faith and make a difference in their communities.  We have a small country church and brought 3 young people (and myself).   I guess since the adjective 'young' is relative, I am relatively young, so let's say we had 4 young people from our church.

We partnered with a church in a neighboring community that we've grown close to and we all went together in their church van and left Sunday after church.  In order to help us financially, a church in Lafayette graciously offered that we could sleep on the floor in their fellowship hall.  We were very appreciative for their benevolence and calculated that they saved us six or seven hundred dollars in hotel bills.  To repay their blessing, we're going to help them this next Spring or Summer with some painting & cleaning that they need done.

Sunday evening we grabbed a quick meal and headed to the Cajundome.  There was a traffic jam of church buses from around the State.  I saw a bus from Grand Isle, Louisiana, which is practically sitting in the Gulf of Mexico and another bus from Monroe, which is way up north along with dozens and dozens of buses in between. We got these nifty bracelets which served as out tickets for Sunday night and Monday and went in to find our seats.

Cool ticket bracelet

We found our seats up in the upper deck.  There were 8,000 young people in attendance.  It was loud and rowdy, but in a good way.  The theme of the conference was Live Sent and was based on John 20:21 which says:

Jesus therefore said the them again, "Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you."

The Theme

There was great worship music from a band called "Finding Favour" and then an illusionist named Jared Hall that came out and did some illusions that had everyone in attendance looking at each other asking, "How did he do that?!?"  A speaker named Wes Hamilton gave a talk using the text from Luke 8 where Jesus cast the demons out of the demon possessed guy and they went into a herd of pigs who went into the water and drowned.  He talked about the demon possessed man, saying that he lived in the tombs among the swine, was naked and had gashed himself with stones and had cuts all over his body in various stages of healing, scars from a lifetime of bad decisions.  Yet Jesus felt compassion for him, met him where he was, ministered to him and changed his life.

He said that even though we're not naked and living in a graveyard, we all have scars from bad decisions and yet if we come to Jesus, He can provide healing, forgiveness and everlasting life.  The demon possessed guy wanted to follow Jesus, but Jesus refused his request and instead asked him to return to his home and describe the great things God has done for him.  He complied and went throughout the whole city telling them about Jesus.  And that is what we are to do!  We are to tell the Good News of Jesus Christ to those around us.

Our group clowning around under a huge oak tree by the Cajundome

It was a thought provoking message.  An invitation was given and in Billy Grahamesque fashion, hundreds and hundreds of young people went down for the invitation. Truly a remarkable event!

Later that evening we made our way back to the church where we were staying which kind of sits in an industrial area of Lafayette.  We had snacks to eat, talked about what we had experienced and prepared to bed down for the night to be ready for a full day at YEC on Monday.  Boys slept on the floor in the kitchen area and girls on the floor in some neighboring Sunday School rooms.  The lights went off.

We were nearly asleep when the girls ran into the room.  Apparently there was someone right outside their window saying, "Helloooooo!"  When we went outside, there was a homeless man that was sleeping on the property.  We called the pastor of the church who drove back out.  Their church knows him, ministers to him, helps him and allows him to keep his belongings on the church property during the day. We talked to him and gave him a package of cookies and all agreed to pray for him as the local church continues to help him, so that Richard's life will be changed by Jesus.  God underscored the lesson we had just heard earlier of Jesus' compassion for people with a lifetime of scars by presenting to us a real object lesson that very night.

We met the next morning for more singing, more humor and illusions from the illusionist, and more great talks, encouraging us all to Live Sent - to be bold and courageous, to shine the light of the Gospel to those who we come into contact with, knowing that we're not alone.

Our two churches' youth groups

We were challenged to live different from the culture around us, to be loving, to walk as Jesus walked and to have the heart of a servant to those around us, not shrinking back from testifying about what He's done for us, and lead others to find His perfect Peace and Love.

Listening to 8,000 Youth singing praises was a powerful thing

We had a break in the afternoon from 4 to 7.  The pastor from the church in the neighboring community and I went to a complimentary meal for pastors and youth leaders.  The food was good. I thought it was funny, though, that there were no vegetables.  And everything was brown.  There was a buffet line with sausage jambalaya, fried meat pies, fried catfish, boudin balls, and some rolls.  We feasted. They had a goodie bag with all sorts of things for us, including ear plugs!  At 8 o'clock there was a concert that everyone was excited about.  Hence the ear plugs.

The concert was a group from Australia named For King and Country, made up of the younger brothers of another Christian artist named Rebecca St. James.  Their philosophy of their music (from Wikipedia) is:

"The power of music can impact our mood, emotions, our day. But when you merge the strength of music with the heart, hope and passion of the Gospel... it has the ultimate power not only to change someone's day, but to impact them for eternity. This is why we write music and sing songs - we hope that people will be moved, encouraged and stirred to live a life for Someone greater than themselves."

They had distinctive Australian accents and in one of their songs, "Let my life be the proof of your love," they climbed into the arena with the youth and sang.  The lead singer came within 15 feet of us.  I was impressed with the lyrics of their music and even more impressed by what they told the youth.  The lead singers told the girls. "Young ladies, you are valuable, you are of great worth.  You are a princess, a child of the King.  Never let a young man disrespect you or your body by treating you as a commodity.  Live lives of purity, of virtue, of character."  Then he said, "Young men, you are gentlemen, you are princes, a child of the King.  Chivalry is not dead.  You are to show respect to young ladies and treat them as a gentleman would.  You are to live your lives with moral clarity."

Joel from For King and Country singing high up in the Cajundome

They sang another song of theirs called, "Fix My Eyes" that is a big hit of theirs. Here are a few of the lyrics of that song:

Hit Rewind, Click Delete
Stand face to face with the younger me
All of the mistakes
All of the heartbreak
Here's what I'd do differently:
Chorus:
I'd love like I'm not scared
Give when it's not fair
Live life for another
Take time for a brother
Fight for the weak ones
Speak out for freedom
Find faith in the battle
Stand tall but above it all:
FIX MY EYES ON YOU!

Urging the crowd to sing along with Fix My Eyes on You!

The concert ended late and we arrived back in Jennings at midnight.  Although tired we all agreed that YEC 2014 was an awesome experience.  Our Youth Group sat in the parking lot talking about how we had a mountaintop experience and now we were coming back to normal life in the valley. We talked about things we could do to keep the fire within us alive and to act on what we had learned - to truly Live Sent, to be a witness of what Jesus Christ has done in our lives and impact the world around us for Him.