High School Winter Retreat - Part 2

Good Morning from Tennessee!

We had an amazing Sunday here at the Strength to Stand Conference.  We started the morning with worship led by Matt Papa.  Students had to learn a few songs (Matt writes most of the music and lyrics that he sings) but it wasn't long before they were in full swing worshipping Jesus Christ.  The morning session was led by Joey Hill.  He challenged our students with a good illustration: If your life was a computer link that immediately redirected people to what you are all about, what would they find if they clicked the link?

Yesterday afternoon we spent some time in Gatlinburg, walking through shops and interacting with some of the other students who were in town for the multiple conferences that are happening in this area.  We left it time to get to the hotel and catch the first half of the Falcons game.  Not the most spiritual part of our weekend, but important nonetheless... :-)

In our evening sessions we were again led by Matt Papa who challenged our students to consider giving God the praise that He deserves because of his life, death, and resurrection.  We heard from speaker Brent Crowe, who is vice-president of Student Leadership University.  He posed the question, "What would you attempt for the glory of God if you knew that you could not fail?"

After a brief intermission, there was concert by rap artist Trip Lee whose lyrics create a unique worship experience.  Then David Nassar brought a message on Psalm 1:6, in which he challenged students to consider that the people they know and love are heading for the real eternal destinations the Bible describes: heaven or hell.  This reality should cause us to live differently.

During our church debrief time it was clear that God is moving in the hearts and lives of our students.  Students shared taking specific steps in living for the Lord with greater passion when they come home. We talked about not be a youth group that is a high-school-aged babysitting service, or a youth ministry that solely ministers to ourselves, but reaching out as students on mission to see lives changed by the Gospel.  Students broke into groups and prayed for specific people they could share their faith with when they arrive home.

We have had an incredible weekend so far.  As we head into the last day of our retreat pray that the commitments students are making would stick once they arrive home.  Pray for our safety and wise decisions as we head out to the slopes.  Pray for safe travels as we come home tonight!

We will see you all around 9:30pm tonight!

Steve

High School Winter Retreat

Hello from Pigeon Forge, TN!

We made it in yesterday and immediately jumped into the Strength to Stand student conference.  Last night, we went to the Sevierville Event Center along with more than 5,000 students.  In all venues across the city, there are more than 10,000 students here for the conference from all over the country.

Students "got down" with KJ-52, a rap artist who was also at Hebron in April of this past year.  After that, the evening took a worshipful turn with Kristian Stanfill, a worship leader fresh off of Passion 2013.  He led our group into a powerful time of worship that was followed by our message for the evening.

Scott Dawson spoke about our tendency to be captured by affluence, adversity, or apathy.  In each of these things we run the risk of losing our passion for God in favor of something much less.  At the close of his message he extended the Gospel message and invited students to respond.  Hundreds of students responded and were counseled in faith decisions.  Praise the Lord!  Afterward, Kari Jobe and David Crowder led us in worship.

Our students did awesome on the first day of this trip.  Please continue to pray!  God is already dealing with students on many different levels.  Pray that if there is any student on this trip that does not have a relationship with Jesus, they would begin one this weekend.  Pray for the students that know Jesus, that they would listen closely to what God has to say to them this weekend and respond with life change when they get home.

Looking forward to a great day two.  Check out the blog tomorrow for another HS Winter Retreat update!

Steve

next after middle school camp

We are taking the students to the movies today at the Mall of GA to watch RIO. Students need to be dropped off inside the Food Court at 9:30 AM. They will need $10.00 and that will cover their movie and lunch. Pick up time is 1 PM from the Food Court. Hope everyone joins us!

Wednesday at Studio, we will have a POST CAMP PARTY! It will begin at 6:15 PM in Gym A. Free pizza for everyone! Join us afterwards in the Studio from 6:45-8:00 for a time of worship and to hear some of the stories of what God has done in the hearts of our student while at Camp. Parents are welcome to join us!

Flav and the HSM staff

Middle School Camp, Day #2

Sunday at Camp has been a huge day. Started off with an intense morning worship session with Tyler Gardner Band followed by teaching from our executive pastor, Derek Spain. 

Our students were taught on the value of healthy friendships by pointing back to the early church and the way Jesus' followers did life together. 

Right after the morning session we jumped back into breakouts. Then back to lunch, rec and ropes for the afternoon. We are indeed grateful to God for the amazing weather He gave us this weekend at camp. Students were able to enjoy low and high ropes and on the rec field, water games and team building games.


During the evening session, our students heard a message on courage to be all that God called them to be. The worship got extended after the message time. It was so powerful. To see our students and leaders fully free to worship, hands held high, singing to the top of their lungs "With Everything" ... words cannot describe the feeling in the room. 5 more students decided to follow Jesus by the end of the night. That brings us to 15 in total that said YES to Jesus this weekend. Big win! Amazing...


Students headed out to family group times and at 10:15 we were back for Hebron's Got Talent. Fun, fun times ... the two winning acts of the night were "So good to me" and "Mighty to Save." The night ended with a "treat" our fearless Tina Killian put together for our rec leaders. A dinner on the kids :) Props to our amazing rec team leaders who were great sports and finished strong each plate.


Sunday at camp was amazing. Students have asked if we could stay longer ... yet camp is wrapping up. One more morning session to go and we're off to Dacula, GA. Please pray for a safe ride for us as depart to Hebron today around 11.00 AM. We will be stopping for lunch and arriving to church somewhere before 4 PM. 
To God be the glory for the things HE HAS DONE!!!

Middle School Camp, DAY #1

We started our Saturday with Breakfast and Quiet Time followed by morning worship. Our focus in the morning was on the importance of SPENDING QUALITY TIME in the Word. We used Romans 12:2 and Proverbs 3:5-6 to remind our students that if they believe God has the best for them, then quality time with Jesus is a must. Discovering God's perfect will for our lives and living inside of it has everything to do with carving TIME for the Lord in the Word. We talked about TIME, TRANSPARENCY and SUMBISSION. We were reminded one more time of the reason WE CAN TRUST God completely - His great love for us in Christ Jesus. Students responded in an unexpected way in worship by singing HOW HE LOVES along with our morning closing video. One student from our group received Jesus during the morning session.

Breakouts were next with topics on Purity, Relevance of the Bible today, sharing the Gospel and Rhythm, staying full on engaged to God during the Middle School years - with amazing breakout leaders like Lee Glover, and our very own pastors Derek Spain, Steve Browning and Rob Brooks.

Lunch followed and then REC & ROPES. Our students had a blast on the rec field & the high and low ropes course. At rec our teams competed against time on a fun obstacle course with games like Angry Birds, human peg jump, earth ball, magic carpet (to name just a few) plus tons of water games.

After dinner we headed back into our evening worship with a FULL ON worship session with our amazing Tyler Gardner band. Songs like Our God and With Everything captured the heart of our packed worship room. Dwayne Smith spoke on self-esteem and the Christian life, as being more than a decision at a place in point to being a LIFESTYLE to be embraced daily. He challenged our students to be willing to TAKE ON the opportunities God sets before them even now and NOT wait till later. At least 4 decisions were made for Jesus by the end of our night.

After family group times, our LATE NIGHT event was TOURNY's in the gym. With games like gotcha, four square & the awesome volleyball tournaments our night was a blast. The finalists in volleyball were Team Purple and Team Green, with Green winning as champions.

A great day yesterday!!! One more to go and tomorrow we'll be heading home. Please pray on this last day God does His great work in ALL of our students. Pray for God to continue to move as He has already. And if you prayed for us yesterday for good weather, thanks :) God indeed gave us an amazing weather and students were able to have fun in the sun!

Blessings to all from the Blue Ridge YMCA.

Flav & the HSM staff

Middle School Camp, 1st night

So we have arrived at the Blue Ridge Assembly last night around 4 PM. students did great on the ride up, with only one stop for lunch. we got situated into our rooms, had our 1st rec group meeting and headed to dinner. The excitement was big. The doors opened for our 1st night session at 7:25. We are literally jam packed in the Chapel. God has really taken us by surprise with the amount of student that joined us at camp this year. Over 40 more compared to last year!!! Being in a room that seats 200 with almost 200 people here feels amazing.

We started off with some weird game time followed by some super

worship brought to us by the Tyler Gardner Band. The kids jumped right in and the atmosphere was electric. Songs like Go, Take it All, Came to my rescue and Your Love never fails brought our students and leaders fully in. Some of us sang so hard, our voices are kinda gone :)

Pastor Dwayne smith brought a message on the CHOICES made in Middle School and challenged our student to choose Christ, as the only and the best choice. Our students were invited into a life of UNASHAMED WORSHIP to the One who died and rose again for us - JESUS CHRIST. By the end of the night 8 students made decisions for Christ. God is moving big already in our group and we are only one night in.

Worship was followed by family group times where students got to share what God has spoken into their hearts and where He is at work in them right now.

At 10 PM it was our LATE NIGHT event. We were going to take students on a walk to the lake where s'mores by the bonfire were going to be on the menu. The rain came down pretty strong starting at 10:00, the fire would not catch… So we had a choice to make, WE HAD TO have the s'mores, so we asked the YMCA staff if we could use their fireplace in the lobby. It was done. We stayed in and enjoyed some yummy s'mores. Closed the night with a cute little line some of our leaders made: “come get your s'more then get in groups of three or more, head out to your room and snore.”

11:30 PM, our students went to their rooms and we called it a night. A great sweet and awesome night. I imagine everyone is asleep right now and soon will be waking up and head to breakfast.

Pray with me for our group this weekend. Pray for a great day today and tomorrow. Pray for good weather as they had rain here this week. Kids are having fun and loving it here already. Pray above all that God continues to open hearts and change lives more and more as we go thru our camp.

I can't wait to see what happens today!

Blessings,

Flav and the HSM staff

MS 2012 SUMMER CAMP REC TEAMS

Red		Purple
FLIP JOHNSON		BRIAN METZDORF
Ahern	Katelyn	Seagraves	Valerie
Bridger	Sara	Tidwell	Kayla
Brown	Abby	Whitwell	Riley
Cooksey	Mary Katherine	Moye	Jonathan
Bennett	Sophie	Sammons	Nick
Bradberry	Maci	Spain	Andy
Coffield	Noah	Norton	Marshall
Edwards	Mark	Oluwadare	Tope
Bailey	Jesse	Pritchett	Tyler
Brumbelow	Brady	Rodriguez	Jordan
Bullock	Nash	Rogers	Jamie
Beasley	Alex	Stokes	Graham
		Davlin	Lauren
Najjar	Sarah	Wesley Smith
Pink		White
JAKE GLOVER		MIKE DICKINSON
Donatucci	Ashley	Turner	Hallie
Evers	Amy	Vande	Rachael
Dickinson	Lilly	Strickland	Allen
Dills	Jodi	Strickland	Luke
Brisby	Morgan	Thompson	David
Coffield	Sarah	Valenzuela	Fabio
Fabricant	Wyatt	Vance	Christian
Gedgoudas	John	White	Joel
Charron	Caleb	Walker	Nicholas
Dubose	Jake	Birkbeck	Cole
Dickinson	Jacob	Stewart	David
Forrester	Caleb	Golden	John
Brandon Pedraza  Raphael Latimore		Dajuste    Rebecca
Blue		Teal
CHRIS HOLLAND		JIM PEEVY
Foskey	Avery	Woodward	Grace
Fanczi	Sarah	McDaniel	J. Connor
Goodman	Rebecca	Reid	Gabrielle
Grove	Brooklyn	Saunders	Jordan
Crabtree	Brooklyn	Taylor	Miranda
Foskey	Lauren	Terry	Jessica
Glover	Joe	Provence	John
Gutierrez	Miguel	Riddett	Jackson
Etheridge	Elijah	McGee	Chase
Evans	Eli	Mikle	Chase
Glover	Ben	White	Jacob (Jake)
Henderson	Nash	Wiggs	Taylor
Maxwell	Lawson	Rank	Andrew
Pedro Monterosa
Green		Yellow
DEREK SPAIN		KARL RIDDETT
Gedgoudas	Maddy	Sammons	Madison
Henderson	Lauren	Williams	Virginia
Howard	Lauren	Moye	Rebecca
Korbien	Jasmin	Palmer	Jillian
Gibson	Alyssa	Mezzles	Hannah
Haverty	Kaitlyn	Provence	Mary Rose
Hutchison	Christopher	Palmer	Bryant
Hymes	Joe	Peevy	Carter
Fabricant	Marshall	Johnson	Sutton
Franklin	Joseph	Lawson	Daniel
Hubbard	Joseph	Penn	Leo
Kellum	Will	Taffar	Silas
Vargas	Mateo	Bailey	Anderson
Cassidy Irizarry		Jennifer Lopez
Black		Orange
JOHN MCGEE		JIM GLOVER
Holland	Olivia	Oluwadare	Yetunde
King	Emily	Rodriguez	Jackie
Martinez	Aylin	Miller	Becca
Merrill	Brittany	Mills	Samantha
Headley	Meredith	Killian	Jena
Holland	Carson	Manus	Jordan
Kennedy	Logan	Moyers	Michael
Metzdorf	Trevor	Oliver	Daniel
Goodman	Daniel	Holliday	Ryan
Hedgepeth	Andrew	Johnson	Slone
McDaniel	Austin	McMann	Nick
McMann	J.C.	Oliver	Drew
Dajuste	Ketsia	Clayton Hopkins

Ally Findlay