Our Weekend - Disciple Now

We had the best weekend.  Each year our student ministry hosts a disciple now weekend here at our church.  Its pretty much a weekend retreat but done here at home.  We had an amazing speaker - EJ Swanson who joined us as well as an awesome band - The Justin Teseniar Band.  They led us in our worship times and we love, love having them with us.  Our group was really challenged this past weekend and so many students made steps in the right direction, increased their faith, grew in Christ and even accepted Christ as their Savior.  These times are so special to us, we are so thankful for being able to do this with our youth.  We have an amazing group of adults and college students who set apart their weekend to help host students in their homes, drive them all around town, feed them, lead them in bible studies, cry with them, laugh with them and just pour into their lives.  What a blessing to see our church come together to teach and love teenagers - so precious.

Justin and I love this weekend for so many reasons.  Since its just our group we all get the chance to make deeper connections.  Each group is divided by age and gender for their small group times.  Those times are so important to the students.  That's where real discussions, fellowship and sharing happens.  We also enjoy this weekend because we get the chance to plan every detail.  We plan the activities, the theme, the small group questions, etc.  We prayed and prayed over this event this year and it was awesome to see each and every detail work out.  God's hand in this was present from the beginning months ago and He was faithful until the end yesterday.  We saw students who we have been praying for- for a really long time - whose heart was burst open wide for Jesus.  It just doesn't get any better than that.

One of our big activities for the weekend was an Amazing Race challenge.  These guys were revved.  They came dressed in their war paint, their thrift store finds and whatever these guys are dressed in below.  We had stations set up all over town where they went and completed tasks to receive their next clue.  It was so much fun!  Shout out to all of the awesome adults who braved the cold and helped run a station.  

Our theme for the weekend was "One".  Justin and I had prayed over this for a while and this just kept coming up for us.  We just believed it was perfect timing to focus on unity, togetherness and being one with each other the way God desires us to be.  It was so cool to see this group really work on unity, to forgive and reconcile, to reach out and to have true fellowship.  I can't say enough how awesome it was.

We took several weeks working on a big photo prop.  We wanted to get a pic of every student and have them all together on stage for the event.  We also grabbed photos of our town, schools and church.  We wanted it to be a symbol of us coming together as One to bring God's message to our area.  We decided to use instagram and we printed them using prinstagram.  This company was awesome - super fast and great quality photos (and I'm just saying that because I love them).  We used foam board and photo mounting tape to get them all together.  It was kind of a tedious process but so worth it.  We are planning on doing something more with these later.

Justin and I cherish these moments.  Its such a blessing to be able to do what we do.  We have amazing students who are running after God and we are so thankful to get to be a part of their lives.

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend!  I will be here tomorrow co-hosting the GFC blog hop with The Life of a Not So Ordinary Wife so make sure you come back and link up!  Its a great way to meet new bloggy friends!

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