Weekend stuff and today
Wowser, I had a marvelous weekend. 14 people total from Springhill went to the Leadership Development Conference up in Jeff City. Only 3 of us were girls. haha And the other two girls were extremely nice and fun. The conference was held at a Baptist church and we stayed at a United Methodist church within a block or so of the Capital Building. The conference itself was fairly low-key and most of the other groups were BSU students and leaders from around the Jeff City area. The speaker was Alex McManus, and he did an excellent job. He spoke on creativity and relevance during the two Saturday sessions. Let me tell ya, good stuff! The focus of the conference was not really on how to develop your personal leadership style, as it might sound, it was more geared toward how to view and approach life and exactly how to go about living and evangelizing in this day and age. We also attended two seminar/workshop sessions on Saturday and I ended up in one about resources (which was fairly informative) and another on Christianity: Subculture or anti-culture (which sparked many-a-discussion in the van). It was a great learning experience. We even had prayer time Saturday evening. It was cool knowing that we were all so intent on following after the Lord's heart for our campuses. That was a huge blessing.
Other than that, our group was total and complete fun. The first night at the church we goofed around playing sports in the gym and then watched a movie into the wee hours of the night. The second night we played Romans and Christians (a.k.a. Underground Church) all around the church in the dark and watched movies. That was a blast. We had tons of downtime, and we just had fun together hanging out. Before the big group sessions of the conference we played hackey sack with our mad skills. (Yeah...right. But really, it was quite fun!) Also, we even watched the Jesus films from Vintage21.com together and started quoting them. ha! On the way back we started naming off who or what people are. (It's hard to explain, so I won't even try.) Just suffice it to say that I'm a fox, Claire, and Yosemite Sam. This weekend rocked my socks off. I made new friends, and happily some them are guys. (I had been going through a dry-spell when it came to guy friends.) Yay for new friends! :)
Here are a couple of quotes/points from Alex McManus:
"The only way you can stand up and do something is to be called crazy. After all, we do hear voices (God), we don't just play church."
"No one anywhere or anytime can create the way you can, and the only thing that stands in your way is you."
"No one can seize your creative moment but you! Seize your moment!"
"Never mistake the masks people wear for who they really are."
"Today's culture hands things to you and if you aren't careful, it can steal your creativity."
"I'm on a quest to save the universe, and right now the earth is my responsibility."
"The fact that you are a Christ-following leader is good for you, but GREAT for the world."
Following an illustration that lead to lost children whistling the tune of "Jesus loves me":
"They had the song, we have the words."
Journal entry of mine written during our evening prayer time on Saturday:
"God, you have a great passion and vision for everyone, and that can only be executed by your people making it happen. It's not a burden, it is the biggest honor that we could ever have. Don't just give us a glimpse of the vision-we MUST live, BE the vision. The awakening is NOT a boring chore, it is the most creative, glorifying, masterpiece. Your love is the driving force, it is who you ARE. Help me personally to live this passion, purpose DAILY, it's not a passing thing. Let me disappear. I need to be a vessel only for that. No boundries, no limits. No threats. That's what it is. I have no life. None. Only the purpose and passion for your people. That's the INTENSITY. None of this is dependent on emotion. Release, complete release to your desire to bring your people to yourself. This is not something that might impace the future, it MUST BE the future. We can't retreat. It's not an option. This is the reality. All of the embarassment, political-incorrectness of it all is the shadow of the limits that the world has placed on us. Cannot be accepted. Must fight. Must BE. Make this reality CLEAR.
What could be greather than being involved in the Creator's romancing of His creation?!
This is the only thing that matters-help me to live it out.
That most definately means awakening me to a life of not quintessential, arid prayer, but open, passionate, direction communication with you."
Today went pretty well, but it was most definately a Monday. In my first class I worked hard researching for a project for 45 minutes. During that time I kept filing articles into an online folder that I thought would save them all, that definately lost all of my information at the close of the class. That was frustrating, but I couldn't do much about it so I tried to shrug it off. My second class, Econ, was extremely boring, and it went by slowly. Chapel was good, with worship and a good speaker. Then, I took a test in American government (which I made a 96 on!). In the afternoon I got to hang out with my roomies for lunch, my conference friends after that, and even talk to an old friend about her getting engaged (I loved hearing her story). That was a serious plus. I snagged a nap as well. Dinner was fun and after that I went with Smalls to her boyfriend's intermural basketball game. We had a good time there. This evening was just quiet and full of studying and just kind of went by slow. For a while I was in a "lull-after-an-amazing-weekend" mode. I'm working on coming out of it though. It's just a shock to the system when you had a break from the cares of college life for a day or two and then you find yourself in the middle of it again. Also, it's bringing into reality the things that I learned and thought about this weekend. It's a daunting task that I cannot do alone. I give it to God.
Thanks for listening.
"Goodnight dear void." -Kathleen Kelly ("You've Got Mail")
Later!
Other than that, our group was total and complete fun. The first night at the church we goofed around playing sports in the gym and then watched a movie into the wee hours of the night. The second night we played Romans and Christians (a.k.a. Underground Church) all around the church in the dark and watched movies. That was a blast. We had tons of downtime, and we just had fun together hanging out. Before the big group sessions of the conference we played hackey sack with our mad skills. (Yeah...right. But really, it was quite fun!) Also, we even watched the Jesus films from Vintage21.com together and started quoting them. ha! On the way back we started naming off who or what people are. (It's hard to explain, so I won't even try.) Just suffice it to say that I'm a fox, Claire, and Yosemite Sam. This weekend rocked my socks off. I made new friends, and happily some them are guys. (I had been going through a dry-spell when it came to guy friends.) Yay for new friends! :)
Here are a couple of quotes/points from Alex McManus:
"The only way you can stand up and do something is to be called crazy. After all, we do hear voices (God), we don't just play church."
"No one anywhere or anytime can create the way you can, and the only thing that stands in your way is you."
"No one can seize your creative moment but you! Seize your moment!"
"Never mistake the masks people wear for who they really are."
"Today's culture hands things to you and if you aren't careful, it can steal your creativity."
"I'm on a quest to save the universe, and right now the earth is my responsibility."
"The fact that you are a Christ-following leader is good for you, but GREAT for the world."
Following an illustration that lead to lost children whistling the tune of "Jesus loves me":
"They had the song, we have the words."
Journal entry of mine written during our evening prayer time on Saturday:
"God, you have a great passion and vision for everyone, and that can only be executed by your people making it happen. It's not a burden, it is the biggest honor that we could ever have. Don't just give us a glimpse of the vision-we MUST live, BE the vision. The awakening is NOT a boring chore, it is the most creative, glorifying, masterpiece. Your love is the driving force, it is who you ARE. Help me personally to live this passion, purpose DAILY, it's not a passing thing. Let me disappear. I need to be a vessel only for that. No boundries, no limits. No threats. That's what it is. I have no life. None. Only the purpose and passion for your people. That's the INTENSITY. None of this is dependent on emotion. Release, complete release to your desire to bring your people to yourself. This is not something that might impace the future, it MUST BE the future. We can't retreat. It's not an option. This is the reality. All of the embarassment, political-incorrectness of it all is the shadow of the limits that the world has placed on us. Cannot be accepted. Must fight. Must BE. Make this reality CLEAR.
What could be greather than being involved in the Creator's romancing of His creation?!
This is the only thing that matters-help me to live it out.
That most definately means awakening me to a life of not quintessential, arid prayer, but open, passionate, direction communication with you."
Today went pretty well, but it was most definately a Monday. In my first class I worked hard researching for a project for 45 minutes. During that time I kept filing articles into an online folder that I thought would save them all, that definately lost all of my information at the close of the class. That was frustrating, but I couldn't do much about it so I tried to shrug it off. My second class, Econ, was extremely boring, and it went by slowly. Chapel was good, with worship and a good speaker. Then, I took a test in American government (which I made a 96 on!). In the afternoon I got to hang out with my roomies for lunch, my conference friends after that, and even talk to an old friend about her getting engaged (I loved hearing her story). That was a serious plus. I snagged a nap as well. Dinner was fun and after that I went with Smalls to her boyfriend's intermural basketball game. We had a good time there. This evening was just quiet and full of studying and just kind of went by slow. For a while I was in a "lull-after-an-amazing-weekend" mode. I'm working on coming out of it though. It's just a shock to the system when you had a break from the cares of college life for a day or two and then you find yourself in the middle of it again. Also, it's bringing into reality the things that I learned and thought about this weekend. It's a daunting task that I cannot do alone. I give it to God.
Thanks for listening.
"Goodnight dear void." -Kathleen Kelly ("You've Got Mail")
Later!