Ministry: Student Life Tour

This weekend I took twenty-some-odd students up to Melbourne, Fl. for a mini-conference put on by StudentLife. If you are not familiar with this organization, they put on camps, programs (Internet based Bible Study), mission trips and the tour. The featured speaker was Erwin McManus and the worship guy was Charlie Hall.

Friday PM: We arrived on Friday night about 7:00 PM and right off of the bat Charlie kicked in. If you haven't bought his latest release, you should get, its off the hook! Then Erwin (he made fun of his own name!) talked about Initiative. He used a fantastic analogy about his son jumping off of the roof into his arms below. The students seemed to really enjoy the first session. From here we took off for our hotel a couple of miles down the street. We went to bed fairly early for a group of our caliber, midnight or so.

Saturday AM: We awoke early so we could tear up a continental breakfast (you know the free ones at hotels). We arrived at the hosting facility at 8:00 AM so we could get good seats. I'm one of those guys that likes to sit up front. Our designated "runners" went right to the front row and saved us all seats. Charlie led us in worship, then Erwin talked about Influence. As Christians we should be influencers not influence by the world.

Saturday PM:After a lunch break spent at the local mall food court, we began the afternoon session with Charlie Hall and band leading us with "Marvelous Light" and other worship songs. Then Erwin closed out the conference with a message about Risk. It was an amazing message to students (and me) about the important of faith based risk. When the tour was over we all hopped in the cruiser and drove to Melbourne Beach for a time of worship and sharing on the beach. This was a very cool time where students shared what the Lord spoke to them about over the weekend.