WINTERFEST FOLLOW-UP
I hope that you were all able to rest over the last couple of evenings. Looking back, I want to see if we accomplished our wins. In case you forgot them, we determined our wins for the weekend to be:
1. Build a community mindset among students (we sought to accomplish this through the scavenger hunt, active staff interaction, shared meals, individual room prayer time, gender specific devotional time, and unique conversations).
2. Engage students in authentic and responsive worship (we sought to accomplish this through our group devotional times at the hotel, relating the Scriptures to their lives, and individual room prayer time).
3. Witness life change among students in a way that manifests beyond the trip (we sought to accomplish this through praying for students in our room by name both before, during, and after the trip; making ourselves available to have meaningful, spiritual conversations with individual students regarding problems or issues; create lasting bonds and relationships with students; and hold students accountable for their actions during the weekend).
So…looking back, did we accomplish our wins?
1. I think we did accomplish a community mindset. i think that the scavenger hunt was a huge success and brought about some teamwork and responses that were quite surprising to me. I believe that some couples found out they could do without each other for a while. What I was the most excited about were the individual times I had with students talking about God and where we were with some of the students. This is the first trip that we have talked about needs, goals, where we are in our walk and what we need to do to improve our walk…instead of DRAMA. I had a lot of interaction with several different students about these subjects and really was pleased with the fact that they were willing to share so deeply and honestly.
2. The worship on friday night was the best I have seen on a Winterfest trip for a while. I really think that the gender specific time was a bigh help….and I really think we should do that more often…even if it is only a few minutes to help witht he overall group worship. Saturday was good too but man o man was I tired and therefore did not focus as well.
3. I think I may hvae covered the last part in my first part of the blog, but also realized that it will take some time to see what the total effect will be, I do know however that my life has been affected, and I will continue to pray and work and be diligent in my caring for this group of kids…they deserve that.
@ marty….i would be interested in you sharing some of your conversations tonight at staff meeting. you don’t have to mention names, but if you would like…please share!
i believe that God moved through our worship on Friday night. the environment of friday night is the culture that we HAVE to create here…students are changed through engaging worship. saturday night there were multiple distractions (from tired to drama) which pulled our group worship away from where it needed to be.