the lock in

I forgot to post about it, sorry its been awhile, but two weekends ago we had a lock-in out reach event to target High School kids. We had a twelve hour night of games, worship, a dating forum (yeah I was worried too but it worked out all right,) and break out sessions where we got to share talks on having a quiet time and scripture memory. A friend of mine shared a testimony about a friend of his who died on a mission trip but lived with incredible purpose in high school. After the testimony I got to share the gospel, which was difficult because most of the people I was speaking to were on project with me or already believers, so I tried to kind of add inspiratoinal thoughts on living with purpose, which failed because I did not prepare early enough to let it be spirit led. I learned a lot about speaking; 1.It is not my spiritual gift 2. If you are going to speak, spend time in the word and in prayer and think really specifically about your audience and what you are going to say 3. Let the Holy Spirit lead 4. the Gospel is simple and is what changes lives, not inspirational thoughts.

The really neat experience I had at the lock-in though was getting to share the gospel with a girl named Nichole. Nichole came into the room me and Brandon were in while preparing for our talk because she was playing a game like sardines where you hide from the group. We told her we were preparing for our talk about our faith, and she said she heard the guy who had shared a testimony earlier talk about his faith and knowing God, and she asked what that meant. Immediately we were really psyched by how pointed a question it was, and led her through the gospel, with some help from the knowing God personally booklet. She also asked us questions about what we thought about partying and communion, which we were able to answer in relation to how our faith affects our lives. It was an awesome experience, and I think she was pretty interested, but did not want to make any decisions that day. PLEASE pray for Nichole; that God would work in her heart and use the seed we attempted to plant to lead her to himself. Another friend of ours on project, Jesse, got to share the gospel with a kid named Justin, who decided to follow Christ and accept God's forgiveness that night. Please pray for Justin, that he will learn how to walk with the Lord, and with Jesse, that he will be faithfull to carry out Discipleship.