Winterfest, Awesome!

We are back. Wow, what a fast weekend! I had forgotten how quickly weekend retreats fly by with a youth trip. Besides a flat tire on Sunday, which is a whole other blog story I may tell sometime, it was a smooth trip.

Being my first ever experience with Winterfest, I thought I would write down my positive thoughts and my disappointing thoughts for what it's worth, and a SPECIAL MEMORY.

Positives about Winterfest from my perspective:
1. Jeff Walling is always a great communicator of the good news of Jesus. He is always dramatic and I really like that kind of thing. I think it especially communicates well to teens.

2. Our group was small, but so well behaved. I love to see kids wrestle with spiritual things and these kinds of weekends cause that to happen. Be sure and read the end of this blog for a SPECIAL MEMORY concerning our group.

3. Tait was a great band. Their drummer was awesome. He did a solo that was worth the ticket to get in.

4. Bob Stromberg was wonderful. He is a really funny guy. Best hand puppets I have ever seen.

5. Lost and Found were hilarious. I love their dry humor.

6. I loved the stage set up and the way they held nothing back to create an atmosphere that was wonderful for communicating to teens.

7. It snowed, which for a southern boy is always a treat to see.

Negatives from my perspective:
1. I know it is hard to get good a capella singing in such a huge place, but I thought the singing left something to be desired, especially for 6500 people. Watershed Worship led the group, and really did a somewhat mediocre job. I have heard them before. They have even been at Creekside and did a super job. Remember that this is from my perspective. Several others commented that the singing was great. So there you go. I guess when you've been to Zoe Conference, your expectations are set pretty high.

2. The crowds. After about five minutes of being in that group of humanity, you begin to feel like cattle. it was a "moooooving" experience.

3. The costs of eating (and everything else) in a tourist town are astronomical.

4. Then there was the flat tire. I'll save that story for later on. It will be a good illustration for how satan works on us during a spiritual time in our life.

A SPECIAL MEMORY from Winterfest: We have in our congregation a lady who works with Safe Place. Safe Place, you may or may not know, is a home of protection for women and their kids who are living in dangerous abusive situations. One of the families that she is working with has six children and four of them have been coming to Creekside. I won't use their names in this blog, so as to keep anonymity (a big part of Safe Place for obvious reasons).

These two young men have been through more things that most of us have seen in a lifetime. Again, for fear of someone reading this who do not need to know, I won't go into details. The special memory is about their attitude and actions on this trip.

They were like little children in a candy store. They took nothing for granted and loved everything we did. Every time we did a devo, the youngest wanted to sing the "Turning Song." sometimes we tend to forget the excitement we once felt in worship. We don't clap like we used to. We don't smile as much, especially during songs we have heard a hundred times. They haven't heard anything a hundred times and they were so fresh.

Hear are a couple of comments they made to me and to the teens in our group. One of them told our teens, "You guys are my new best friends!" The other comment I remember was, after I asked him if he was having a good time, he said, "This is the greatest time I have had in my life!!"

With messy people come messy behavior. They were so excited that they tended to get on some of the teens' nerves. But after those comments, those teens that said that, realized what an impact this weekend had on these two young men. Realizing this, one of my daughters said that it made her feel bad for thinking that these kids were obnoxious.

I guess this is so special to me because rarely do we get to see fresh excitement for the Lord. Rarely are we blessed with such enthusiasm for singing and worship and just being together. It was a wonderful thing to see.