A Vision From God Comes True!

I don't even know how to start explaining what happened in the Jr. High Ministry last night. So I will begin with the starting point. Our good friend and fellow youth coach Ryan received a vision from God that we had to act upon. He said that God showed him a vision in which all of our students were on their faces and praying in front of a cross. The vision that the Lord gave him was so powerful that we had to try and recreate it and make it a reality. So we decided to spend about 6 hours cleaning and rearranging the youth trailer to set up an atmosphere that was like the vision. Ryan cleaned and painted the cross that we've had with us for so long and was neglected for lack of use and we placed it in the front of the room so that it would be everyones main focus. (Something we should have done a long time ago).

We changed everything, including the format in which we do our time together. We introduced Worship for the first time ever in the Jr. High ministry. We played contemporary worship music and had the words on the TVs for the kids to be able to sing-along to. That was awesome! We played about 3 different songs and everyone was worshipping God the way they felt that they should in their hearts. People were clapping, shouting, jumping and just laying it all out and giving it all to God. It was a blessing to see everyone worship our Lord with total freedom. (None of that would have been possible without our good friend Christy. She got the video's and all the technical aspects of the worship together for us. Thanks Christy!)

We had a lesson about Looking and seeing God in a world that is filled with negative images and things that distract us from seeing God. Ryan did an awesome job in this lesson which is another blessing because he was so nervous before we started. He was so scared that he wouldn't say the right things but God provided him with the direction he needed to take and the talk was great. Rebecca chimed in with a great insight regarding this as well.

The talk from Ryan was followed by a powerful video of "Lead me to the cross" that has scenes from the Passion of the Christ in it. After the video I came up and prayed a prayer for everyone and I followed that with an alter call which is where God's presence was really felt! I can't even describe what happened next in a way that does it justice but I will try...

After the alter call I turned around and faced the cross and bowed down before it and started to pray. I felt someone come up beside me and pray. I thought it was Ryan at first but once I seen that it was one of the students my heart lept for joy! I hugged him and started praying with him. Then one by one students came up to the cross and started praying and crying like never before. I had no idea at first how many came up because I was in the front and couldn't see behind me, (not to mention I was still praying and didn't want to break my focus by looking up and seeing who was there). We prayed one of the longest and most heart felt prayers I've ever prayed and you could just here the sobbing in the room. It was truly the most powerful thing I've ever been a part of! God's presence was definitely felt in that room last night! God has been blessing this ministry for two weeks straight and we are doing all that we can to stay close to him as we try to reach out to these students.

After all was said and done we realized that a total of 6 students made decisions to either rededicate themselves to Christ or take him more seriously. A couple of students even wanted to get baptized! Again, I can't describe how powerful this was.

When everyone was gone us youth coaches were standing around and talking about the things that happened and everyones thoughts and feelings about it. Christy told us that out of 23 students 22 of them came up and prayed facedown in front of that cross! Ryan's vision had just became a reality!

God is so great. He is using us youth coaches in a way that we never thought possible and we are being blessed beyond compare. We always look forward to our next meeting time because we can't wait to see how God is going to move each time. We pray that God's presence will be felt everytime we meet and that everyone of those students will give their hearts to God. Thank you so much Lord for all your wonderful blessings!

For more insight as to what happened check out Rebecca's blog.