This weekend our church hosted our annual midwinter youth retreat. The theme “Give Me Your Eyes” was borrowed from title of a Brandon Heath song. Our youth pastor decided not to hire a speaker and instead used the money to lease cows and goats to families in Cambodia and Africa. The theme of the weekend was all about reality vs. perception, blessing vs. entitlement, and compassion vs. pity. Our kids got their worldviews rocked to the core and the worship we took part in was awesome.
For starters, we transformed the sanctuary into a dump. we brought in several loads of garbage in box trucks and on flat-bed trailers. we filled the sanctuary with tires, pallets, scrap metal, old wood, plastic and paper and even brought the back of pickup truck front and center. On stage we created something similar to a dump dwelling one might see in some of the places we’ve worked on trips in the past few years. We definitely disturbed some people who cringed when they saw what had been done. A few missionary who’ve done ministry in dumps in ecuador for years visited this weekend and told us all we lacked was the smell of rancid milk and human waste. I guess we felt like we could only take it so far. While I contributed ideas to the set design, most of the credit goes to our youth pastor and the the team of college kids and parents that did most of the work. I’m attaching a few crappy pictures. maybe I’ll update with some better ones later on. Oh and my graphic too.
For worship, our youth pastor brought in an old college friend from West Texas. He did a great job and worked really well with the team we created to support him. I got to play drums Friday and Saturday. Worship Leader had to be on a plane Sunday, so I moved back to guitar.
Songs we used in the 5 worship sessions we had from Friday through Sunday morning included:
Give Me Your Eyes – Brandon Heath
Now is the Time – delirious?
Come Sit – an original by our guest worship leader Bryan Sims
Solution – Hillsong United
From the Inside Out – Hillsong United
Fire Fall Down – Hillsong United
The Stand – Hillsong United
Mighty to Save – Hillsong
Marvelous Light – Charlie Hall
Here I am to Worship – Tim Hughes
God of Justice – Tim Hughes
Everything Glorious – David Crowder Band
Sing to the King – Passion
Open the Eyes of My Heart – Paul Baloche
Trading My Sorrows (yikes!)- Darrell Evans
Jesus, Lover of My Soul – Paul Oakley
My favorite had to be Delirious’ Now is the Time on Sunday morning in both services after Jeff preached to our entire church.
January 12, 2009 at 8:46 pm |
Yeah, this weekend was pretty great. I can almost hear out of my right side again, too. And my feet are starting to heal. And my fingers aren’t so sore and are starting to get callouses. And I can barely even remember my head hitting the pillow every night since Friday. So all in all I guess you could say it was everything a weekend should be.
And yes, the music was so super great. I’m so glad I was a part of it.
January 13, 2009 at 9:21 pm |
Awesome! It’s been awhile since I have visited. Need to come back more often…
February 3, 2009 at 11:17 pm |
Hi! I’m actually directing a youth retreat the end of April and using Brandon’s song as the theme. Do you have any ideas for me? Maybe games and break out sessions? I’m really interested in knowing what you guys did! Thanks for any help that you can offer.