we come in peace

This past weekend was an Oklahoma Youth Ministries annual event called Convergence! When I was a teenager this same event was called youth convention. It was one of my favorite events as a teen and as an adult it's even more a favorite! Last year we took the boys with us but this year Noni and Papa agreed to come to Mustang and watch Ash and Maddox so that I could go to Convergence (in Tulsa) with Brandon and be more hands on and help out with the event! Besides helping out with lunch runs and carrying boxes when needed, Jill and I were also responsible for putting together and presenting a human video that went along with the theme of Doug's message Friday night. We only had about 2 1/2 weeks to practice this video and so we were in a time crunch! Luckily, the students from our church's youth group who volunteered to be in it were VERY hard workers and not only grasped our vision for what this human video was supposed to be but practically took it on themselves and really represented our vision perfectly!

The premis of this human video is an abstract and interpretive representation of how teenagers (and even we as adults) so easily lose our own personal identity and the identity God has created for us and us alone and are so easily swayed by the culture and peer pressure around us to be "just like everyone else"! Just as this description says, Doug's message Friday night was called "Identity Crisis" and he talked about just that, not being afraid to be yourself!!! For our human video, we had 13 students. Three boys were dressed in very suave outfits including zoot suit hats and cains and they represented peer pressure and how it can be so appealing. Nine of the girls in our video were what we liked to call "scary girls". They all had their faces painted white, their hair ratted out as far as it would go, they were dressed in all black and wore masks to show they were all the same and had lost any form of expression or difference between them. Finally, there was one girl who started out "normal" in the video and was very confident but throughout the video the boys (representing peer pressure) presented the "scary girls" to her and she eventually saw the appeal in being like them. By the end of the video, and in a dramatic ending, we changed the normal girl into a scary girl right there on stage and at the very last moment she popped up from the back looking just like the other girls and had totally lost her individuality! Wow! I get chills just re-typing the theme of the video! It was powerful!

While we were backstage the kids were getting nervous but I knew they would do well! They had worked very hard and were anxious to get made up into their "scary girl" personas...

Finally, we were all ready! We said a prayer and then took a few pictures before heading onto the stage!

The human video went over very well and had a great impact on the evenings service! Jill and I were proud of our work but also very proud of the students we worked with and even more proud with the message that was presented.

I wanted to also include a short video of the altar service from Friday night. I know it doesn't show you much of what goes on at Convergence but it gives you a nugget of an idea. All the services at Convergence were very powerful. As I said, Doug spoke Friday night about "Identity Crisis" and then Doug spoke again Saturday morning about "Heroes" (which was the theme of the entire weekend) and how just as we all look to someone else to be our Hero someone is looking to each one of us to be their Hero. Finally, Saturday afternoon a young evangelist named Jason Patterson spoke about what holds us back from being a Hero. All the services were awesome and even I (who is WAY too old to attend Convergence) found myself learning things all over again and hearing God speak to me in my own life!

Friday night, it was VERY exciting to see 250 kids come forward to accept Jesus Christ into their life for the first time! Wow! It doesn't get any better then that! Also, on a side note, the woman singing back-up in this Convergence video is Ashtyn's kindergarten teacher! She not only goes to our church but also sings worship on the worship team both on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. I'm very thankful that Ashtyn has a teacher who I not only knew before he was enrolled in her class but also who is a christian and shares our families same life and priorities!