NAYC: Tackling the Devil

We dug this dramatized song up from our files. It's from Thursday night's service, August 6, 2009.

NAYC: My Kingdom for Some Sleep!

This picture was taken toward the end of "8," the dynamic 20somethings event, but it pretty well summarizes how we all felt (and still feel) after the blitz of North American Youth Congress.

I can hardly wait until 2011!

NAYC: Friday Pre-Service Video

Here's a snippet of the crowd just before service began on Friday night.

NAYC: PMA Girls, Booths

The Pentecostal Music Association female constestants.

Booths on Friday evening.

NAYC: Your Blogging Team

Your NAYC blogging team 2009:
Kent d Curry, Shohna Neumann, Ryan Barton, Ryan O'Neil, Joel Riley, Ben Cohen

Your NAYC blogging team 2009:
Ben Cohen, Joel Riley, Sarah Holland, Kent d Curry

Gone, but not forgotten: Justin Herring

NAYC Friday: VIP Lounge Vid

Every year there's a VIP Lounge for the speakers, musicians, attending Youth Presidents, and prominent speaker. Here's a glimpse into the Lounge shortly before service began Friday night.

NAYC: More Photos (kdc)

Wednesday night in the Renaissance Hotel lobby, before service.

Hair thingees were a big deal this year. It wasn't usually bows, but other thingees. It was a regular occurrence the entire time, but . . . it's hard to get just pictures of small hair accessories, so our photos were limited.
(Yes, I'm about the world's worst fashion reporter, but I recognize trends even without the proper vocabulary!)

So a Wisconsin couple spent two weeks of free time to create these one-of-a-kind, completely duct tape church outfits. As you can imagine, they were the smash hit of the Wednesday night hallway.

Long dresses were very much in evidence. This is a picture from Wednesday night I somehow overlooked.

NAYC: Our Super Bowl of Worship

From ninetyandnine.com's cover:

"Whether or not this was the “greatest Youth Congress ever” will always be a matter of individual choice. What is beyond dispute, by rookies and veterans alike, is that God chooses to move differently from one Congress to the next, yet his kindness is everlasting, his goodness lasts from generation to generation. What is one person’s disappointment is another’s highlight. Whatever your previous experience, no one can deny that every Youth Congress is an exceptional time of visitation with the Almighty. Youth Congress 2009 just kept that winning streak alive."

Share your Youth Congress thoughts with us now!

Coming Soon!

Several Youth Congress speakers have graciously agreed to share their presentations of inspiring testimonies and cultural analysis with us. We'll be posting those soon.

Also, expect an exclusive interview with Heidi Urshan on the outreach efforts of Project 22:39. God moved, so we'll get the details!

Got Youth Congress Pictures?

We want your Youth Congress pictures and links to pictures and vids!

If you know of anyone who snapped shots or shot video of the event, send us that information so we can highlight how God moved where you were in Nashville.

Email us now!

NAYC Friday: Beyond the Drift! (Video Version 2)

I've been trying to upload these since Friday night. See the first three segments here, before watching this one.



Update: Alas, the 4th clip of 5 will not load. I've tried since Friday, on 2 different networks, literally for hours, without any luck. It is not to be. Hopefully, I can get a different clip up on Monday.

NAYC: The Morning After (kdc)

We need to coin a phrase for how Pentecostals look the Saturday morning after Youth Service.

Everyone's dancing on the inside, but on the outside . . . well, our eyes are sealed shut, our faces are pasty, our hair a bit disheveled, our language inert . . .

At the Renaisance Hotel, I saw one of our teen girls determinedly pull and pull and pull on one side of a "push" double door. The kicker being, the door's partner was wide open; but she wasn't going to use it.

Like I said, we need to coin a phrase . . .

NAYC: Behind the Scenes

All those great video feeds, the angles of the shots, and the types of shots all occur because of the choices made by video czar Matt Dugas in his secret underground bunker. 90&9 was given an exclusive, secret view of this operation because they accidentally left the door open.

Behold, the Wizard of Youth Congress!

NAYC: Hairdos (Part 2) (kdc)

From Friday night's service. Fashion choices were subdued for the most part. Evidently, Wednesday night was the great coming out party and most people weren't interested in making statements after that.

NAYC Friday Service

The Friday Night Service Report:

• You can purchase CDs ($10) or DVDs ($20) for the NAYC services from Media Missions. She's gonna kill me, but you can email your requests here.
  
• I'm told registration was over 12,000 people, which is comparable to Charlotte in 2007.
• How the local newspaper sees us.
  

• Congrats to the 3 Apostolic Talent Search Groups: Encounter of Stockton, CA was the group winner, Ashley Wicker (?) from North Carolina, and Kelton in the guy's group. Sorry for the sketchy info. Someone help me out here!
• Congrats to the heroic group of about 60 teens who counted ballots frantically in small hot rooms behind the stage to make sure the winners could be announced at the start of service.

• We're going to have an in-depth interview about Project 22:39 with coordinator Heidi Urshan (see picture) next week at ninetyandnine.com. The postive reports were overwhelming, with over 450 people involved in afternoon witnessing and aid events.

• The Afterburner Mall event sold 6,000 tickets. Most people changed clothes after service to before leaving. It took me 6 minutes (it doesn't sound very long, but try it sometime) to get an elevator and then we had 15 people crammed into it.

• The MK (Missionary Kid) booth was a raging success. More on that in one of our regular issues of ninetyandnine.

• Doors opened at 6 p.m.
• The floor was full at 6:08 p.m.
• The lower tier was full by 6:40 p.m.
  
• There were more people in the hallways until the preaching started, then the emptied again. There were around 17,000 people there. (Again, no one was in the box seats. There are 30 x 12 seats each.) IMHO, it wasn't much larger than Thursday night. Perhaps the locals were scared from attending due to sell-out expectations?
• A reliable source told me that an adult woman had a heart attack during the preaching, but was doing okay.
  

NAYC Friday: Outfits

NAYC Friday: "Beyond the Drift"

The General Youth Division's Director of Promotions, Bro. Wayne Francis, ended the final night of the North American Youth Congress with a bang by preaching on "Beyond the Drift."

NAYC Friday: Beyond the Drift! (Video Version)

Bro. Wayne Francis preached a spectacular message entitled "Beyond the Drift." It was inspiring, practical, applicable to real life, and, most importantly, biblical!

Multiple Video Clips to follow.








He preached, "I'm tired of predictable church! I want more! Give me Jesus!"

He implored the youth to create, not imitate, to stop being afraid.

It appears that everything was covered -- I was told by 2 sources that he did the moonwalk 3 times.

NAYC Friday: Happy Birthday Sis. Mann!

General Youth Secretary Daryle Williams surprised Sis. Bridgette Mann with a birthday cake mid-service Friday night. This is the type of moment that only occurs at NAYC, and it never breaks the move of the Spirit.

NAYC Friday: Honoring Wayne Francis (and Classy!)

Mid-service, for his next moment, General Youth President Shay Mann called on the arena to express great discipline in not making any noise until asked. He ended up quelling a couple of noise rebellions before it was over, but he called Wayne and "Classy" Francis up to the platform.

Then he explained that they have decided to start a church in White Plains, NY after 5 years with the Youth Division. An especially brave act considering many churches would be thrilled to have them as pastors.

He asked how many people in the arena of about 17,000 people had heard Bro. Francis preach. An incredible percentage stood. He sat them down.

Finally, he said we should honor them, counted to 3, and this was the overwhelming result.