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.

UPDATE: Friday Evening

My prayers and my blogs have come up for a memorial before the ushering staff. Ushers arrived bearing offering buckets by the dozens. Much appreciated.


-- iPhoned in

Friday Evening Update

What happened to the offering? I think ushers just skipped my whole section. Gotta be 150 people that were missed...


-- iPhoned in

Friday Evening Thought

Why are there praise songs about praise? So meta...


-- iPhoned in

I came, I saw, I blogged... (JDR)

I will in all likely hood be departing mid-service to take a through the night drive back up to the roving hills of Michigan, so unless something striking occurs from now until I depart, this will most likely be my last blog....

10:25-Message w/Nate Binion (who is a home-missions pastor in Austin, TX) in the Young Adults split-session service: "The space between my experience and my calling."

-Bro. Binion's message is my favorite message to date at this congress.... He spoke an abundantly relevant message to the 20 somethings audience (to which I consider myself a citizen of such a demographic). Favorite points-

• Our generation has all the knowledge but no wisdom.
• We as a generation spend too long longing for the camp and congress moments of our teenage years (You know those moments, when we find ourself in a magestrial spiritual state for dozens of minutes on end soaked in tears and convictions, and much repentance). But the problem is that while we long for those moments, God never intends for us to go back to those moments or seeking such moments. When we endeavor for these ultra-spiritual moments where we simply delaying our ministry, because we are of age to start doing (and not simply of the teenage age where we start seeking).
• We as a generation pay large monetary sums to travel across the country to go to congress and evangelical teaching conferences, but those neighbors and co-workers back home will continue to go unwitnessed to upon our return.....
• If you want to see change, just do it. Stop complaining about all the things going on and start acting.

1:05 PM-What does congress mean for people trying to network and find friends? I would argue that it is not much...but rather congress' main objective socially is the confirm to 16,000 young people that they wer simply not alone. Let me me explain:

As I began to inquire last night, and

continued to discusse matters today with folks, I realized that people simply are not moving out of their immediate social circles. People talk with their friends and at most friends of their friends. Wherein, meeting these friends of friends, the talk is minimal and more introductory and unintrusive in their conversation. Sure there are those determined to network, but in general I would propose that these networkers are the exception to the rule...Well except those

male and females engaged in the art of trying to find their future spouse which brings me to...

1:17-I am realizing that all female pursuers can be summed into two categories: The Overly-Passive, and the overly-aggressive.

Overly-Aggressive-Those who chase with all intent to be either rudely rejected or quickly accepted by their target (most of the time the former results). Their agrressive overtunes in conversation with those of the opposite gender usually center around a cheesy pick-up line such as "Did you just fart, because you're blowing me away?" or by a quick insult as if we are in third grade and the apparently best method to get the girl is to pretend that you are superior to the girl. Surprisingly this seems to have a better success rate than one would anticipate.

Passive-Agressive- These people quickly ally themself in the "just friends" category. They enter into prospective relationship with little premonition to want to date the girl (or so they say). These guys are all too excited to laugh at their new friend's jokes and take an over-interes

t in the things that interest the new friend.

6:47-I begin to type this blog in the lounge of the hotel (pictured right), and am awestruck by how empy it is before service (note that the picture to the right is not current but was taken last night...the seats and couches pictured are all empty) . I should have noted something was up when I went to hit the button to come down in the elevator and the wait for the elevator was almost none, which has primarilty not been the case for the majority of the trip. Being the last night, I was not sure if this meant everyone was running really late because they were trying to do their hair super pretty for this climactic evening, or because everyone rushed to the stadium super early in anticipation of a packed-house.

7:17 Suspicions are confirmed that everyone had left early to the stadium. Apparentely over 45 minutes before service-time the lower bowl of the stadium was full, and the top tier was already a quarter-filled.

7:20-The aforementioned fact gets me excited for tonight's service. While the last service is the service that brings out everyone's best outfits and costumes, the spritual antipation is also at it's high-mark of congress...No one really knows what is to come, but they know whatever that thing is, it will most likely be life-changing. Now the bigger question is, does the service itself bring the high-spiritual results or is it the anticipation and expectation of what is to come cause that causethe spiritual move?

NAYC: Hairdos (Part 1) (kdc)

Hairdo selections from Wednesday and Thursday.

NAYC: Friday (kdc)

We've got people covering Project 22:39, so the lack of posts this afternoon is because that's where many of us are.

• Awoke with bloodshot eyes, and -- judging by those zombies staggering toward the arena -- I wasn't the only one.
• Internal security tells us that there have been no serious incidents -- just kid stuff -- these last 2 nights. As they noticed, '99% of the kids can be good, but 1% of 16,000 is still 160 troublemakers.
  
• Jump Start is the (feels like early) morning session displaying a variety of non-traditional talents among our Apostolic youth, as well as some great fun. There was a giveaway for the first few people who could race up to the stage and prove they had a hole in their sock, as well as a contest to see who came from the strangest named town. If we heard correctly, "Cut and Shoot" Texas won.
  
• This morning's session also featured a bluegrass band and a trio of (forgive my lack of correct terminology) Spanish guitarists that were phenomenal.

Friday - Young Adults (ben)

Nate Binion preached a good message this morning. I didn't expect him to preach during a session (the audio was also poor) but the message of seeking after a calling during the missing years of young adulthood is absolutely necessary. Even if we don't "get" a calling immediately, as we seek after God and trust him as he asks us to paint a dot on the portrait of our lives, we'll later come to find out that God is creating an amazing picture with our lives.


One thing that I've thought has been missing from this Congress is defining alter calls. While we didn't have time for this, we were called to dedicate ourselves to a calling in God.



Compelling. We need more sessions like this.
-- iPhoned in

NAYC: Why Youth Congress Matters (kdc)

So this is why Youth Congress matters. Well after service ended, the hallways still clotted with people, a young man carried a young woman over his shoulder as she stammered drunk with tongues, her hands scissoring behind him, oblivious to her situation.

And now I have my very favorite memory of Youth Congress 2009. Watch this and it'll be yours too.

Thursday Night (kdc)

We were welcomed to the Sommet Center this evening with a string of (real?) homeless men holding signs. I thought it must be related to Project 22:39 tomorrow, but evidently not - one of the men cussed at us. So it's a mystery!

8: Clean Up

Notes of obscurity: Thursday Night

6:42-As me and a peer walk up to stadium, we are greeted by the site of the picture to the left. The image amounts to around 15 individuals who are made to appear to be homeless or at the very least poor (my speculation is that these were genuinely homeless people). Some people were taking it as a literal protest of the UPCers but as one surveyed, it seemed to become clear that this is the work of Project 22:39 or some similar program to stress the need that we need to pay attention to the poor as human beings and assist them accordingly (some of the signs: "Do you think I have a soul?" "Do I have the wrong color?" and "Will you walk past me?")...it was definitely a gut check to myself.

8:27-One of the biggest snafus in my mind of congress set up was the mistaken scaffolding placement of the lights.....as you can probably make out in the picture below (h

opefully), the scaffoldings directly surrounded the big screens that displayed all the videos that played throughout the services. Imagine trying to watch a movie with a thick textbook book levitating horizontally three inches in front of the televis

ion screen. Literally the only people who could make out what was on the big screens were those nearest the stage who were positioned between the scaffoldings and the screens. And at this point these people were so close to the stage, that there was no need to look at the screen.

8:47-Notes on the sermon by Bro.Wayne Huntley-Essentially in short,

Bro. Huntley's message can be summed up as "It's alright to be different." In this impacting message he constantly suggested the necessity of stepping out and being different to make a change. While differences from the world were included, differences from t

he "professional pentecostalism" of the monotony of religion were primarily focused on. Bro. Huntley, in spite of his maturation in age, preached like a 25 year old. Essentially in relation to tonight's message, the necessity of "Apostolic Activism" is the call of our generation for this time...And the audience in majority accepted this challenge.

11:23 -Witness a 13 year old young man steal a 15 year old female's claim to "never been kissed." Literally the male asked for a kiss on the cheek an

d then deceptively turned his head to make the kiss face-to-face...It was an awkward but memorable moment for all.

12:27-Weird fashion trend gaining steem: Odd-shaped, thick-framed glasses.

1:32 AM-Girl relays that the new way to pick up potential spouses is to find out a person's name and then continue pursuit by locating that person as a friend on facebook. Literally all such romantic pursuits are moving toward the virtual and away from the face-to-face personal relating that can be so telling. As one who is openly nervous and bashful around potential future wives, I am more than happy to welcome this trend into our

movement.

And for those of you who miss the obnoxious crowds that gather at the completion of a service, here is a taste:

Below is an interview I did with Bro. Kenneth Haney, our General Supt. I was kinda nervous. My apologies.

Counting the Talent Search Ballots (kdc)

A quick trip to the hospitality room during Thursday service revealed a crew of overwhelmed people trying to sort over 5,000 votes cast for the winner of the Pentecostal Music Association's Talent Search.

See that box at the bottom left? That's full of ballots. If you have a few extra days, perhaps you can help them out....

8: The Finale

They just completed the event by shoot $1 bills into the audience, then $25 gift cards that you would have thought were $1,000 gift cards, the way the winners squealed.

Saw some 20somethings w/earplugs in.

They're thinking they sold about 1,000 tickets which is impressive.

Some . . . kook (?) just tried to hijack the end of the event by screaming from the back balcony about tonight's service message and something else. It wasn't especially coherent, so they turned up the background music and talked him away. Funny how people w/burning messages that must be shared aren't willing to put in the hard work of planning and execution.

Hyphen reps went around with laptops getting everyone to join their new Facebook Group: Hyphen Young Adults. Go do that.





I'm told the upstairs area is maxed out w/people talking.

Good times.

And the band jams on . . .

Eight (8) rao

I'm here at 8 in Rocketown! It's going pretty great. Love it way better than last year. I'm having fun hanging out with some amazing Arkansas people (hannah, Erica, and ben and grant who isn't pictured) (seen below):


Listening to some Ryan Johns



And Jonathan Dean


So I saw this very cute girl selling t-shirts in the lobby of the Sommet center and was really wishing I had gone to talk, then voilà: she was her. I decided to use my amazing pick up techniques and my broken collar bone (no girl can resist it :-p) as a way to introduce myself and get to know her. It went good for like 8 seconds. Then another guy comes up she didnt know who was ushering at NAYC (and subsequently kicked her our of her seat) and I was completely a third wheel. Ever confident, I figured: I can still pull this out. I tried to throw in humorous remarks into their conversation and every so often groan and reach for my collar bone. It wasn't working. She was set in her mind. But then...she turned to me and very seductively said,"can you take our picture?" I was defeated. I took my cue and left. Plenty of other great people to hang out with. Great time!

-- Post From My iPhone

8: Johnathan Dean

After Hyphen Director Nate Binion introduced Hyphen, the new young adults ministry of the UPCI, Johnathan Dean took the stage for a rousing set.

Great, tight music so far!

You know the drill, vid to follow...

8: Ryan Johns Experience

Ryan Johns is deep into his set now. With a new album due by early September (see ryanjohnsmusic.com), he's previewing new songs to some strong acclaim.

For both bands, with Johnathan Dean to follow, the music is loud w/out preventing plenty of conversation and the crowd singing back simultaneously.

Of course, the food disappeared almost immediately, but that was to be expected.