Taking Back OUR Story: Eastside's D-Now Weekend

So in case you missed the last post, just started reading the blog, or just plain forgot... This past weekend was Eastside Baptist Church's D-Now. It was amazing seeing over 150 kids come to the weekend and rock it out. The theme was Becoming (becoming more like Christ, him transforming you and breaking you of your old ways into something he is longing for you to become)

So the weekend started off at the host homes for the middle schoolers and some of the high schoolers who didn't show up to their Friday night football game. There was five inflatables, a hotdog eating contest, probably the best brownies in the world and much more. It was just a time for kids to invite their friends to something fun and to also just have one amazing kick off.

Saturday night was the night where we had a service. It had music and speaking and everything. haha.

Well for me, i had 18 guys the entire weekend, luckily i shared the responsibility with another pretty amazing guy named Nathan Evans. The first hour and a half that we had the kids, they went crazy but after that they pretty much settled down to a nice rowdiness for the whole weekend. :) Well Nathan and i split the teaching times and even though the kids were pretty respectful and pretty interactive for being 7th and 8th graders there was still plenty of time of trying to focus and quiet them down, which was perfectly fine.

The whole weekend was about getting these kids to realize God's desire to break them of their flesh, of their sin, of things that God hates; to become something that he desires for them so greatly to become. At the end of the weekend we gave them cardboard to write on one said the phrase " I was..." (Fill in the blank) and on the other side "I am becoming..." (Fill in the blank).

The example that i gave them, i have actually wrote about in a blog before, was this "I was: Lust, Greed, Hate. I am becoming: Love, Sacrifice, Community."

So as we got the kids to write on the cardboard we played the song How He Loves.

The whole purpose of this cardboard thing was to give the church a real life example of what happened on this weekend and to see the theme be played out in real life.

I hope and pray that these kids, all 18 who i, by God's grace alone, memorized their names, understand how much God loves them and that he desires so greatly to break them of themselves and of the world to transform them into something so beautiful and something that is 100% HIM. I hope these kids, if not now, will look back at some point in their life at this weekend and realize that they are becoming something great, or at least have the opportunity to.

Also, i will end with this. It was so beautiful to see what some of the students wrote on their boards, and it was encouraging and exciting to see some of the decisions that were made by them to follow after Christ and be Baptized. I mean one of my guys decided TO GET BAPTIZED!!! HOW BEAUTIFUL AND EXCITING IS THAT? I am pumped to hear and see what God will continue to do.

Here are some pictures from the weekend. (Sunday Morning)