Saturday and Sunday, Days - 5&6

Well, I'm back in Alabama. I wanted to wrap up my Council blog and let you know how my last few days went.

Saturday was an Alliance-Youth event called "Saturday in Cinci." It was kind of a "Life 2004 in review." They brought back Francis Chan to speak, The Swift to lead worship, and Journey "Man" made a not-so triumphant reapearence (he put on some pounds and spent the year slacking off, eating too many twinkies). There were a lot of simular activities as well as some new (like the 'Amazing Race'). I was "drafted" to work with The Trip (mock missions trip), so I spent much of the afternoon helping out with that. It made me a bit silly to be around teens all day (see moose hat below).

The whole day, I was missing all of you from BRAC wishing that the event was a bit closer so you all could have come. Fear not! Life 2007 is not that far away now, and it will rock your socks off.

Saturday evening, there was a Missions Rally with teens and adults combined. It was an extremely powerful service and about 200 people (many of them teens) came forward to respond to the call of missions. I almost lost it when the missionaries entered the stadium. Looking at all of them and realizing how incredibly involved the C&MA is around the world made me incredibly grateful to be apart of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

This morning (Sunday) was the last service of Council. We took Communion together and had a healing service focusing on the healing power of Jesus Christ. Other than being really long, the service was very good.

Looking back over my week in Cinci, I must say that I am very blessed to be apart of this movement known as the C&MA. God has spoken and inspired me in many different ways this week. Don't be supprised if I spend some time unpacking my experiences and what I learned over the next several weeks at youth group.

Living the Call Together,

-Erik



Just a fraction of the nations the C&MA represents. This picture was taken at the Missions Rally

here I am shamelessly promoting "The Trip" at Saturday in Cinci

Swiftastic

is that Journey Boy...er, Man?

me and my buds...my eyes are closed >.<

Final update today when I

Final update today when I get home.

Friday, Day 4

Friday has been another full, great day. During the whole conference from 8am-11pm there has been non-stop praise and worship and prayer in a special "prayer room." After the afternoon session, I felt God drawing me there to pray and reflect. As I got there, you could feel almost a tangible presence of God there. Me and a few friends spent some time in worhsip, and then prayed for some people who asked for it.

God is good! Since I'm typing this on Saturday, I'll try to make it back on here later for a Saturday Update.

Thursday, day three - part two

Not much more to report. I saw a bunch more people I knew. I saw another of my awesome youth pastors (Greg Hauter) and got to catch up a bit with him. He'll be at Connexion leading the worship/programming part, so you'll get to meet him.

Since I forgot to bring my power supply for my laptop, this will probably be the last of my blogs from it. However, there are some computers I have access to in the convention center so take heart! I will blog on.

Oh, and all of you following the president race here, our new C&MA president is Gary Benedict. I think that it's more than a coincidence that his last name is Benedict. I guess to be a person in power in a church organization, you must have the last name "Benedict." I don't think President Benedict will wear any of those white pointy hats any time soon :)

L8ter

Thursday, Day 3 - part one

Hey I just wanted to check in and report how my day is going so far. We had another great morning session. After the morning session and some business (very exciting...) Jason and I had lunch with my former youth pastor Jeff Miller. It was great to meet with him and catch up.

Today is the big day where we vote for C&MA president. Right now we're waiting for the results. I'll post the final results later.

For all of you who went to Tsunami and Big Wave, I picked up today a promo video for the camp that was shot when we were on the retreats. I've been told that I'm in it a lot...fun. Talk to me when I get back if you want a copy.

Wednesday, Day Two

Lots of great stuff today. I'll just point out a few of the highlights and observations.

Observations first:

1. C&MA Council is a lot like a family reunion. I've seen dozens of people here today, some that I have not seen in 5 years or more. It's been great to see the Alliance family in action.

2. At C&MA Council you get freebies, but they are not as good as Youth Specialties NYWC. As for merchandising, they have all kinds of shirts, C&MA balloons, mugs, even necklaces. I'll try to get more freebees tomorrow (and more free candy).

Highlights:

It's been amazing that even though my throat has not allowed me to speak much, both worship sessions today- God opened up my voice so I could worship Him! We had an amazing concert of prayer this morning and a wonderful session this evening.

In our session tonight, we talked about the supremacy of Christ. It was amazing. To sum it up, the speaker spoke about how we need to do more than put Christ in the center of our lives. Instead of just putting Jesus into the middle of our lives, we need to insert our lives into the live and power of Jesus Christ. Chew on that one... ask yourself "what's the difference between Jesus being in the center of my life and putting our life in the center of who Jesus is?"

I mentioned my car woes yesterday, just to show you how incredibly faithful God is-check this out. I have a distant relative that is giving my grandmother a low mileage 2001 Chevy Cavalier. She is willing to give that car to me! This isn't just chance, it's how God works in my life. Very cool.

That's all tonight. Tomorrow is election day for the new Alliance President. I can't wait to see how God plans to work tomorrow =)

picture of the main stage

Tuesday, Day One

I’m typing this from the airport in Louisville, KY. Why am I here? Long day...

My day started today at 8am.

Correction, my day started again at 8am. I went to bed at 2:30am after helping a pastor move his furniture and “stuff” into a garage. Two of my teens and I were going to help at 6pm, but their moving truck broke down and was delayed until 10:30pm. We didn’t get done until well after 1am.

So I woke up at 8am, then I got ready and left my apartment for Cincinnati about 9am. About an hour into the trip, I noticed my car doing some weird things. I stopped at the next exit and found some car-service shop guy to check it out and test drive it. The auto guy could not find anything wrong with the car, so I continued another 4 hours toward Cincinnati.

At about 4:30pm EST, my car started to make worse noises. This only lasted about 30 seconds then I had the privilege of seeing two random engine parts bouncing down the highway behind me. My car lost power, and then I coasted over to the right emergency lane. With my low battery, analog roaming phone I called 911 and had a tow truck sent. After an hour of waiting the truck arrived and I had it towed to a local service shop.

Now, to prove God was on my side today, I called my Pastor while I was waiting for the tow truck and he happened to be heading back from Kentucky to Birmingham and was only 30 minutes away! Pastor David and his wife picked me up at the tow truck place and we preceded to Louisville airport to rent a car for me.

Between me being under the age of 25, and needing a rental car one way to be dropped off in Birmingham, it was cheaper for me to fly into Cincinnati and back to Birmingham than rent a car.

So here I am...tired, weary, sore throat and drained from a cold, and waiting for my 9:40pm flight.

The morals of the story: don’t trust an old car on a long trip, and God is VERY good! Had my pastor not been near, I don’t know what I would have done.

More tomorrow, barring my plane not breaking down ;)


This is me after a long day, waiting for my flight out of Kentucky.

This week is C&MA General Council

I'll be on the road this week heading to Cincinnati, OH for C&MA General Council. This will be my first council and from what I've heard it's 50% business, 50% pleasure. I'll be staying with my friends Jason and Mike for the week and I'll be updating this blog all week long with pictures and stuff.

Be in prayer for the Christian and Missionary Alliance this week. We will be picking a new big cheese (president).

Chao!

the groom and I

Troy's wedding

Psalm 19:1

my super-secret blog

I'm going to try this out and see if I like it better than xanga. If so, then I will kill my xanga (can you do that?).