I was in Jackson, Mississippi speaking at a youth event called Disciple Now! It was put on by Crossgates Baptist Church. “What in the wide world of sports were you doing there?” you ask.
The Ol’ Miss flag & some general
Well I have a youth pastor buddy from Omaha days named Kipp Smith. We had a great friendship & partnership when we both were trying to reach students in Omaha. Neither of us were from Omaha or the Midwest so we could kind of commiserate & we were both guys in our 20s, newly married at these big traditional churches. It made for interesting times.
This event, the best I can describe it is like an in-town, retreat / serving weekend in which students stay by grade level at different people’s houses. It had middle school & high school students & all told there were 400+ people involved in this.
It was a great weekend. God really moved. Kids felt challenged & encouraged. God released some words for specific kids during ministry times. Because so many people were praying, I think, I really sensed anointing as I spoke.
I love the fact that students were all over the city serving on Saturday afternoon instead of just doing fun stuff. I loved jumping into a rocking dynamic youth ministry lead by gifted pastors with astounding volunteers. I loved walking into a group in which responsiveness to the Lord in worship & the word was already built into this group.
It was great reconnecting with Kipp & his family. They are a great family. Each kid is going hard after God & serving Him with all they have. What an unspeakable grace God has given him!
Of course the most outstanding moment of the weekend is seeing rock/paper/ scissors turned into one of the coolest crowd breakers of all time. No joke! It changed my life.
An unexpected blessing was being able to connect with David Jett the Senior Pastor of the church. I’m going to blog about that separately tomorrow.
Mississippi is a trip for a California kid. I definitely think it is the most “southern” place I’ve ever been. It was a muy chivo cultural experience.
^ Everyone, yes, EVERYONE has an accent – an awesome, no holds bared southern accent.
^ Pretty much everyone is friendlier than the friendliest person in the state of California. I felt sincerely welcomed (this is NO JOKE) by everyone at the church.
^ I got prayed over at a Restaurant by a guy who views his unique, “never find it north or west in a million years” kind of restaurant. C-Paw rocks – I wish I would have gotten a T-shirt. I didn’t. Big mistake.
^ It was a humid 78 degrees on Friday.
^ They had a somewhat freak snow on Saturday. Is this God’s idea of humor? Every time I go somewhere to speak it snows.
^ The spiritual culture in some ways couldn’t be more different that mostly unchurched San Diego. In other ways it’s the same. People need Jesus not religion… even if the religion is called Christianity. This church gets that every bit as much as we do. That’s pretty much what the church sermon was on. Cool!
^ Mississippi is really pretty – woods, ponds, cool looking houses. Lots of wild life, which they make every effort to shoot.
The dogwood trees are blooming
These were laying around a fast food place
It was a great weekend. I felt honored & favored by the Lord to be able to speak at this deal. Thanks to those of you that prayed.
