Tonight I got to get out of my youth ministry bubble and had the opportunity to check out how another church reaches the youth of their city. It wasn't just any youth ministry, but one that reaches thousands of students week in and week out; Generation Church in Kirkland, WA. It is so good to go out and see how others are reaching their community. It helps us to get a bigger perspective on how we can do what we do better. Anyway, the thing that was so amazing was watching Pastor Judah Smith lead his ministry into powerful worship. Now it wasn't just some religious ritual, but it was an authentic passion to see his students encounter God. He said that they had all kinds of videos and he had a powerful message to preach, but none of it compared to the urge of letting the spirit take hold of their lives and change them from the inside out. He didn't come up with some ritualistic method of leading the students for a few minutes and then go into his message. He didn't even sing 2 extra "powerful songs" to do something cool and then go into his message. No... we waited on the Lord for an hour and thirty minutes. In that time, the spirit was free to really move in students lives. We saw over 30 students get free from addictions, over 150 respond to be serious in their faith and walk it out with no shame, and a handfull that finally decided in front of everyone that they wanted to take a risk and actually believe in this God. Anyway, all this to say, Pastor Judah didn't preach one word. He listened and responded to the spirit, and the power of that was so evident in that room.
I wonder how many times I let religious rituals keep me from listening to what God wants to do in students or better yet, in ME. Now, I have heard Pastor Judah preach and many times the spirit moves so heavy over kids lives, but sometimes we have to be still and let the spirit speak. It was refreshing to see a man after God's heart, who put his ego on the line to listen to the Lord. He didn't want to miss what God wanted to do. I don't want to miss what God wants to do...Do YOU? I challenge you to pray today.. and listen to that voice inside of you... Pursue God's spirit in your life... learn to listen.
Here is some powerful words from Pastor Judah:
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