building relationships pt. 2 Youth Leaders (Winter Retreat Recap)

I never expected this recap to become three parts. I always planned for it to only be two, but when I began to write the second installment I just had so many words begin to pour out of my heart. 

I think this winter retreat caused me to do a lot of self-reflection. Yes I learned more about preaching and I gained new experience from the weekend. However I also gained new love and respect for both my friends from youth group and my old youth leaders.

On the last night I stayed up until 11 with some of the middle school girls while we sat by this beautiful bonfire.

Last week I wrote about my friends from youth group and how I saw us in the grade six girls I stayed with during winter retreat.

This week I want to reflect on youth leaders and not only why I’m forever grateful for mine but I also want to reflect on how I hope and aspire to impact the grade six girls lives like my youth leaders did for me.

Before reading if you have not read last weeks blog you should do that now! You can find it here! Also if you’re interested you can find the first blog about my winter retreat experience here.

So now that you’ve read it you know a little about my weekend with the middle school girls let me tell you that the best part of Winter Retreat 2017 for me was getting to know and grow closer the grade six girls.

This is only 3 of the 11 girls I got to hang out with during Winter Retreat. This was a picture for our photo scavenger hunt. 

A bit of back-story:

Before I went away for school in 2015 I used to teach a grade 5 Sunday school class and I was a middle school youth leader (I love middle schoolers they are the best!).  So most of the youth at winter retreat I had either had in my Sunday school class or I was their leader when they were in middle school.

The only youth I really didn’t know was the grade six kids. I mean I knew them but I didn’t really know them well. I remember when they were babies and I remember when their families started coming to the church but I didn’t have a personal relationship with any of them.

My weekend at Winter Retreat changed that and I am so blessed because of it.

When I was a youth I was very fortunate to have had amazing youth leaders.

My youth leaders played the roles of a best friend, a loving parent, a sibling, a confidant, a teacher, a mentor, and a role model all in one.

Even though they had their own families and many other things to, they still took the time to invest in my life and my spiritual growth.

I remember when I was in middle school; my Sunday school class was a girl’s only class with about 6 of us in it. With such a small class and it being only girls, we were able to really get to know our teacher and talk about real stuff.

Every year we would have a middle school girl’s sleep over at our Sunday school teacher’s house and it was one of my favourite times of the year.

It was a time of fellowship for us girls and a time for our teacher to show us love and hospitality by inviting us into her home.

I give so much credit for who I am today to my youth leaders. I am so fortunate to have had many different men and women invest in me during my youth.

Although all of my leaders are amazing and have impacted my spiritual growth, there are two women who deserve special recognition. Even after my graduation these ladies have continued to help me grow, they check in on my regularly and even though I am no longer their youth, I still feel 100% comfortable to talk to them about anything and everything.*

When I think about my future as a youth leader, I hope and aspire to be like the leaders that have impacted me. I want to show my youth love and support and build a strong trusting relationship with the youth.

Now back to winter retreat …

When I was hanging out and leading the grade six girls a few weeks ago, I could feel God was tugging on my heart to tell me to keep these girls in my mind. I need to keep praying for them and stay in touch with them so that I can, like my leaders before me, invest into their lives and help them grow into young women of God.

I don’t know what it is but there is just something about these girls, maybe it’s because I see myself in them or maybe it’s because I have seen some of them grow up from babies to middle schoolers, but I just want to get to know and I want to minister to them.

One of the middle school girls watching the fireworks. I thought it was a cool candid so I had to add it! 

By the end of the weekend I was thinking “I need to go home and start teaching a girls middle school Sunday school class so I can keep pouring into their lives!”

I continue to pray for the girls, I hope to stay in touch with them, and when summer comes (if I work at my church again) I want to plan a middle school girl’s night so I can continue to get to know them.

So I hope by this time next year I can be their Sunday school teacher and I hope to have built up stronger relationships so I can be to them what my leaders were to me.

That's it for my Winter Retreat posts I hope you enjoyed them and as always, 

Thanks for reading,

Em

*Renee and Susan I love you guys!! Thank you for all you've done <3 

building relationships pt. 1 Youth Group Friendships (Winter Retreat Recap)

I love working with youth!

If you’ve been following my blogs you probably know that by now.

This is another Winter Retreat recap. The first recap from Winter Retreat where I talk about my preaching experience can be found here and you can check out a bit more about Winter Retreat here and here.

How about I take you back two weeks when I first arrived at Winter Retreat…

It’s the first night of Winter Retreat; I’m told I am in cabin El-Shaddai. I get to the cabin and it’s quiet, no one is in there so I am yet to know who will be my bunk buddies.

I do notice that almost all the bunks are covered (and therefore already claimed).

“No bottom bunk for me” I think to myself as I throw my stuff up and climb onto a top bunk basically in the middle of the room.

As I’m sitting on my bunk, making my bed when all of a sudden the door opens and one after one six grade 6 girls start filing in, followed by two other grade 6 girls and their families.

I’m not going to lie I just started laughing because who wouldn’t?

I was slowly starting to realize that I was in for a fun weekend with very little sleep.

We didn’t get much sleep at all, we went to bed by midnight but on Saturday morning the first girls were up at chatting by 4:30am with the official lights on at 6:30 and Sunday morning we were all up by 7:30am – not as bad but still early!

Now let me tell you that, in my time as a youth, my relationships with my youth leaders and my friends was what made my time memorable and what helped me grow as a young Christian woman.

The friends I met in youth group are my best friends and they continue to by my support system today.

It's never a dull moment with us. We are such goofballs! 

Me, Deveney, Olivia, and Hannah

I also love my youth leaders; I’m still close with them today as they continue to pour into my life.

This is a picture with two of my youth leaders Renee and Susan (and her daughter Talia) at my prom. I have so much love for these women and their impact in my life!! 

So this blog is going to go in two directions and will most likely be in two parts. This week I want to tell you about my experience of spending the weekend with about 10 middle school girls and how by watching the friendship between these girls grow I was reminded how important youth group friendship are. Next week, in part 2, I’m going to be writing about the importance of youth leaders, the result of spending the weekend with the middle school girls, and the impact I hope to make in these girls’ lives.

* * * *

Saturday afternoon was quiet time with God. Everyone was supposed to go off on their own and spend time reading the Bible or praying a classic (and important) Winter Retreat tradition. We even had different prayer and worship stations set up for those who were struggling.

I noticed right away that all my girls immediately disappeared.  So I went to my cabin. I was expecting some of them to have difficulty with this quiet time; I remember my grade six self during quiet time at my first winter retreat, it felt like it was going to last forever!  

As I expected when I got to the cabin some of the girls were chatting so I reminded them that it was quiet time and Annaliese (one of the grade 8 girls) said, “We know we are all doing our own Bible time and then we are going to do a prayer circle and all pray for each other.”

When she said this my heart just burst! It was such a joy to see her leading the younger girls. When it came time for us all to pray I was on the verge of happy tears as I listened to the girls pray for one another. It brings me so much happiness to see my younger sisters in Christ pray for and support each other.

This moment was probably one of the highlights of my week.

* * * *

When I was back at my apartment reflecting on the weekend I thought of all the girls I stayed with. They are all friends and even though they are only young, they have such a sisterly love for each other and I am so excited for the lifelong friendship that they will have.

I was reminded of my own friends from youth group and I wished that I had told those girls to cherish their friendships because those youth group friendships are the friendships that are going to help you get through life.

My friends and I have been through so much; from boys and breakups to jobs and schools to sickness and family troubles. We pray for each other and we talk almost daily. We are more than just friends because of our same love for Jesus. He has made us all sisters and that is something I constantly thank him for.

I LOVE THESE GIRLS!

Be sure to check in next week for part 2 of the building relationships post and thanks for reading, 

Em

Preaching at Winter Retreat (Winter Retreat Recap)

Last weekend I lost a lot of sleep … it was totally worth it.

I went to Winter Retreat this past weekend with my home church. I talk a little bit about what Winter Retreat is here and here, but I’ll tell you again. Winter Retreat is a weekend event for youth (both middle school and high school) that my church does every year. It is a weekend full of fun, food, and Jesus.

This year, not only did I go to Winter Retreat as a youth leader, but I was also a speaker! When Matt (the NextGen pastor) asked me to speak at Winter Retreat I was super excited. It was funny because it was something that I was thinking about and hoping he would think of me when looking for speakers, so I definitely felt like God had His hand in it and I immediately said YES!

So I did one of the sessions at Winter Retreat and it was such a good experience.

At first when I was preparing for my talk I was kind of cocky. I was thinking “Oh I’ve preached in front of the church 3 times now, this is going to be a piece of cake.”

It was not a piece of cake.

Preparing for and writing my talk was actually a lot more work than I was expecting. For the first time in about 3 years I was writing a talk to a younger audience. Sure I have preached to my church but that has always been to an audience older than me. This time I was going to be talking to an audience younger than me.

With a lot of prayer and meditation on the word I wrote a sermon for the weekend. I talked about the importance of spending time alone with God.

I was scheduled to talk on Saturday morning at the second session of the weekend. It was good because I wasn’t going first but I also wasn’t going last.

After the Friday night session I was thinking boy had I wish I gone first.

The speaker on Friday night was a youth pastor and he had a lot of energy. He also spoke without looking at a page which is something I have never done before, so I felt the pressure to be just as good or better than he was.

Friday night at midnight I was reading over my notes when I decided it was time to stop and pray. As I prayed I asked God to give me peace and to take away the nerves that I had about the next morning.

I gave it all to God in my prayer time and then I fell asleep at ease knowing that my talk was not about me it was all about God and I needed to depend fully on him.

The next morning I woke up (at 4:30am, more on that in my next blog) feeling good and excited about sharing the word of God.

I feel really good about how it went. The Lord guided me as I was speaking and I wasn’t even nervous.

So that’s all for now. Stay tuned for my next Winter Retreat Recap!

Thanks for reading,

Em