15th Biennial North American Youth Congress Daily Report - Page 2

CC1 · #11 08-09-2007, 08:52 AM

I am a little surprised that Youth Congress is not being webcast. I wonder if they were afraid if they did some would not make the effort to attend in person?

It would seem the perfect event to webcast since generally young people are much more tech savvy than older folks.

rgcraig · #12 08-09-2007, 08:55 AM

DB - sounds like you are enjoying it!

How's Bro. Hensley doing? Whoohoo!

deacon blues · #13 08-09-2007, 09:02 AM

Before the worship began, I forgot that they had this video called "North American Youth Congress Praise Exercises" very funny and a good crowdbreaker. The video began with a woman's voice (with British accent) and a sound graph line that would move as she spoke (as if she were a computer voice). She began to instruct the kids on various praise "exercises" that they would be encouraged to use during the Congress.

Praise Exercise #1: Rythmn Clapping: a brief explanation, a READY, GO! and then a silouetted young man (think iPod commercials) clapping his hands with very hard driving dance mix music. Everyone joined in.

Praise Exerice #2: Pentecostal Head Bob (with the explanation, READY, GO!, music and participation)

Praise Exercise #28: Leaping with Pumped Fist

Praise Exercise #156: Noise

Then they went back through each one altogether---it created a lot of energy as the praise and worship began.

After "I Am Free" by the Praise Band, Todd Gaddy greeted the young people and talked about how much it was appreciated that everyone made the effort to get here and what a life changing event this was going to be.

He said a video would be following with the names of states and countries that everyone came from and to cheer when you saw where you were from. Everyone was screaming and cheering.

The CLC Ensemble followed with a a Black Gospel song I would guess was entitled "Right Now", since they said "right now" about 1300 times in the chorus. It was the first low point IMO. Not that they did anything wrong, the musicianship was great, the harmonizing was good, its just the song did not elicit worship. The energy in the room kind of died down.

Following CLC was a funny video talking about how kids are addicted to coffee and coffee shops and made a connection to Bible Quizzing and quizzers addiction to studying and memorizing scripture. I think that was the gist of the video b/c I was helping my wife wrestle with our 2 year old throughout the service. Wayne Francis introduced the BQ champions from Moss Bluff, LA for the experienced division and Houston, TX (Life Tabernacle) in the intermediate division.

Wayne Francis then went on a long diatribe of announcements (a real waste of WF abilities---he's not speaking once here, very disappointed). I was reinforced in my doing away with announcements at our church. I don't think too many people listened to what was said, at least not around where we were sitting. He even went through the whole days schedule for today, which is printed in the books our kids got for being here.

Simeon Young Jr received the offering but in a very funny and creative way. He had superimposed each Youth Official's face on a copy of currency: Wayne Francis on the five dollar bill, Shay Mann on the ten, and Gaddy on the twenty, which looked very funny (he kept the president's beards and hair, only superimposing the face). He then encouraged the youth to give five for WF, youth leaders and chaperones to give ten for SM, and pastors and elected officials twenty for TG. It was a quick and seamless offering.

CLC Ensemble sang again for the offering. At this point the service had kind of gone in to a lull with all the announcements, offering and such. CLC again did a fine job musically, but the song was another black gospel song that just didn't draw you to worship. I am guessing the song was called "God's Already Worked It Out", again b/c that was the line that was repeated an innumerable amount of times.

Shay Mann recognized special people: Host District of NC David Elms, Sr, the NAYC Praise Band under the direction of J. Dean, and Joel Urshan from Cincy, OH who would be preching later in the service.

They showed another video about running the race and then JD and the praise band were back at it. It was about time, b/c 30 minutes had passed since a sense of worship and praise had been present.

They started with "He Is Jesus". A new song for me, but very worshipful and refreshing. I could not understand where lyrics on the screen were. I thought maybe they just were trying something different, but when a song came along I didn't know or our kids didn't know it was hard to sing along. They must of had a technical glich b/c words finally showed up in this segment, but they looked kind of faded and hard to see. It got better as the worship proceeded.

CC1 · #14 08-09-2007, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deacon blues

They started with "He Is Jesus". A new song for me, but very worshipful and refreshing. I could not understand where lyrics on the screen were. I thought maybe they just were trying something different, but when a song came along I didn't know or our kids didn't know it was hard to sing along. They must of had a technical glich b/c words finally showed up in this segment, but they looked kind of faded and hard to see. It got better as the worship proceeded.

Did you look around to see if Bishop1 was there and had sabatogued the screens?

On second thought he probably would not have gotten that far as he would have bee tied up rebuking all of the girls in jean skirts!

deacon blues · #15 08-09-2007, 09:19 AM

At this point my 2 year old had had enough. So I took him out into the concourse and purchased a large Diet Coke, a bucket of popcorn, a hot dog, and some french fries (me and family had not eaten for 10 hours). While in the concourse the praise band sang an updated arrangement of "Jesus Paid It All". As I was entering the arena again they had slowly dropped a wooden cross from the ceiling to hover right above the platform. It was very powerful and the atmosphere in the room had really changed. There was a heavy Presence of the Lord. As the song ended you could hear young people weeping and speaking in tongues all over the arena. Very, very powerful.

The praise band then sang "Savior" another song I did not know but was very moving. My son, Coleman, raised a French Fry in praise to the Lord! Then a song called "There Is Nothing Like Your Love". Eventually they went into accapella and the arena filled with only the voices of the singers and the young people. God was in the house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At 8:50 Joel Urshan took the pulpit and went through the obligatory ten minutes of opening remarks honoring every one from Jesus to the officials to the youth to his "beautiful wife Heidi. That's alright, give her a hand". It was their 9th anniversary.

Text I Peter 4:2-9. "I'm A Lively Stone & I'm Ready To Rock My World". Good message. A little long for youth (55 minutes from opening remarks to altar call). A challenge to be a lively stone in the hands of God. Something interesting happened about 20 minutes into the message. Beginning from their to the end of the message Joel used an organist and drummer for "organ punctuations" throughout the message (aka TD Jakes). I don't know if that is what he designed (JU) or that is what the YD is going to do throughout the YC. I imagine it came from JU.

The message was over at 9:45 pm and the altar call was powerful! JU did a superb job coaching the kids to pray with each other all over the arena. Our kids were in the nose bleeds but were touched by the HG and were praying with one another and weeping/speaking in tongues. The altar service included the praise band and they masterfully kept an atmosphere of seeking God for a good 30-40 minutes.

We left tired but refreshed. No resataurants available. Pennys everywhere with 30-40 minute waits. We gave up and went back to the hotel and the youth leader went through a drive thru and boufght for everybody.

GOTTA GO--------More reports later!

deacon blues · #16 08-09-2007, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgcraig

DB - sounds like you are enjoying it!

How's Bro. Hensley doing? Whoohoo!

Doing fantastic, he's made us all proud. Very humble---very anointed---all of them!

rgcraig · #17 08-09-2007, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deacon blues

Doing fantastic, he's made us all proud. Very humble---very anointed---all of them!

Awesome!

Theresa · #18 08-09-2007, 10:13 AM

**off topic**

how about we have an AFF meet and greet in Gatlinburg???

Truly Blessed · #19 08-09-2007, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CC1

I am a little surprised that Youth Congress is not being webcast. I wonder if they were afraid if they did some would not make the effort to attend in person?

It would seem the perfect event to webcast since generally young people are much more tech savvy than older folks.

I take offense at that statement!

South of I 90 · #20 08-09-2007, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deacon blues

At this point my 2 year old had had enough. So I took him out into the concourse and purchased a large Diet Coke, a bucket of popcorn, a hot dog, and some french fries (me and family had not eaten for 10 hours). While in the concourse the praise band sang an updated arrangement of "Jesus Paid It All". As I was entering the arena again they had slowly dropped a wooden cross from the ceiling to hover right above the platform. It was very powerful and the atmosphere in the room had really changed. There was a heavy Presence of the Lord. As the song ended you could hear young people weeping and speaking in tongues all over the arena. Very, very powerful.

I love the songs you said they did during the worship segments of the service.

I think somebody has been going to the Louie Giglio Passion events. They did something similar with the cross using the same song.

Sound exciting for the UPC youth!