I spent the weekend in Prescott, Arizona at a youth retreat put on by the national youth organization for my church. Usually we’ll get about 30-50 kids, and that was no different this time. At this particular event, easily three-quarters of the attendees were Christians. We learned how to “Walk Worthy” using the book of Haggai as our reference. We saw how the people of Israel began working on the temple after their return from Babylonian captivity, how they were discouraged and stopped, and how they were encouraged, repented, and began work again. We paralelled it to our own lives, and Luke Pavkov did an excellent job leading us in that study.

Saturday night we had some time of singing, some thoughts and special songs, and then finished up with more worship. That’s typical, and it’s always nice, but this night something was happening that I hadn’t experienced in a while.

We sang “Better Is One Day”, and while I played, I closed my eyes and really sang the song. As I heard the piano, other guitars, and voices blend in amazing harmony and listened to every word we sang, I began to be overcome with awe. One day with God really IS so much better than a thousand days anywhere else. When the song was over, I almost wanted to cry. I looked out and I could see each person that God had been speaking to that night. One boy had a hat pulled over his eyes, a girl was crying into her hands. God had been moving in some powerful ways between the Bible study and songs. That night was the culmination for one young man who needed to make a change in his life. After the program was over everone was dismissed, but no one left. We all sat in silence. God let me know I should talk to that young man, but he left the room suddenly. I didn’t know him, but I followed him out and saw that he was already talking to someone he knew, so I went back in. I decided to write a note to him and basically told him that I didn’t know his spiritual situation, but I felt compelled to let him know that God really desires a relationship with him, to be his friend and also his Savior.

I won’t tell you who he is in case he doesn’t want everyone and their brother (as if they read this blog) to know who he is, but Sunday morning he shared something with us that I can’t say I’ve ever really heard before. Usually if someone wants to share, it’s a testimony of their conversion experience. This kid hasn’t had a conversion experience yet, so I had no idea what he was going to say. He told us that the day before when we shared some things about us, that was the him that he shows people who don’t know him, but during the weekend God convicted him to tell us who he really is. For a while he had been feeling like he was going to be shot, though he didn’t know when or where. This fear crippled him at times. He’s 18, and the head skinhead at his school. He beats people up simply because they’re black or Mexican. His people do what he says. Earlier in the week, a few kids gave one of his siblings a hard time, and when he found out they were black he arranged to have them beat up after school. Two of them expressed remorse for what they did, but he didn’t care. He had some of his underaged friends beat up these guys, and he didn’t care.

This weekend something changed. He told us that he knows that if he died right then, he would go to Hell. He doesn’t want to go to Hell. God spoke to him in such a powerful way that not only did he feel convicted to give his life to the Lord, but he also did one of the hardest things he will have to do in confessing this life of sin to a bunch of strangers and friends. He bore his soul to us, and that was the best thing he could have done at the time. He no longer has to struggle with this alone. He’s tried to stop before but hasn’t been able to. He knows that the only way he can stop is through the power of the Blood of Jesus Christ. And now we all know that he wants to claim that power.

Like I said, that has never happened when I have been around. People may talk to someone they know one on one, but this was amazing. I’m not so sure I would have been able to tell a bunch of “good kids” that I’m a skinhead (I’m not, I’m just saying). Those of you who follow the Lord, please keep him in your prayers. I didn’t know him before this weekend, but I will be excited to hear his testimony of faith once he’s ready for baptism. With the influence he has in his school right now, I think the influence he can have as a follower of Christ will be awesome in the truest sense of the word.

That’s what these weekend retreats are all about.

-j