NYWC

Well, I had the awesome opportunity to attend the National Youth Workers Convention (NYWC) this last weekend in Sacramento, and I can't tell you how much of a blast it was. I return home with helpful, encouraging, and practical knowledge, memories of time spent crying out to GOD, and a greater passion for following Christ. My mind is so full that it's practically overflowing, but I thought I'd lay down some of the highlights:

- Shaking hands with Tony Campolo, and telling him how much his passion for Christ has inspired me. When he's gone, I'd rather say I let him know rather than not. I like him a lot.
- The experience of spending 4 days with 3400 other people who are crazy about Jesus learning, worshipping, smiling, and growing. It felt so good, so safe, and so encouraging. I had to pinch myself, because it seemed too good to be true.
- Spending time with good friends, old and new, sharing meals and thoughts and praises and prayers and love. I said before that I was just as excited about the people I would be attending the conference with as the conference itself - scratch that. More excited. It was so good to take in all that GOD-knowledge with people who would help me process it, and put a hand on my shoulder and tell me that I'm not crazy. So good.
- Laughing a lot. I love to laugh.
- Being led in musical worship by Chris Tomlin and David Crowder. They are amazing.
- Louie Giglio's word on worship that we are not to be consumers of worship, but that we are to be consumed during worship. I'll be chewing on that for awhile.

So many more sights, smells, and sounds hang so vividly in my mind, but the song that continues to ring in my head is a new one of David Crowder's new disc, A Collision. If you've got iTunes or you got the flow to pick up the disc, I highly recommend it. This last weekend was the first time I had heard this song, but I was so taken by it because of the way it just bursts with hope and the beauty of Christ. Dave definitely has a way of expressing the deepest longings and emotions of the heart in song, but this one just makes me throw my arms open wide and cry out every stinkin' time I hear it. The song is called, "Here Is Our King," and Dave has a description of his writing process for the song up on his site. Here it is:

"What you are looking for is what is looking."
- St. Francis of Assisi

I wrote this song after watching television for two days straight. the day after christmas, december 26th 2004, my eyes were fixed to this thing blinking at me from the dark wooden armoire in our living room. i, along with the rest of the world, watched as the most powerful earthquake in 40 years erupted under the indian ocean near sumatra, causing giant, deadly waves to crash ashore in nearly a dozen countries, killing tens of thousands. the death toll would eventually settle somewhere near 200,000. this is tremendously hard to take in. close to 200,000 people, walking around, going about their business, stepping into eternity all together in a matter of hours. we watched story after story unfold knowing that each would end in either rescue or demise and our hearts broke. our hearts broke and it is still tremendously hard to take in. it is a difficult thing to observe so vivid and complete, the depth of our fall. i mean we know things aren’t right, we know that things aren’t as they were intended. but here is this thing that comes from the middle of the sea to bring upon us devastation and to take from us our fathers and our mothers and to pull from our hands our children and our friends and our minds cannot fit this in. it is the depth of our fall upon us. even the ground under our feet is not right. the air we breathe is not right. here though, the hope i have found in christ miraculously expands. i believe that we are part of a bigger story unfolding. i believe that the rescue of creation has been coming toward us for a long time. i believe that sure, there was a moment that i was found by this rescue and that i am rescued continually, but the even greater thing, the thing that expands in my chest in this moment is that there is more coming! he is coming to set things right. he is coming to set things straight. he is coming and this is tremendously hard to take in, but our hearts swell and this tide of hope grows and after all of this, after this brokenness, after these tears, after this fury, after this tearing that is life...finally, finally...we will lift up our heads...finally...and the clouds will break...and finally...he who is all light and healing... finally... finally... majesty. here.

"Here Is Our King"

Here is Our King
Here is Our Love
Here is Our God who's come to bring us back to Him
He is the One He is Jesus

From wherever Spring arrives to heal the ground
From wherever searching comes the look itself
A trace of what we're looking for
So be quiet now and wait

The ocean is growing
The tide is coming in here it is

And what was said to the rose to make it unfold
Was said to me here in my chest so be quiet now and rest
Be quiet now and rest

Majesty
Finally

And with the conference behind me, this is what I feel: hope. I had a moment where I felt like I was looking down the road of my life and saying, "Am I really going to follow Christ for the rest of my life?" Yes, because I heard a voice within me say, "This is what you long for." Yes, because before is the GOD who's come to take me home, and I can't take my eyes off of him. My king, my love, the One. Majesty... finally. Talk to you soon.