Regeneration 2011, Day #4

On the morning of our fourth day at Regeneration I wasn't feeling very well, so I skipped breakfast, got some pop tarts from the vending machine, and slept for an extra hour and a half.  It was really nice, and I felt a lot better afterwards.  I didn't go to the prayer garden that day, but had a good time doing my devotions indoors.

Our first session for that day was with John MacArthur and the topic was the conscience.  I'm not sure why, but I didn't really like that sermon.  It seemed too focused on man, and not on God.  Maybe I wasn't listening well enough, though, because everyone else loved it. :)

After lunch we went to our team game time.  Our first game was sort of like ultimate frisbee.  We had to throw a football to our teammates, and the person who caught it couldn't take more than three steps before throwing it to someone else.  Each team had a goal, and the opposite team would try to knock down a ball that was placed on top of a pole in order to score a point.  Sandman won that game too. :) We failed miserably at our second game, however.  This game was called Kajavikankan (who knows why).  Each team would have eight girls from their team link up with eight girls from the opposite team.  Your teammates would be every other girl, with the opposite team interspersed between, and each person was connected to the two on their sides by holding a piece of rope.  The object was to work together with one's team and try to drag a person from the opposite team into a trash can.  If they touched it at all, they were out.  Sandman was crushed during this game, which wasn't all that fun, but it was still fun to watch.  Just not fun to play. :)

I slept a lot for our free time during that day because I was exhausted, and then headed to our night session.  This one was with John MacArthur too.  He based his sermon on 2 Timothy 2:1-8.  This was probably my favorite sermon of the week because it was so applicable to one's life.  MacArthur's message was basically that we as believers are to be teachers, soldiers, athletes, and farmers (figuratively speaking) and thus glorify God.  We teach, we fight, we run, and we sow all for God's glory.  This sermon was excellent!

After our night session we had another night game, X-Treme Steal the Bacon.  This game is the most well-known game at Regeneration because it is definitely the most intense.  It is the only time when all the teams are against each other all at once.  The teams all come together and make a circle around about seven kiddie pools filled with water and objects that are the "bacon".  A few people are chosen from each team (for instance, they would call out "All senior girls," and all the girls who were seniors from each team would play in that round) and everyone has about two or three minutes in which to get as many items as they can from their pools and across their team line.  The bigger the object, the more points you get.  Six kiddie pools were set in a circle, and in the center, on top of several hay bales to elevate it, was the seventh kiddle pool where the items with the biggest point value were kept.  This game was awesome!  Glorieta was actually able to get two fire trucks to come and douse us all with the fire hoses (very cold!).  Apparently there were many, many injuries as a result of this game last year, and so it was made safer by surrounding all the pools with a circle of hay bales that we had to leap over.  This definitely helped slow us down, but it could still be pretty dangerous.  It was fun though!  You can catch a glimpse of it here.  You can see a bunch of the games from seconds 35-1:15, but zero in on 1:00-1:15 to watch our night game!

And that was it for day four!

After playing the rope game.

Playing soccer in the rain.

X-Treme Steal the Bacon!!!!!!

That's what it looked like when everyone who had been chosen for that round went running as fast as they could into the center of the circle.  Pretty intense!

Very blurry, but you can kind of see how it was.

The fire hose getting us all wet!

Regeneration 2011, Day #3

 On our third day at Regeneration I went to the prayer garden again, back to my previous spot, and had some more wonderful fellowship with the Lord.

Instead of our morning session that day we had a couple choices for some breakout sessions that we could take.  Out of ten, we were able to choose two to go to.  Our choices were: "Studying Your Bible for Life" by Austin Duncan, "Their Lives Depend On It" by Andrew Gutierrez, "Facebook to Friendships" by Chris Hamilton, "Romeo and Juliet" by Rick Holland, "Directionally Challenged" by Jon Rourke, "Reasons We Believe" by Nathan Busenitz, "Christ and Culture" by Joe Keller, "Live Like You're Dying" by Abner Chow, "Listening for Life" by Ken Ramey, and "Fighting for Joy" by Adam Tyson.  Aren't those hard choices?!  I had such a difficult time in choosing, but I finally decided on "Live Like You're Dying" and "Their Lives Depend On It".

The first one I went to was "Live Like You're Dying" by Abner Chow.  It wasn't what I would have expected it to be, judging from the title, but it was still really good.  Abner basically took the entire Bible and comprised it into a love story, with Jesus being the Hero and the Groom, chasing after His Bride, the Church.  It was really an escatology class; again, not what I would have expected from the title, but I still really enjoyed it.

Second was "Their Lives Depend On It" by Andrew Gutierrez.  Andrew is the high school pastor for Grace Community Church, and I was really looking forward to hearing him speak.  I was not disappointed!  His class was on evangelization and gave us the whys and hows to telling people about Jesus.  The whys were: (1) it's a matter of obedience, (2) it's a matter of their suffering, and (3) God deserves their praise.  The hows were: (1) know what you're talking about, (2) be on fire, (3) live a transformed life, (4) be intentional, (5) start the conversation, (6) listen, (7) use tact, (8) leave with the gospel being clear, (9) stick to the gospel, (10) endure, and (11) understand that when they are saved your job is not done.  His passion for evangelization really inspired me!

After our breakout sessions we had lunch, and then had our team games.  That day we walked about half a mile to a field way far away and first played a sort of dodgeball game that was not fun at all and seemed completely pointless.  Afterwards, however, we got to play a mud game (!!!).  It was very complicated, but basically you tried to get as many of your team's objects into one of four trash cans per round.  Our team, Sandman, completely dominated that game!  The sad thing was that only sixteen guys or girls (this wasn't a co-ed game) per team could play at a time, so I didn't get to actually play the game, but we had a blast sliding in the mud afterwards!  I've always wanted to do a mud game, so this was like a dream come true. :)

That afternoon during free time I went canoeing with one of the girls from my youth group.  It was actually really fun, even though I usually don't like stuff like that that's over bodies of water.  The evening session was the first time we heard John MacArthur preach.  His sermon that evening was from John 15:1-11 and on how to determine whether you are bearing fruit, being pruned, or whatnot, and also how to bear more fruit.  It was very good.

That evening instead of having a night game we had a concert by Jimmy Needham!  I was way too exhausted to stay for it, but Rachel and Ellie did and said it was great.  And that's all for day three!

Paddleboating!

Canoeing!

This is what we all looked like after the mud game.  So much fun!

These were the balls for Sphere of Destruction.  I forgot to post this for day #2.

Jimmy Needham!

I also wanted to post this awesome song that I found yesterday.  I love it!

 

Blind Bartimaeus

Blind Bartimaeus at the gates
Of Jericho in darkness waits;
He hears the crowd—he hears a breath
Say, “It is Christ of Nazareth!”
And calls, in tones of agony,
“Jesus, have mercy now on me!”


The thronging multitudes increase;
Blind Bartimaeus, hold thy peace!
But still, above the noisy crowd,
The beggar’s cry is shrill and loud;
Until they say, “He calleth thee!”
“Fear not, arise, He calleth thee!”


Then saith the Christ, as silent stands
The crowd, “What wilt thou at My hands?”
And he replies, “O give me light!
Rabbi, restore the blind man’s sight!”
And Jesus answers, “Go in peace,
Thy faith from blindness gives release!”


Ye that have yes, yet cannot see,
In darkness and in misery,
Recall those mighty Voices Thee,
“Jesus, have mercy now on me!
Fear not, arise, and go in peace!
Thy faith from blindness gives release!”


-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Regeneration 2011, Day #2

On our second day at Regeneration I woke up at 5:30, which was much too early, not just because it was, well, it was 5:30, but I didn't need that much time.  That wasn't very fun, especially because we weren't even allowed to go out of our rooms until 7.  I did my devotions and read a little bit of the book I brought but mostly I was just waiting for everyone to wake up.  Finally they did, and we all went to breakfast around 7:30ish.

Our first session didn't start 'til 9, so a couple of us girls went back to our rooms and got our Bibles and journals so we could go to the prayer garden.  We didn't have a whole lot of time once we got there because the prayer garden was at least half a mile from our dorms, if not farther, but we spread out in the prayer garden to do our devotions.

The Glorieta prayer garden is seriously one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  For starters, it's huge, and you can also see that there is so much love and care that goes into making it a place of peace.  It reminds me of Psalm 23:2 - "He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters."

I found a place surrounded by hedges because I really like to be completely alone for my devotions.  I sat there for awhile and prayed and listened to the wind in the aspen leaves.  I read some more out of my Bible and wrote in my journal, and I wrote a song that morning.  I'm going to intersperse the lyrics between the photos in a minute.  But just know that I loved doing my devotions in the prayer garden, far as it was from the dorms. :)

At 9:30 we were supposed to have our second session, the first one with Rick Holland, but the electricity was off so the mikes wouldn't work, and so instead we had our first game time for the week.  We played Nine Square and Sphere of Destruction.  I think we won both of them.  They were really fun!

After games we had lunch, and then most of our group went to our second session because the electricity was finally working.  I missed that one because one of the girls in my room had a migraine and I stayed with her.  I took a nap and read my book, and once the rest of our group came back she was recovered.

We had free time from 3:15-5:00 every day, and then dinner was from 5-7.  At 7 we had our third session, the second one with Rich Holland.  His lesson was on fighting sexual sin, and I really enjoyed it.  He's a passionate, funny teacher with more passion than fun.  It's a good balance.

After that we had small groups, and break for half an hour, and then we played a night game.  It was kind of like Underground Church.  We had to go find our base (as Team Sandman we were a Villain team, so we had to find the Villain base) somewhere in the forest, and then break off into smaller bases.  I did not handle that game well at all, and ended up having to go back to the dorms before the game was over.  Forest + darkness + me = does not mix.  The Villains were completely defeated in that game, but we conquered by the end of the week!  After that game we went to bed.

Alone at last
Free from all other distractions
Just here with You
Being still
But how can I breathe
When Your glory, it overwhelms me?
I am still
And I, I hear Your whispers in the trees.

A gift from You
Flesh when before there was stone
And life from You
In this new heart
But how can I speak
When Your love, it overwhelms me?
Here with You
And I, I hear Your whispers in the trees.

Peace from You
Knowing that You are the Lord
Resting now
In Your arms
How can I give enough thanks
When You took up my grave?
I am free
And I, I hear Your whispers in the trees.
 

Inside the chapel for one of our sessions.

Regeneration 2011, Day #1

Hey everybody!

I think I'm going to try and get as many posts up about Regeneration as I can today, because it's one of the only days I don't have to work this week (wisdom teeth appointment--yea!) :).  So, without further ado, here's day #1.

At 2 P.M. on Monday we all met at the church to leave for Glorieta, which is only an hour and a half away from where we all live (which is unbelievably awesome--no six hour car rides!).  Registration for Regen was at 4 P.M., so we didn't need to leave any earlier.

We all piled into the cars and were off!  It rained a little bit on our way there, but once we got there it was clear.  We were greeted very enthusiastically by the volunteers from Grace Community Church, the church heading up Regeneration.  At the gate they asked what church we were from, and then radioed it ahead so that on one of the hills we drove over they held up a banner that said "Welcome Covenant of Grace" and we drove through it!  It was SO much fun!

Once we actually got inside the camp our leader, Russ, went to check us in while we all played games with some of the other teens that were already there.  We did that for awhile before heading over to our dorms and unpacking all our stuff.  All us girls stayed in the Oklahoma dorm, which was basically like a hotel.  We were on the first floor and had four rooms to our group.  While each room was only made to hold four, mine had five because we had one extra girl.  That worked out alright, though; it was fun to be all crammed together for five days!  We also had our own bathrom and shower (!!!) which was beyond thrilling.

Once we had unpacked we all went to the dining hall for dinner.  This was our first taste of what the week would be like because we had to walk everywhere.  The dining hall was about a quarter of a mile from the dorms, and we had to walk there and back three times a day, plus most of the fields where our games were at were at least half a mile away.  We ended up walking four or five miles a day, easily, and it got to be very tiring!  I am very thankful for cars now. :)

Anyway, after dinner we went to have our first session.  This was our first taste of what the rest of the week would look like.  The worship was amazing all week, as well as the teaching.  Monday night was the only time we were able to here Austin Duncan teach, and it was very good.  He taught mostly about the definition of regeneration, why we need it, how it happens, and how it should change our lives.  After that we had small groups together on the dock by the lake.  It was really nice to be out there, even if it felt like the dock was going to be detached from land and sink with all of us on it, and then it started raining. :)

After small groups we had our first rally session, which is basically where all the teams got together and screamed as loud as they could so as to support team spirit.  I wouldn't exactly call it fun, but most people seemed to enjoy it.  We were able to meet the rest of our team then when we broke off from the other teams and learned each others' names.  Our youth group wasn't big enough to be its own team, so we were joined by about thirty people from other churches, including Grace Community Church.  Our team was Sandman.  We came up with the greatest cheer that first night, and won points for the cheer throughout the week, but sadly no one recorded it.  Just know it was amazing!  After our rally session and some team games we went to bed.

And that was pretty much it for the first day!  Here's some pictures.  Since there's so many of them I'm not going to make them x-large like I usually do, but you can click on them if you want to see them bigger.

Fun on the car ride to Glorieta!

Our faithful driver, Mrs. Langley

And me, the co-pilot.  Had I known this picture was being taken, I would have smiled for it. :)

You can barely see the banner that our first car drove through in this picture.

We're here!

The absolutely gorgeous chapel.

Getting ready to play some games.

Listening to our room assignments.

On our way to dinner.

We had to put handprints on our faces for team spirit.  The red paint is actually "Spidey's blood", as Spiderman was our archenemy for the week.