Another Great Night...

WOW! God is just really blessing my socks off with how He is blessing our Student Ministries at Christ Church of Orlando. The Identity Students have really been grabbing hold of the evangelism concept we preach so much at Identity Youth. Our students are becoming some of the BIGGEST witnesses at our church. For example, just last weekend one of my youth, Morgan, was at the mall and she saw these girls walking down the sidewalk. She just went up to them to start a conversation and found out that they were waiting on the bus to get a ride home and she offered to take them home. While riding home she got to talk with them about God and church and one thing led to another...Well, all 4 of them came to Wednesday night's Identity Youth service and they loved it. They all said they plan on coming back next week. We have had such an influx of newcomers and they aren't just visiting. They are all coming back the following weeks. Last night we had 67 in the service and for a church of around 450 people....I think that is outstanding.

This weeks service was not only jammed packed with students, causing us to add more and more seats, but it was jammed packed with great stuff. We started off the night with a Crowd Control Game called "Road Race" and the kids loved it. It's a voice activated game that is controlled by the loudness of the crowd. It had me on the floor rolling and laughing. Then we moved into a time of worship. Our piano player wasn't there this week and so I was stuck playing keys during half the set but there just seemed to be such an atmosphere of praise to our God during our worship. We started off with "Break Free" (United) and then moved into "I Am Free" (Desperation Band). Then one of our students came to the stage and encouraged our youth to really press into God's presence and man, did they ever. We finished the PW set off with "Oh How He Loves Us" (John Mark McMillan) and "Saviour King" (United). God's presence was so evident. After worship our drama team performed "The Ledge Skit." It's a spoken skit on temptation and peer pressure. Then we continued the 2nd part of our new series on temptation called "Hooks" and used "The Select Fit" video clip from Mosaic Films. I used it to illustrate the dangers of taking scripture out of context to validate our sin.

Our church and youth has really been going through a change of seasons. A few months ago we had a lot of changes take place in our attendance and as a staff and church we all began to fast and pray during the Advent and Christmas Holidays. During that time our senior adults pastor gave a word of knowledge to our pastor. She said, "Pastor, I feel that God is taking us through a pruning process and when He is done pruning it will make way for great growth. It will be a [Healthier] growth that will produce an abundant harvest." I believe we are seeing the fruits of that today. I am so amazed with God. Aren't you?