Friday Evening General Session Highlights

The last session kicked off with Reggie introducing some information on Catalyst, Big Stuf Camps and Compassion International.  Wow, the worship team actually covered Rebecca Black’s “friday” for a few minutes.

Sue Miller came back on stage for another Orange Award.  This goes an award specific to Serving.  Andy Lyons from Tennessee received this award.  This church is partnering with the local schools to help others in the community.

Reggie then introduced Jeffrey Canada.  “Waiting for Superman” came out a little bit ago that talked about the story Jeffrey was experiencing with the children in his neighborhood. Jeffrey made the decision that once he left Harlem to get a great education, he was going to come back and make a difference in his neighborhood.  He wanted children to know that people cared about them.

In his book, Jeffrey said, “The most powerful force in a child’s life is a caring adult.”  Jeffrey would encourage people in the church to help children.  Everyone thinks that it is someone else’s job to save the children.  As believers he encourages us to give the children a chance because no one else is doing it.

After this time, we have some people come up, 1 at a time, sharing about how other people’s MOVE impacted their lives for the better.  It is our MOVE now.

Here are my notes from Perry Noble’s talk:

• John 6:5-9
• We are all afraid of something.
• The fear we live with is what I am doing, will it matter?  Am I wasting my time?
• You are doing this because somewhere in your life, you felt a tug in your heart.  You were called.
• What you do today will matter tomorrow.  If you hear nothing else today, you are not just a children’s work or just a youth worker.  What you are doing today matters!
• Who is the hero of the John 6 story?  Jesus is the hero.  But the hero is the person who made this boy’s lunch.
• If you want to make a difference you need to be concerned about Christ’s name in the lives of others.  It doesn’t matter how many Facebook friends or Twitter followers you have.  It is about sharing Christ’s name in the lives of others
• There are 3 things we can do to make a difference.
• 1. Teach them to recognize Jesus
• The most messed up kids he’s encountered are the church kids.  Because they don’t recognize Jesus.  We teach our kids safe Bible stories.
• We are so obsessed with appearing good, we teach them behavior modification, but we don’t teach them about a heart change.
• 2. We have to teach them to trust Jesus
• They get lied to all the time (they are an accident – evolution – there is nothing special about you).  They also get lied to by us saying we can do whatever we want to do as long as we believe.
• The Truth is there is a God in heaven who custom designed you with a plan and purpose in mind.  When you surrender fully to Christ, you will discoer exactly what the creator designed you to do.
• The child in John 6 believed that Christ could do something with his food.
• 3. We need to release them to Jesus
• We have to release the next generation so that they know who Jesus is so that THEY can reach their generation.  It is not our job to reach the next generation.  It is our children’s job to know Christ and reach their own generation.
• That means that the way we do church will probably change and we have to be OK with that.
• We have to teach them to Trust Jesus and then get out of the way.
• What you do matters tomorrow.  They may not remember your sermons or Bible studies, but they will remember you were there for them and represented Christ to them.