Hellloooo!
SO this weekend just gone was Elim's national youth conference (Serious4God) and the actual event is called The Gathering!
And this years theme was REVOLUTION FIRE'S with the sub title START A REVOLUTION WHERE YOU ARE!
The Seminars took many different forms there were ones like Revolutionary girls,Revolutionary boys, Revolutionary in your schools, Revolutionary in uni, Revolutionary leaders, Revolutionary in work, Revolutionary in music and Revolutionary in media.
All these sessions proved to be excellent in equipping young & ol
der revolutionaries with practical and inspirational ideas and stories.
I know that these sessions got all our youth pumped up to get out there and make a difference.
The sessions that I went to were Revolutionary in Uni's with Rich Wilson (who is the national team leader for Fusion) & Revolutionary Leaders with Dave Gilpin.
My Sessions
Revolutionary in Uni's -Rich Wilson took this session and he basically spoke and gave examples of inspirational people that went to Universities and then actually whilst being there did these amazing things!
And here are some of the 'World Changers' that were mentioned:
The Sung & Unsung heroes! :)
Samuel Mills - was only 20 years old when he an four other students decided to meet for what is now known as the Haystack prayer meeting. And Samuel who was one of the most influential student of the five lead some missions to Africa.
Nicolaus Zinzendorf - Basically started off 24/7 prayer with his friends from University.
William Wilberforce - I think everyone knows this story but just in case you don't I'll give you the facts.
William Wilberforce did something truly amazing he stood up for what he believed in and won! He was a leader in the abolishment of the slave trade. He came up against some terrible things including his own health and yet he still kept on fighting. Because he had that call upon his life and he knew it! I have a huge passion for William Wilberforce's story. I think its one of the most moving stories I've ever heard.
Josephine Butler - Josephine stood up for women's rights and played a huge part in further education for women. She also campaigned tirelessly for the 'contagious diseases acts' and also played big part in raising the 'age of consent' from 13 to 16!
John Wesley - John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Movement! He was great at bringing groups together that really wanted to push on with God!
The question we were mainly left to ask ourselves was Are We Going To Be Active??
We (Rich,Jess, Rach & I) were asked if we'd like to pray for some of the kid's that might come
forward to receive the holy spirit. And so we all said yes that would be awesome!
And so we had to miss our third session for a little meeting to pray about it and also discuss some technicalities! :)
In this meeting i experienced
so many different feelings all at once because as much as i wanted to pray i never really considered myself a prayer warrior (thats what i call people who pray in their own time alot an also pray over people) I mean sure i pray at home with great passion but when it comes to praying in front of people my insecurities i guess got the better of me!
But on this weekend that all changed! All i literally said was "God i can't do this in my o
wn strength, i need your strength, give me the words to say and let m
e be your vessel!" And as much as i'd like to say that i felt great and fired up right away, that simply wasnt the truth! All i got at first intially was this underlying peace and i wasnt particularly worried either. But i honestly believe that because God knows my character he didnt bring it all at once because not only would it be too much, i may have lost the urgency in my praying prior to the actual next session in the big room all together!
The Holy Spirit Falls in the room
So the session before the big concert with LZ7 was the main big session and instead of doing a big meeting with a really inspirational final speaker, we just had like a time of pure worship and praying for the Holy Spirit to come and take us over!
This was where we came in to pray. We had already been in the auditorium before the session just to pray over the seats and that people would really be filled with the Holy Spirit. It was amazing actually because we went in there an there was just us, then we turned round after what felt like 10 minutes but couldn't have been and all the seats were filled.
So as the evening progressed there was an alter call for those who wanted to make a commitment to the Lord. And one of our own youth members went up with all these other young people! So we went up to pray with them and i prayed with these two girls Rachel & Emily and so we prayed together. Then we all sat down and Mark Pugh i think it was explained we were going to invite the Holy Spirit now to come an take our lives over! And he also explained how we were going to do it section by section. So we started off with a bit of worship then we went up to start praying with people. And i was so calm about it all, I was saying things in my prayers that i had never said before! I got more profound words for people than i had ever had before!
So we had been praying for a while and for all the people that i prayed for not one of them went down in the Holy Spirit and i was like "God why are they not going down? Am i not doing or saying something right?" looking back on it, it was quite funny! And as soon as i realised that it doesn't matter if they get go down in the Holy Spirit because they're still receiving it! I got these two girls who were actually staying in the same church as me and i as i was praying they BOTH were falling backwards an i was like "Ahh this is why you do it one at a time an with one person behind haha" So a friend of there's came to pray with one of the girls and i was praying with the other by this point i was screaming my prayers an losing my voice! it felt awesome and weird at the same time! :) And then this girl fell to the floor crying so i kept praying for her. Then about 10 minutes later i see some familiar faces it was Rachel & Emily from before( the ones who had given they're lives the same night) I was at this point with my my buddy Rachel an we started off praying together but then when Rachel (Rachel & Emily) started crying we started really praying over her life that anything that had been in the past that had hurt her any chains that needed to be broken were cut free and that for any of her past mistakes would be washed away. She was shaking alot and really really crying and i think we prayed for like 40 minutes for her i really felt i couldn't leave her because God was obviously doing something in her life that wasn't to be stopped.
So the end of the night came an we went to bed.
We got up in the morning and i saw Rachel (Rach & Em) and she gave me the biggest smile! She had been set free!
This weekend has changed my prayer and devotional life forever! :)
It was a truly amazing weekend one that I'd never ever trade! The Gathering's still got it!
Let's not forget - START A REVOLUTION WHERE YOU ARE!!!!