Well, Ben beat me to the punch in his blog entry yesterday, so be sure to read it. We're at a conference geared for people in ministry with youth (jr/sr high, university and young adult ministry) in Japan (Cutting Edge XL). It's in Nagano prefecture at a camp called Northstar (www.ridenorthstar). Our drive yesterday was long but beautiful. I shared with a friend in an email, though, that the worship and fellowship are even more beautiful.
At the close of last night, we had a time of prayer for the youth of this nation. We were introduced to Nehemiah's prayer in the first chapter of Nehemiah, and then encouraged to confess our sin to the Lord and pray also for the youth and their sins. We were given paper, and instructed to put on rubber gloves. Next, we were given black paint and told to paint our prayer. My picture reflected the needs and hurts caused through teasing and alienation, the hurts of hikkikomorians, sexual sin, oppression through outside forces of expectation and crying tears caused by loneliness, stress, and feelings of worthlessness. We followed this by praying out loud, and then were asked to look at our gloves and the black stains on them. Finally, each of us had our gloves taken off our hands as someone spoke the words Jesus spoke to the adulterous woman, "Go in peace - your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more."
No comments:
Post a Comment