“Shine God’s light!” “Shine it bright!” were the call and response for the Central Texas Conference’s youth-led Mid-Winter 1 worship service.
This became the mantra for the service as each speaker and prayer leader ended with “Shine God’s light!” and the congregation responded with “Shine it bright!”
The theme for the 2011 Student Leadership Team Mid-Winter retreats was “Radiate.” Focused on leadership, each retreat encouraged the youth attending to “Radiate” God’s love through the gifts God gave them.
For the first retreat, held Feb. 19-20 at Glen Lake Camp, youth chose a fine art that they felt gifted in and created a contribution to the closing community worship service.
For the second retreat, youth took a spiritual gifts inventory and worked through how those God-given gifts can be used in their lives and their local church.
Rev. Joseph Nader, director of the Wesley Foundation at the University of Texas at Arlington, spoke to the youth about how God has called them to use their gifts now. Youth filled out commitment cards and placed them on the altar during Communion, sharing what they were going to do with their gifts at their local churches.
The commitment cards were mailed to their churches so the leadership could encourage the youth to get involved.
In another statement of commitment, participants contributed a total of $867.82 to the Youth Service Fund. Youth at Mid-Winter 1 gave $309.32 and from Mid-Winter 2 gave $558.50. A special love offering was taken at the Mid-Winter 1 that contributed $426.12 for the denomination’s Imagine No Malaria initiative.
For a copy of the spiritual gifts inventory that can be used with other youth groups, please contact Joy Roberson (joy@ctcumc.org). For a copy of the youth-led worship DVD (still in production) or youth-created photo slide show, please contact Joy Roberson (joy@ctcumc.org).
For more photos from the Mid-Winters, watch the Student Ministries page on the conference website (www.ctcumc.org), click on Ministries / Student Ministries, and the March 18 issue of the Central Link newspaper.