Year 3, July 8th, 2018 (Part 2): CIY Celebration Night!

Phew, what a day!  We basically spent the whole day at church except for a little bit of lunch.  Jared went back for nursery with Abishai, so I could go shopping for dog food and vacation food.  We overspent per usual, and it was quite the trip having an extra kid in tow (Bryce), but it got done.  Got home, put it all away and then went back to church for CIY Celebration Night!!! Woot! Woot!

Oh my goodness, what a night!  First of all, they had announced in the morning services that there were 25 first time decisions to accept Christ into their hearts, so I knew that they would do some of that tonight.  But they also said that 44 students rededicated their lives and 33 students committed to going into full-time vocational ministry.  That's a ton!  With the constant burnout of today's pastors, and they average pastor only lasting 5 years in ministry and then switching vocations, we need to keep training the next generation, and equipping the church not to cause burnout in these kids! Our church does do a great job on many levels, especially with making sure our pastors and their families are taken care of.  They do take Sundays off sometimes, they do have reasonable expectations and respect for hours worked, we have a decent amount of regular volunteers, etc.  AND with Dan's and Chad's little speech last night, they have goals to keep the kids serving, training as interns even in high school to get a taste of ministry, always finding new ways to engage all ages, changing plans midstream if it isn't working, and making sure that parents are supported and are still involved.  As Chad always says, the youth ministers work alongside the parents and the parents are the #1 youth leader in their students' lives, not the paid staff member.  We are their greatest influencer, but we aren't doing it along.  I love that.

About last night, I knew we would have a great time because there's always more energy in the room when young ones are involved.  The youth band played (they are young adults though) worship, there were testimonies by kids from both middle school and high school, there were baptisms, and there was a level of....well....you'll have to scroll through the pictures below to find out.  It was so fun that I took over 180 photos and videos and that's why I'm writing a separate post about it.  I won't include everything, but yes, it was that awesome.  Abishai was stir crazy from being out all day, so he and Jared missed some of it.  And I had to keep Bryce and Justin separated because they wouldn't stop whispering.  But other than that, it was exciting to see what the kids on stage thought.  More songs, more baptisms, and now my back hurts from holding up my phone.  I need a selfie stick or something (although most of the time those aren't allowed because you'd be blocking other people's views.  But for a short person, I just can't hold a phone over my head for over an hour.  Hm,.....

Here's some of the fun!

New motto/logo for this year: #every1in !!  Everyone in a small group, everyone praying and leading another person in their walk with God, and everyone serving in some way at church.

And it begins!  A few more strobe lights than we usually have on Sundays.

There's way too many videos to share, so here's the playlist!  You might want to watch it AFTER you scroll through the pictures. Enjoy!
 
CIY Celebration Night 2018 Playlist

Introducing the new theme! With words like abandoned, lost, alone, hurting, broken, and changing them to redeemed, community, hope, etc.

They had some baptisms at the beginning of the service and some at the end.  They saved most of them for afterwards because it would have made the service much, much longer.  Like making a 1 hr service into 2 hrs!

Lots of pretty colors!

Lights bouncing off the walls!

And lights on the ceilings!

Why yes they did shine lights in our eyes often, just like at concerts and at the NACC a week ago.  I hope we don't have that on a Sunday morning though.  Keep the lights on the stage or ceiling please and thanks.

Luke introducing the evening and talking about CIY MIX.

Here it comes!  It's so hard to appreciate the lights, the music, the singing, the enthusiasm without watching the video clips.  I'll try to add some where I can.

So perfectly timed with what the lyrics were saying (i.e. it was darker before the build up and lighter during the big parts of the songs).

These lights are amazing because you can set them all kinds of ways for different affects.

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Loads of awesomeness.

Of course they put together a video of clips from both Mix and Move.  Here's a hovercraft shot of the kids getting ready to go to Move.  Yes, that's right, we hired 4 coach buses! And two big vans! 270 kids and adults!

Beautiful people.

One of Justin's new friends, Sam, going into 7th grade, wants to be a leader among his friends.

Hey, I know some of these kids!  They all had your typical post church camp responses of "it was fun hanging out with friends and leaders" and "God impacted me to bring light to my friends."  BUT, they were the ones saying it, not us adults.  And some had testimonies of seeing the friends they were praying for last year, come this year and make a decision for Christ.  And some decided to go in to full time vocational ministry.  Yeah!

Proud moment for this "product" of our church, and many churches that his parents' have been involved in.  It's really neat to see one of the previous youth group members come back to intern here and then join the staff.  Welcome back, Aaron!

That band did a great job, too, of course.

Dan and Chad sharing some thoughts about the youth.

Praying over the graduated seniors, sending them off to their careers or college.

I think this is Chelsea (spelling?) who is one of the administrators for the student ministries.  Anyway, she rocked it from the stage as well.

They had all the kids go down to the front for a little mosh pit for the last couple of songs and Josh and Aaron danced like crazy on stage, jumping up and down like hooligans having a great time!

Woah!  What's this?!

Confetti!  And it's only the beginning!

Um, who knew that Aaron Shroeder could rap? And play piano? And guitar? And only sound a tiny bit like his dad, Andy, who used to be our worship minister years ago?  He had an awesome time up there dancing and rapping.  Way to go, Aaron!

So...much...confetti!

White out!  They'll be finding confetti everywhere for weeks!

Let's do this EVERY week!

Everybody was giddy and loved it!

They asked us to at least brush it off the seats and into the aisles.

So much!

What a party!

Poor cameraman!

Confetti angel.

Swimming in confetti!

I'm so putting this in the "to print for the high school graduation party" file!

It's almost a lost cause when everyone is still playing with it, at least until you get it into the trashcan. 

Benaiah hanging out with some of the freshman girls he spent the week with.

What?!  I didn't throw that! Lol.

Trying to get confetti out of his shirt!

Whoops!  I hope someone had a key to get those out!  I'm sure someone purposefully put them in the offering box.

Let's get Benaiah!

Miah and Abishai getting each other.

Cutie.

There's no point in cleaning up yet....

Hahaha!  Benaiah having fun with the girls (and guys, but mostly girls).  Good thing us mamas are around to keep an eye on these youngin's!

Watching people get baptized and hanging out.

Brotherly love!

I'm sure they filled this trash bin up all the way.  They were told they had to have it all cleaned up before they closed the building if they were going to use it.  I'm glad Benaiah and his friends stayed until the clean up was done.

Gary got up there and started announcing who was getting baptized so family members and friends could get to the baptismal to see it.  We didn't stay for these baptisms because Abishai was extremely stir crazy.

Good night!

Exhausted leaders making confetti angels.  I have no idea how they do this all the time!

It took this guy 1 month to program tonight's light show! His mom works for the church, so I'm guessing he came in and worked on it when she was working.  But how cool is that?!

Our crazy high schoolers!  And their awesome, dedicated leaders!

Always leading my example.  Who are you going to call? The Good Doctor, that's who!