Want to write a testimony?
A Change of heart...
With it being 11 years since I had last been to the famous Christian youth festival/conference I made my way down to the south west of England for the week with mixed feelings.
My role was to volunteer on a stand for an organisation called Orison (old English word for prayer) (www.orisonschools.org.uk/ for more info) where I would be welcoming people to the area of the resource building where we would be based and persuading them that they wanted to come and experience Orison Prayer Spaces- an interactive, activity based multi-themed prayer zone. Easy I thought, Joel has to be jovial and polite followed but I little pushier to get the people into the areas, see that they love it and want it in their church, youth group and or school. As these ‘sales times’ would be after both the morning and evening worship times the team and I would have time to relax, eat and get to whatever of the session was left.
Evening 1 and morning 2 came and went and Joel relaxed with friends and had a lie in for the respective times. The ‘sales times’ had been good with many people coming through and a good few taking info for their churches, pastors and youth workers. The times were also made enjoyable by a group of 3 young lads from Birmingham, at their first Soul Survivor, who enjoyed a laugh and joke about the question we were asking the ‘punters’ and helped encourage people to write their answers on the large paper laid out on the floor. Their attention tended to be led towards the young attractive girls amongst the delegates. But still answers were answers and they were getting our question boards filled each day.
Finally on evening 2 I went to the evening celebration in the big top. The stage was an island in the centre with the congregation spread around it in 360 degrees. This was novel and prompted me to discover how the sound differed around the tent. Walking round the tent the 8,000 plus teens were going for it to the latest rave-style worship songs led by a small 15 year old with an awful lot of hair! As I circled I felt it increasingly difficult to relate to the worship with my head telling me that ‘what would this kid know?’ ‘Do none of these songs have lyrics or are they just a string on ohs and woahs and hmmmmmms!’ “Oh well” I thought it’s probably just that I’m a touch old for them and I’m always going to struggle without a pair of sticks in my hands. The sermon was fine but still I wasn’t satisfied.
That evening one of our joint leaders came back onsite and we spent a good time talking about what God was doing with us, and where we were going on our next trips to share the gospel. It appeared that I was the only one without a trip planned. Whoops! I seemed to be in the wrong team. Our discussions drifted onto the evenings time of worship and what we had thought of it when suddenly it was 2am and we decided that sleep was a requirement of the team and a time of prayer was had before teeth brushing commenced.
The next morning dawned with a lovely sunny day in situ, and after a hasty breakfast I eagerly trotted down to the big top. This morning’s time of worship started with a ‘golden oldie’ of sorts in the form of ‘Over All The Earth – Lord Reign in Me’ that had me questioning where I had been worshiping from and was God really ‘Reigning in me?’ It was evident that he wasn’t and that I had let other things come in front of my worship of God namely the misuse of his beautiful creation to try and gain affection instead of me waiting and relying on him to find his chosen one for me. This sudden realisation had the immediate effect of making me feel completely in adequate to worship God, the King of the universe, alpha and omega, feeder of the 5000...
It was only as I repeated sorry...sorry...sorry... sorry over and over again that I felt I was actually connecting with God in worship. Suddenly a very repetitive refrain came from the stage that went... ‘I love the King and the King loves me, I love the King and the King loves me, I love the King and the King, he loves me...’ that was it! I was unable to stand or open my mouth to sing without sobs cascading from my lips and tears soaking the dusty carpet on which I knelt. Thankfully this did not take as long as it felt as I was able to return to my feet and join the rest of the young people praising God with hands held high and a new found confidence in which I could sing the songs as I remembered who I was in Christ and that with sticks in hand or not This heart was going to worship The Lord in Spirit and Truth!
From that point on the weeks perspective changed. Instead of trying to sell a product to church leaders I was desperate to get anybody in to Orison just so that they could use it as a place to meet with God. As I went about my duties on the stand there were people that came to us and asked for prayer about different areas of their life that were so relevant to my life and I was able to pray with people about their various requests.
This wasn’t the end of the blessings though. Oh no! I return to the three Brummy lads that had been coming back to the stand time after time and ‘assisting’ us with our work on the question of day boards. We had done a little bit of digging and discovered that they were at Soul Survivor with a church youth leader that had set up a football team that was inviting the guys in from the area and not forcing a major church issue at them. He had then decided to bring his team away to the festival. All 18 of the un-churched brummy teenagers. (Brave man) they were all told that they had to go to the first meeting and then they could decide what else they wanted to do all week. Some came and turned off during the worship and word. Some listened to the music but ignored the sermon. And others came, listened to all things and requested that they come back the next day as ‘the singing was wicked’ ‘I didn’t know so many people would sing to God’! We got to know these lads during the week as they would visit us often and chat through this and that and football. With us trying to sway them towards thinking about the vaguely Christian question on the board. Josh and Jac were much livelier with more cocky answers to our promptings but Lyle was much more the thinker and even though he wasn’t too forth coming with answers was happy to chat about what was going on in the meetings.
So we keep chatting to them and praying for them and we arrive on final day, evening celebration. The orison team saunter in to the big top and pick an area to sit near the door to run off at the end quick so as be ready for the evening session of tool shed work. The worship was great and the talk short. The service leader then announces that if there’s anyone that wants to commit their life to God then now was the time to do it. Suddenly from just along from us Jac and Josh stand up with a couple of their leaders and go to the front by the stage. But where’s Lyle I think... I’d been so sure he was being led along the road. They finished praying for the 500 odd people that had come forward and were asking them to go to a side tent so that they could get some help with the journey they were just starting. To my extreme joy Lyle stood with another of his group leaders and caught up with the others. Clearly he’d wanted to pray but didn’t feel to bold about being in front of 8500 people. Fair enough I thought! On their return to the main tent the three of them were bowled over. With Lyle jumping straight in praying with and for other members of his group! It was amazing to see. As I was praying and praising God for what he had done, Lyle gestured to me and mouthed that he had just become a Christian, as if I could have not noticed I thought! He looked so pleased with himself and as I went to pray with him Jac and Josh joined us and I found myself surrounded by sobbing teenagers, some of their group and the leaders too. Oh yeah and a weeping Joel in the midst of it. As I ran out of words to pray for them and I lifted my hands in worship in what God had done within our lives that week, I felt a hand on my shoulder and Lyle began to pray the simplest of prayers that so humbled me and forced yet more praise out to God. The rest of the eve was spent trying to run Orison one last time with the lads popping in, crying with me and then heading out on several occasions.
So what have I learnt from this week? 1 God takes you on a journey for a reason, but not always the reason that you think you’re on it. 2 Never be scared to ask people things. The youth leader brought 18 kids to the camp and 3 ended up leaving having given their lives to Christ. Worth the hassle of the other 15 I think! 3 you’re never too old for ‘young peoples’ worship or too big to cry!
There are more things that God spoke to me about on a personal level too. Maybe you’ll have to ask me about those, and then I’ll know how many people have read this page. Tee hee!
God bless you all and inspire you to keep digging deeper and not giving up on yourselves. Joel
Joel –August 2009
:-)