Recharge: Reconnect - Synchronized [Part 3]

"Jesus, we welcome You in this place.

Come and heal our hearts tonight.

Tonight,

Heal our hearts tonight."

This year was a different year for retreat when it came to speakers. In the past, we've always had external speakers come and share insight and truth with us. This year it was internal.

We started looking for speakers a couple months back, we had one or two in mind but in the end things didn't pull through. One person in particular that I thought would be ideal to speak was Kirk Bartha. I've heard a lot of great things about this man, his heart, his life...there's always been a buzz about the way he lets the Spirit move in his life and let God have His way and move His way.

After a couple emails, Kirk told me that he wouldn't be able to make it that weekend. However, he said he'd be in town a week and a half before the retreat and would love to meet with Kat, myself, and other students.

That night, when Kat and I met with Kirk was the first time I actually sat down to talk with him and it was an intense night. I don't know what it was, actually perhaps I do, it was the Spirit that guided that night, the Spirit that led our conversations...there were moments when I heard stories or was told of something that typically would make me cautious or hesitant to believe...but there was such peace, truth, and humility...it was really cool.

One thing that I learned that night from Kirk was that discernment happens in a community. This would turnout to be one of the most important lessons I took to the CCF retreat as a leader.

To cut a long story short, there was a point in the night when Kirk turned to me and asked, "Are you still looking for a speaker?" At this point I thought, "Yes, He's changed his mind." Then he started talking about Kat and the story about her speaking at YOAH, then I thought, "How could I have missed it? I should've asked Kat, Kirk's gonna tell me to ask Kat." Then Kirk turns to me and says, "I think you need to speak. There's something you need to say."

That caught me by surprise...but I held onto it...the person I was asking to come speak at retreat just told me to speak instead.

So as I approached the committee to discern the whole speaker issue, we came to the agreement that it seemed like God was leading us to keep it internal this year. But rather than just have one speaker, we decided to split it off into three: Gizelle, Charles, and myself.

As I thought and prayed over the message I would give, one of the things I thought would be a good topic to preach on would be "Living Waters". But as I prayed and thought over a couple scriptures, something inside me was thinking, I don't think I should be talking about this. So taking the risk, I dropped the topic and decided to see where else God was leading me.

The afternoon we arrived at fellowship, after I had given my talk on community, I went straight to my committee and started asking them, "What do you feel the Spirit is doing?"...and throughout the retreat, almost at random, mostly guided, I kept going to people asking them what they perceived the Spirit is doing and then talking to the rest of the committee about changing plans and such to follow that...it was a really cool experience.

But after asking them that question, I gathered with Charles and Gizelle to talk about what was going on...I wasn't sure what they'd be talking about yet, but after I had asked Charles told me he felt like he was going to talk about Thirst...about how God is this living water that gives us the soul satisfaction that we need.

That's when it clicked...I thought of doing that talk, but didn't feel the Lord leading me to do it, so I dropped it...because the Lord had been leading Charles all this time to talk on it. God had been planning it out all along. Really cool.

One last story about the whole group discernment.

Sunday night was going to be our music worship night followed by a time of sharing where the guys and girls were split off into their own groups. However, as we had hoped, during our music worship time I felt the Lord was moving in the hearts of people there. Amidst the songs we sang, both planned and spontaneous, I felt like I just had to let God His thing...something else that Kirk told me to do...when God shows up, just step back.

After singing for who knows how long and after just basking in His presence...I felt like that place where we were, in our hearts, in our souls, in that room...God was doing something. And I felt like the Spirit was leading us to just stay in that room.

But I remembered, "discernment happens in a community"...so taking a step I've never done before, I stepped to the mic and said, "I feel like the Spirit's doing something right now and that He wants us to stay here...but discernment happens in a community, so I want to ask you if you feel like the Spirit is moving and you want to stay or if you want to go. So if you feel like we should stay, then just raise your hand." I looked around the room and I didn't really see many if any hands were raised. "How many of you feel like we should stay?" Then I saw about half the group's hands go up. "Ok, let's stay. Here's your time, you know what to do." And at that moment I just stepped back and let God do His thing.

I think we stayed for almost an hour in that room...people prayed on their own, some huddled together arms on each others shoulders crying and praying...some just sat still...others got together and began to get into some deep sharing which led to prayer...

Whatever it was, I just stepped back and watched God move in unique ways with each unique individual or group. It was awesome...especially to know God is moving.