Last thoughts from the Willow Creek Student ministry conference:

I was asked why I bring students to a conference like this and I believe that God speaks to students in ways that many adults have forgotten about. I love to see students feel the call to ministry, I love to see students see that ministry doesn't mean being a pastor, I love students see a bigger picture of what God can do. I love seeing people grasp the vision that God has created them for. Good stuff. Here are some thoughts from some of the people who went.

Session 1
I learned that I need to make a shift and find a way for me or others to feed ourselves spiritually to see how Jesus walked

Session 2
We need to make our story and get into a better story because there is always a better story to be in. Media is full of stories but when we come to church we don’t heat anymore stories and we buy in to the American story

Session 3
There is 3 common warning signs of heading the wrong direction. First is that your heart is becoming prideful and with this you have to pay attention to shifts in your heart. Second is that you are no longer teachable. We need to keep our axe sharp or teachable and to increase the knowledge of God also there is a sense of passion to hear the Word of God and to teach God’s Word. Third is if you are losing home field advantage. You have to make sure that you do not let your youth ministries get in the way of your time with your family.

Session 4
Three values used for technology are efficient, comfort, be in control

Session 5
Don’t ask God to bless what you’re doing but what it is doing because God has already blessed whatever you’re doing if you are following Him.

Session 6
Batman vs Superman
Batman only has a mask and doesn’t have real super powers. And doesn’t come out except at night. He can have a lot of gadgets and leaders of youth ministry can be like that and only coming out when no one can see them and go into there little cave and show others their little gadgets. But superman has supernatural powers and shows himself and saves people. He doesn’t have gadgets and he can be like leaders too.

Breakout A
He told us to tell others about the gospel journey. There are 6 steps:
God created us to be with Him
Our sin separated us from God
Sins cannot be removed by our good deeds
Paying the price for our sin Jesus died and rose again
Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life
Life that’s eternal means we can be with Jesus forever

We can explain these steps to others to help them understand what God did for us

Breakout B
I learned to be a good leader that you have to be a good follower. And we find ourselves trying to perfect being a leader when we haven’t been good followers.

Student


I think that this experience was better than anything – even the bike trip. It was cool to see cool guys raise their hands while we were singing and I did it towards the end. I felt the Holy Spirit go right through me while I was singing and during the breakouts. The one thing that stuck out to me from the break out groups was to be a wise leader you also have to be a wise follower and its hard to be a wise follower. One of the questions was do you gossip and almost everybody raised their hands. Then another question was how many people pray for their leaders daily and probably 2 people raised their hands and not having heartfelt prayer will make you a foolish follower. So I figured that I need to pray more and gossip less. I thought that our last speaker was the best! He said that when Jesus was on the earth He was multi cultural and multi ethnic. He also said that guys are like superman not batman, Superman was born a hero and without a cape he could still fly while batman only comes out at night, lives in his bat cave and has a butler named Alfred and girls are like wonderwoman not batgirl. Wonderwoman had her own abilities and powers. She would make anybody tell the truth. And bat girl is just as good as batman.

Student


The experience was amazing. I mean the praise music was amazing. The session that I got the most out of was the last session about truth. I realized that we can use real life situations and apply it to biblical situation. Also that your ministry is bigger than infinite but not as big as God. The thing that helped me think was to be an effective youth leader you need to know the difference between batman (uses gadgets) and superman (has own powers). By seeing the differences we can help others believe that they are special and they can use their abilities to spread God’s word. I also learned a thing or two about evangelism. One was that there at 6 points to the gospel that we need to memorize and personalize. We also need to relate the others beliefs with our beliefs. And listen to them not just think about what your going to say. Also, talk to them as a fellow sinner. I wish this experience was longer.

n Student


I think this Willow Creek conference has been my favorite out of the 3 years I’ve gone. I have learned so much. The first speaker was Darren Whitehead. He talked about how we are in a cultural freeze as a church and how we need to change and make shifts. That hit me as a person. I just kept thinking that I’m in a cultural freeze myself like how am I different from everyone else? Do people really see Jesus in me? That just made me think about the fact that I need ot make a shift in my life right now.
Then the last speaker Efrem Smith came up and you could just see his passion. He talked about being vessels for Christ, that Christ really deals with us physically. I also learned that we need to get with God. Truly with Him. Without Him we are going to have a truly meaningless life.
Efrem used an analogy that I really liked. He talked about the difference between Batgirl, wonderwoman. He talked about how batgirl doesn’t have super powers, she just has gadgets, like they’re fake. But wonderwoman actually has powers. She doesn’t need fake gadgets. She has the power. That’s like us – are we going to forget the power of Jesus and just use fake gadgets or are we going to accept the true power? So what are you going to do.

Student