Oklahoma to Tennessee

I plan on blogging each night from Tennessee.  We'll see if I actually accomplish this goal.  I'm already a day behind but really all I could've said yesterday is that 14 hours in a bus full of kids isn't as bad as it sounds.  That is right, we left Chickasha at 6:20, which isn't terrible because we anticipated leaving at 6 am.  Twenty minutes late isn't too bad in youth ministry minutes.  We drove though major cities like Oklahoma City, Fort Smith, Little Rock, Memphis and Nashville.  We didn't hit much traffic because it was a Sunday.  We stayed at an Econo Lodge just south of Nashville in  a suburb called Murfreesboro.  Slept great because I was so stinking tired from driving about 10 hours.  Woke up and finished our mountain drive to Cleveland.  It only took about 2 hours.  We arrived at CIY early for a change and we had time to unpack, go eat somewhere nice and make our last Wal Mart trip.  Then it was time to come back to campus and get geared up for opening night.  We had some amazing worship let by the Aaron Pelsue Band.  I haven't seen this band in 4 years.  When I was at Kansas I would arrange our CIY trips according to which one Aaron Pelsue was playing at.  He didn't disappoint tonight.  We sang songs that I had never heard before and of course some that we have been singing for some time.  I expect that by the end of the week, the new ones will be some of my favorites.  It always seems to work out that way.  

Our speaker tonight spoke about Moses.  We will be learning lots about Moses and the Exodus because that is the focus of this summer's conferences.  Our theme within the theme tonight was Identity.  The speaker had a thought that really stuck with me tonight.  He told us that we normally think about our identity is what makes us different than others.  But we get the word identity from a Latin word that means same.  It has the same root word as Identical.  So our identity is what we are the same as.  Whatever you are most like that will become your identity.  If you always want the most expensive and new things, your identity might be greed.  Our Identity should be God, that is who we should pattern our lives after.  That is who we should be the most like.  Interesting?  I think so.  

We had our youth group time and I did much of the talking and asking of questions.  It is always like that on the first night.  It is always awesome to see the change in that time where it is mostly led by students and their brokenness and willing to share how God is moving in their lives.  I pray that happens again this year.  I hope you guys pray the same will happen.  

I closed with a thought.  I said that God is the same always, he is going to move this week, so He is always moving.  The only difference is that we are more focused on Him this week.  I wanted them to realize that we are the ones who need to move now.  I challenged them to listen to where and how they need to move this week.  I'm excited to see where that leads.  

I'll keep you posted.