Ian Scott served as the keynote speaker for a fantastic retreat for teens. Ft. Lauderdale, Florida teenager Kristi Colson tells us more about the weekend event that resulted in two baptisms.

Not only is Ian Scott an awesome brother in Christ but he is also a professional football player who had the opportunity to play in last year’s Super Bowl. At first sight we could only marvel at the enormity of the man speaking to our group. But not very far into his opening night lesson entitled “My Space in This World”, it was clear that Ian’s humility was much greater than his size. Ian was the just the right person to challenge each teen to be excellent in school, in their home, and in humility. After the lesson we broke into small discipleship groups which allowed us to bond spiritually with the other teens from different counties.

Saturday was a day filled with activities beginning with groups pairing up to have quiet times. After our time with God, we met in the auditorium for a morning lesson on friendship called “This is NOT just My Space”. The challenge of the message was to create deep relationships that would help form Christ in one another. Afterward we played games like tug a war, football, foosball, and ping pong. We then met up for another lesson, this time the class was called “Purifying My Space”. Soon after, when the sky turned dark, we headed toward the bonfire where each group with artistic flare presented their skits on biblical friendships. When the skits ended, we worshipped God through song, prayer and scripture reading. The general spirit among the group was like that of David when he danced before the Lord. We all felt free to pour out our hearts openly before our God and each other. We were so caught up in our worship that we did not heed the signs of an oncoming storm. During the last line of singing “Our God is an Awesome God”, the sky flooded our group with rain and we were forced to seek shelter.

Sunday rolled in with a cold front in addition to our sadness at how quickly the weekend had flown. However, the feelings of sorrow did not keep us from having an impacting Sunday service led by Ian Scott. In his final message he pulled together each of the topics we had studied: spiritual friendships, purity, and excellence into one convicting question, “It’s time to make a decision, but will you commit?” Since the retreat, it has been so encouraging to have already seen two of our teens respond to that message and make the decision to make Jesus their Lord! (see picture on right of your new sister, Amy Avila) The retreat was a much needed spiritual jump start for our ministry and we cannot wait to see the great things God will do through and for us in this next year.