So as a lot of you know, yesterday I embarked on a 4.5 hour trip to Jekyll Island, GA, with a group of 7 teenagers and 2 other chaperones, for the annual Fun in the Son conference. I’ve been on this trip many times, and have really had a blast each year.
The ride was very smooth (aside from the normal “bumpiness” that comes with riding on a church bus), and we made good time. After paying our entrance fee to get on the island, we were immediately presented with a sign that said “Welcome F.I.T.S.” Once we went into the Convention Center and got registered, we headed off for the hotel.
The island isn’t very big. It’s about a 2-minute drive from the Convention Center to our hotel, so it’s not a big deal that we have to make that drive several times per day. Upon getting to the hotel, we discovered that we had been given two male rooms and one female room. The air conditioning unit had to be replaced in my room after we discovered that it didn’t work, but aside from that the hotel situation has been wonderful.
After our first night’s dinner of spaghetti, we headed back to the Convention Center for our opening program, which included music by a band from Port City Community Church in Wilmington, our general opening announcements and counselor meetings, an icredibly funny “How Well Do You Know Your Youth Pastor” game, and a dynamic talk given by Treb Praytor.
Afterwards, we learned that James and Katie Benson (our two other leaders) as well as myself are going to be leading small groups. These are groups of 20 or so students from different churches, none from our own. We’ll lead these students through the week in small group time, which starts on Monday night. There are 35 small groups in total. We will be challenging students to go deeper with what they’ve heard throughout the week.
Once we got back to the hotel, we finished the night with family time, where we get together with just our group and reflect on the day’s activities, as well as just chat with one another. We also finished our recreation signup. We will be competing in Men’s Tennis (Doubles), Co-Ed Volleyball, and Co-Ed Ultimate Frisbee. We (meaning I) really want to bring back a trophy this year.
Last night, Treb began to introduce the theme of the conference, which is “EPIC.” In a nutshell, Praytor used the story of Peter allowing Jesus to climb into his boat and preach, as well as the other account of him dropping his net to follow him, in order to challenge us to ask the question, “What would it look like in my life to drop my nets and follow Jesus?” God is inviting us into this EPIC story of His. It began to make us think. And as we asked that question, I thought, OK, once we know what that would look like, what is stopping us from actually doing it?
I’ll try to give another update tonight after the evening’s activities, but just to get you excited about what’s to come, check out our morning speaker, Illusionist Brock Gill.
