Saturday, December 30, 2006

Youth Encounter 2006

Wow! Marilyn, Matthew, Bethany, and I all attended Youth Encounter last Thursday and Friday in Springfield, Illinois. We went with our church's Youth Group. There were about 3,000 High School and Jr High School kids at Youth Encounter and aroound 200 came to know the Lord personally there. The speakers and the bands were all top quality.

The speaker was Doug Herman of Vertical Ministries and PureRevolution. What a great testimony Doug has. In addition to his testimony we was a very polished and captivating speaker. He had the youth riveted to and listening for every word. Very motivational and convicting.

The worship leader was Joel Engle. I've heard Joel a couple of times at our church, and thought he was good, but he was fantastic at YE. He truely is a gifted worship leader and his testimony had our youth talking late into the night.

Other music playing at YE were very good also:

Inhabited kicked things off and played again on Friday. I thought they were extremely talented, but our kids wished they had more audience interaction. Music was great!

The Afters closed things down on Thursday night with an hour concert. I thought the music from Inhabited was a little better, but our kids liked The Afters a lot more because of the way they interacted with the audience.

KJ-52 finsihed off YE on Friday afternoon. Although I am not a rap music fan he did a great job getting the crowd involved and building excitement. My daughter was part of the mosh pit and she couldn't quit jumping up and down all day. By far KJ-52 was the kids favorite act of the conference.

All in all the Illinois Baptist State Association put on a top quality event that provided entertainment for our High School and Jr High School youth and at the same time gave them an avenue to think about purity and loving God.

Good job Charles Campbell for putting on such a great event.

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