Friday Night Flood Extended (4/25)

Tonight’s Friday Night Flood was really outside of our normal parameters. And that was, I think, the best thing for us tonight.

We did have a smaller crowd, which allowed us to focus in on some more intimate, deep conversations that students were interested in having. The games, hang-out time, it was all really smooth, and allowed for lots of time to speak freely. We re-ran the last episode of The Purple Police, played a game that involved everyone in the room, and gave a few announcements. Then the real change happened.

Normally the person who shares takes a very Roman approach to sharing their message. They stand on the stage (or walk around the room) offering their scripted lesson or testimony. Or we’ll share a video, or a song and offer thoughts on it. Or I will tie in an event with a Spiritual closing. One of our volunteers shared tonight, and he shared his message in such a way that it opened up even further the doors of communication that we have desired to see happen on Friday nights. Very briefly, he read through The Message translation of the parable of the sower, and then invited the group to walk through it with him. He had set up four different “stations” that each showed one of the different soil types, sprinkling seed on each one as he walked past reading the parable. He then had each person stand at the station that symbolizes where they are at now (with the adults choosing a station that showed somewhere that they had been in the past), and had a leader at each station share a bit about their experience in that point of their life.

This led to a lot of open discussion with teens. I was incredibly encouraged by this. The Spirit really blew through our program tonight, and instead of just being a program, it served as a genuine ministry. I really hope to get the video up to share this weekend to share with you.