Day 3 at the Youth Camp is upon us and it is traditional day. All of the girls are in Punjabis or Sarees. Not a T-shirt or jeans to be found among them. What a beautiful group of God’s princesses! The boys have traded their T-shirts for nice button down shirts, but several are wearing the traditional long shirts. There are even a few in Loongi, which is basically an ankle length skirt. They all have ‘cleaned up quite nicely’ The message this morning was encouraging the youth to try to discern God’s will for their lives. Instead of just being along for the ride, they need to be the navigator and the driver. Pastor E challenged them to know that God wants them to be in control of their thoughts and their actions. God has given us many good things, but that Satan can derail us by offering a shortcut to those things. And when we take that shortcut, we turn God’s gifts into sin. This is similar to giving a gift of a beautiful plant to someone with the intent of it being a source of beauty and joy for them, only to find out a few months later that it is brown and wilted because they felt they didn’t have the time or energy to simply water it each day. Or worse, they just completely forgot! I can only imagine the hurt in God’s heart when we trash the gifts he has given to us.
At the end of the session, Pastor Samuel lead us in prayer and invited those youth who felt compelled to devote themselves to doing more in the ministry to come forward. There were about 30 men and 15 women who came forward. They publicly showed their desire to do more for God, whether it was a plan to enter the seminary, become a leader in some aspect in the church’s back home, or to deliberately share the good news and minister to those in their lives. It was inspiring to see so many who are willing to take this step, especially the women. Being a woman in India is not easy, even in these contemporary times. But being an openly Christian woman in India is even more challenging. However, with God on their side, there is nothing that they can not accomplish for His glory.
Another round of cricket and volleyball were the afternoon activities for the men. The women were happy to chat in groups, take pictures, and cheer on the games. After the cricket game, several women did try their hand at batting. It was an entertaining few moments for all, but the girls “held their own”. The evening session was given by Pastor Shirish and he talked about evangelism. We found out that the first Christian missionary came to India in 1885, however, the gospel had been taken to India originally back in biblical times. In the 2000 years since, Christianity represents only 6.7% of the country’s 1.2 billion people. If the message is spread at the same rate, the percentage will be about 13% after another 2000 years. This is unacceptable. He led an exercise where everybody up front had to go find someone from the crowd to bring up front. It started with just him. He went and got 1, and thus there were 2. Those 2 then each went and got 1, and now there were 4. This continued until everybody in the audience was up front. It took 9 turns to get everybody up front. He then told us that if this exercise were performed 33 times, the number would be 1.2 billion. He encouraged everybody to reach just 1, and then to encourage that 1 to reach another 1. One of the interesting things I found during the exercise was the competition to be able to get someone once there were more up front than left in the audience. I was able to snag a young lady right before someone else grabbed her hand and I exclaimed, “Yea! I got one!” Two guys gave me high fives as we flowed past them toward the front. I noticed similar reactions to others who got one, and expressions of “darn” for those who didn’t get there fast enough. Wouldn’t it be awesome if that was our attitude towards inviting someone to church? To be able to feel the urgency to get out there quickly and snag one of the lonely. And what a feeling of satisfaction to know that you got 1? Do this and you get to high five Jesus on your way to church and He’ll be exclaiming in a joyful voice, “Yes! You got 1!”
#10 holds a significant meaning in the world of soccer. Pele wore this number and many other great players have also worn this number in honor of him and to let everybody know that they are the best. On many teams today, you’ll find that players consider it an honor to wear this number. You may even hear this question being asked.. “Who is your number 10?” This means they want to know who is your best player.
So let me ask you this?
Who is your number 1?
And who is the 1 that you want to bring to Him?
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