CIY

A few weeks ago we had the great opportunity of taking 150 people (high school students and adults) to a Christ in Youth (CIY) conference in Southern California. CIY is an incredible organization that hosts conferences all over the US and even overseas. They bring in great bands and gifted speakers and have great programs designed to inspire and challenge high school students.

Here are some of the highlights from the conference:

2 girls from our group committed their lives to Christ for the first time.
6 students were baptized in the ocean.
Dozens of students committed to serving in full time ministry.
Dozens of students committed to serving in missions.

At the end of the week CIY handed out a sealed envelope to everyone and explained that what was inside was a challenge that was to be completed within the year. The CIY director explained that it should only be opened if you were completely serious about finishing the task that was inside the envelope. A few of us decided that we would open the cards together and that we would support and encourage each other in whatever task we opened. I'll tell you my challenge in a minute. A lot of our students decided to open the cards and we are very excited to see how God uses the tasks. Some of our students were challenged to take an overseas mission trip within a year, provide breakfast for the teachers at their school every month, fast one day a week for a whole year, raise $2000 to pay for 10 students to attend the conference next year and one of my favorites...do something nice and unexpected for your youth pastor once a month for a year. There are lots of others but those are the ones I can remember right now.

So, here we go...the card I opened said that I need to train and run a marathon within a year to raise money for a clean water organization! I'm actually really excited about it and have already started training. My marathon date is December 6...26.2 miles here I come! I have decided to raise money for playpumps.org and will explain more about that ministry later.

All in all, CIY was a great week-lots of awesome conversations and decisions and I'm already looking forward to next year!

Any running tips?