It is finally time to start a series on the amazing retreat that was Silver Birch 2009. Today we hope to get over 100 pictures onto this site, with video coming soon. Keep coming back as we post about each day of the retreat and add more and more media.
On Friday Jan 9th two buses filled with 70 overly excited individuals departed HRC for beautiful Silver Birch Ranch in northern Wisconsin. I can't vouch for the middle school bus, except I was told it was quite the party, but the high school bus was certainly loud and filled with many a screamed Hannah Montana song. There was also Ben teaching and leading several Monty Python songs (PG rated I assure you), as well as many other loud and crazed happenings. Good times.
Upon arriving at SBR we checked into our awesome accommodations for the weekend. Because we were the biggest group there we had first choice of cabins, meaning we got the four newest and nicest lake front cabins, plus the entire top floor of the Birch Center for our high school girls (if interested in what happens when 20 high school girls take over an entire floor of a building with only two adults present you can talk to Melissa Ten Pas and Jill Rauwerdink). The students then got to start enjoying SBR by taking in tubing, broom ball, and the canteen, before we headed to our first worship session. We sang a combination on songs we knew and some knew ones, with the set list being as follows:
There is No One Like You: David Crowder Band
I Am Free: Newsboys
Cartoon Song: Chris Rice
No Sacrifice: Jason Upton
Mighty to Save: Hillsong United
Automatic (theme song for the weekend): Stellar Kart
Forever: David Crowder Band
That first night we introduced our theme of Bullseye Living: Living on Target for God. It opened with a nice target practice game, which consisted of leaders covered in cool whip having q-tips shot at them by students out of straws. I told my really long and crazy story about a friend who had a horrible and off target trip, which included driving several hours in the wrong direction TWICE, as well as my personal story of missing the target in my life. We then talked about how God has a purpose for us (a target he wants us to hit). God made every single one of us for a purpose (Proverbs 16:4), and has a very specific purpose for our lives: "God created us for a life of good works, which He has already prepared for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10). The big challenge for the weekend then became: am I willing to live my life permanently living in the bullseye, living out the life God made me to live? Am I willing to sell out for God? Or, for those who had never accepted Christ as their savior, am I willing to accept that God died for the purpose of giving me eternal life? We had a ton of students commit to one or the other of these challenges, which they were encouraged to further explore through their personal devotional guides. After worship some students went to bed, while others stayed up being crazy all night long. All in all, a great start to the weekend.
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