MS Dolfin Cabin: Part 1

Wow! We survived our massive Dolfin Cabin retreat this past weekend. Well, except many of us definitely left our voices there (including yours truly). As is our tradition we'll spend the next few days walking you all through the many things that happened this weekend. We're also getting the first batch of 75 pictures up, and they'll be at the right shortly. Enjoy.

Friday: My day started waaay before it did for our middle schoolers, as myself and our crew of high school student leaders left HRC at 9am to begin setting up and starting rehearsals. This retreat has evolved to the point where we pretty much remodel the garage for the weekend, changing it into a sophisticated worship center, complete with full lighting and sound systems, an industrial smoke machine, a full themed set, a screen a projector, seating, various props, and more. Thanks to Todd and David much of the sound and lighting work was all done for us, we just had to finish it off and get our set already. Then it was time for several hours of rehearsals, fine tuning our worship songs, preparing dramas, and working out the details of all the electronics. By dinner time our team was able to head to Lakewood for a relaxing dinner, before heading back for our personal devotional time and final preparations. At 9:00pm the bus with all our middle schoolers and leaders arrived. God blessed us by giving us great unloading weather, with the sky opening up literally as soon as the last person got inside. As soon as we unloaded we had our first worship session. We opened with a skit explaining the rules of the weekend, and then had our opening song This is Me from the movie Camp Rock. We have recently made this move to opening with positive secular songs that go with the theme of the message because they resonate so well with non-church students. They may have never heard a praise song, but at least they'll have one song they know. These songs are only performed, with the audience not singing a long.

Our opening drama was entitled "I wanna be..." Our high schoolers went through a whole bunch of things teens want to be made into, from athletes, to brainiacs, to just being "normal." This set up our message perfectly, which was about what God made us to be. We talked about how God made everyone of us to be something special. Instead of constantly wanting to be want we want to be, we have to be willing to be who God made us to be. To do this we need to be MOLDABLE like CLAY, allowing God to use us in whatever way God needs to in order to make the world better. When everyone came in they were asked to fill out a nametag with something they want to be Made into. As the message finished we launched into With Everything, during which we encouraged the students to bring their nametags up as a symbol of giving up what they want to be moldable for God. We then covered them up with paint to show that we were truly willing for God to mold us. We then finished off our worship set with a couple of praise songs, before launching into our first game of the weekend.

We had one girl and one guy come up, and covered their face in peanut butter. Teams then had to best show the Made theme on their peanuty covered face using goldfish crackers. Congrats to the girls on winning, and earning first tubing rights for the weekend. After the game it was time for everyone to head to bed for a Saturday jam packed with exciting stuff.
Worship session 1 set:
Opener: This is Me: Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas (Camp Rock Soundtrack)
There is no One like you: David Crowder Band
We Shine: Fee
Automatic: Stellar Kart
Mighty to Save: Hillsong United
With Everything: Hillsong United
Take it All: Hillsong United