I loved the series we put together for our student ministry retreat this past weekend. We were trying to keep the theme simple, relevant, and easy to remember … so we patterned it after the social media giant, Twitter (something more and more of the teens have been using and are familiar with). If you want to hear the talks, all three have been uploaded to our podcast feed. We named it #TWEETABLE, and based the talks on the three things that make up Twitter:

• Who do you follow? The first talk was done by Melissa, and she tackled the question of who students follow – is it sports, friends, etc, or is it Jesus?
• What’s your profile? I took on the second talk Saturday night by talking about how we describe ourselves versus how God actually sees us. Part of the talk involved an exercise where students wrote down words describing themselves, then were sent to different stations to be prayed over and labeled with labels of how God sees them; ‘God’s masterpiece’, ‘precious’, ‘a delight’, and ‘holy.’
• Who follows you? Matt O brought it home on Sunday with a challenge to students on how they are leading those who follow them.

All in all I was really happy with how the series came together. A lot of the students were still talking about the messages even after we were back, which as a leader, is exciting to hear because ultimately the weekend wasn’t about the Blob and paintball, it was about challenging the kids to grow closer to God. The fun activities in a lot of ways are the hook for the weekend, drawing everyone in … but the real payoff is in kids remembering what was taught.