Have you ever played the game Jenga? For those of you who haven’t, it requires players to take turns removing one block from a tower of 54 blocks and then placing the removed piece on top of the tower without knocking the whole thing over. As play continues, the tower becomes taller but it also becomes less stable. Eventually the game ends when someone knocks the tower over and it collapses.
Collapse was the theme for Gold Rush this year. Throughout the week students from Perimeter Church gave large group talks, shared personal testimonies, and led worship focused around this theme. There was also a large tower made out of cardboard in the corner of the auditorium that changed its form to correlate with the talk that evening. The first night of the conference a student shared about how things were created to be back in Genesis. The tower was perfectly aligned and all of creation was good and human beings were very good. God made us with creativity, made us for community, and made us to rest in Him. That didn’t last long.
Tuesday evening the tower began to look a little unstable and messy. Words like pride, envy, anger, and lust made their way onto some of the blocks that made up the tower. At the end of Tuesday’s talk, the tower was knocked over and we were left to think about the different things we turn to to define our worth, as well as the areas of our lives we have taken into our own hands and basically said to God “I’ve got this one.”
Wednesday evening’s message was geared around the word rubble. The tower of our lives collapsed, but thankfully God meets us in the rubble and teaches us through the hard and in the broken. As we struggle and suffer we learn what it truly means to surrender to God and to rely on Him alone to be our strength.
Thursday night the tower was finally rebuilt and was once again stable, but that’s only because a large cross centered and grounded it. We were encouraged to live for eternity and to remember our citizenship is in heaven, not here on earth. Because of this truth we are able to “forget what lies behind and strain towards what is ahead” (Phil. 3:13), making our love for God and our investment in others our top priority in the short time we spend here. Materialistic things and worldly success won’t last, but God can work through us to make an eternal and lasting impact through our relationships. This of course requires us to be in community with one another because we can’t do it alone.
There were specific moments and conversations throughout the week that really gripped my heart. I remember the excitement and joy that radiated from one of our students as she shared with me the impactful time she spent in the prayer room earlier that evening and how it introduced her to a new way of talking to God through painting and art. I remember the refugee family that invited a group of strangers into their home and served us tea during one of our afternoon missions’ days after receiving the basket of household items we gave them. They proceeded to share with us that both of their grandparents were shot and killed in Pakistan because of their faith in Jesus Christ. They came to America for safety, but were still unemployed and trying to learn English. You hear about this stuff on the news and read about it in books, but to have a face sitting across from you sharing their personal experience and story, that changes you. I remember how starved they were for Christian fellowship and how sad they were when we had to go.
Then there was Thursday evening and the Concert of Prayer. The gospel was clearly presented and students were invited to pray the prayer for the first time or to recommit their lives to Christ. At the end of this time of prayer, those who prayed either prayer were asked to stand up. We had one student from our group who stood up for the first time prayer and a few students who stood up for recommitting their lives to Christ! Praise God! He totally gets the glory!
I want to say thank you to Randy Sawyer and Flynn Pinkston for giving up a week of their summer (and vacation days) to be leaders for this trip. It’s a lot of driving and a week of very little sleep. If you see these two at church, please join me in extending appreciation and gratitude!
This is just to whet your appetites. On August 2nd there will be a Gold Rush ministry moment during the service where you’ll get to see and hear a little more about the trip from our students. Until then, thanks for all your prayers. They were absolutely appreciated and totally felt!
In Him,
Stacey