Here is two of my favorites of Marko. (You can click on them to see the bigger version.

Marko showing off his colors for “The Game”. Too bad he chickened out and took the jersey off after they lost.

And Marko’s impersonation of the Kool Aid Man.

First let me say that the people at Youth Specialties did an absolutely amazing job. I had never been to a NYWC and I was blown away at how organized and well done the whole thing was put together. Very professional and total class act, but yet fun and festive.

Phyllis Tickle

On Saturday morning Phyllis Tickle spoke to us. I had never heard of this person at all and when Tic introduced her he called her Tickle Me Elmo and had also said she was 74 years old. My first thought was, “What? Who the heck is this.” By the end I was jumping to me feet to give her a standing ovation. Her talk was on of the most academic heady talks that I had ever been a part of since I was in Bible college. But in the end she wrapped it all up and gave each of us a prophetic word about how we were a part of one of the next great ages in church history. I could go into more details here but instead I want to direct you to a friend of mine’s blog post about it, just don’t call him veronica (LOL). You can find it here.

Louie Giglio

Louie Giglio is always a person who gives great talks and Saturday evening with him was not a disappointment at all. Louie shared with us a story of how he had the opportunity to connect with a girl who got saved at one of the Passion Conferences that he does. Unfortunately this girl ended up dying in a car crash, which then lead to an opportunity for Louie to connect with her mom and eventually her dad, who is an atheist. As Louie was setting up the story there was this anticipation that the dad was going to come out on stage and close the whole service, but Louie stopped in the middle and said that he could sense that and did not want us to think that. He said that every pastor always ends their talks with a great beautiful bow, but that is not always how life is and that is not how this story is going to end. He went onto say that this girl’s dad still does not believe in God, but they are continuing their conversation. And that to me is a great bow to end the story. Louie is building a relationship with this man and will hopefully one day be able to help this guy understand that their is a God and that God loves this man, so that this dad can see his daughter again in heaven.

Doug Fields

On Sunday morning we had the amazing opportunity to be lead into song with the David Crowder Band and let me tell you that it was an amazing experience. As it always is with Mr. Crowder and his cohorts.

Then Doug Fields got up to speak to us and Doug is another person that usually gives amazing talks. He talked about envy and he related it with the story of Joseph in the Bible. I have a lot of thoughts regarding this that I may or may not post here. There was some things during his talk that really struck a chord with me and got me thinking. And I am still processing much of those thoughts.

All of the talks were amazing and if you want to download the audio from them or even purchase the DVD from it you can do so here. I really recommend getting the DVD of Phyllis Tickles talk, because she wrote a lot of stuff on a white board that would be good to see. I plan on getting a copy of it myself.

This is Zach Hunter, who is like any other 16 year old, except that when his mom told him about slavery he decided something needed be done about that. So he wrote a book entitled “Be The Change” and he talks about we can be the change right where we are and no matter how old we are. What an amazing young man that should challenge everyone of us to do what we can to bring justice where there is injustice.