Kairos Christian Fellowship (Gracepoint – Berkeley)

On Saturday, September 26th, 2009, Interhigh Ministry was launched through our kick-off event, Rise. For those of you who aren’t quite sure what Interhigh is, it’s a ministry started by our church, Gracepoint Berkeley, aimed at local bay area youth groups.

Anyway, after months of hard work and planning, the day finally came…

After we had set up all of the equipment, we had a quick meeting to go through the logistics and Pastor Will gave us a quick rundown on what would happen that night. The mentors all sounded very excited, but it was evident that we were all somewhat nervous.

Little by little, shortly after 5, the kids began trickling up the stairs, some looking timid, others very excited. In fact, one group of kids actually came up, saw us, and went back down until they could come up later, hidden within a bigger group. We did our best to get the energy level up, and thankfully, the youths were more than ready to cooperate. Groups would come up with cheers and chants, and people were meeting and greeting left and right. I was amazed to how we managed to keep them entertained for an hour while we waited for everyone (350 people, not including our own youth) to get registered. Then we were called inside…

And it went nuts. As soon as they walked in, they were greeted by a team of mentors forming something called the mentor tunnel, which is not unlike our missionary send-off custom, cheering and jumping and welcoming everybody who could make it…even some of the parents were excited and ran through giving high fives!

Meetin and greetin the youth

And then the praise…to see a generation that enthusiastic about worship is encouraging beyond words. Left and right, young students (and mentors ;D) were jumping up and down, hands raised high, shouting and singing with nonstop energy. Song after song, our praise band kept rocking on (Ander and Bessie were jumping just as much as anybody else!) and surprisingly, even after having to set up and be on my feet all day, I was too excited to feel fatigue…

And then we had Sean McDowell speak. All the students seemed genuinely interested and engaged in the talk: nobody was nodding off. The crowd actively participated, answering back and eager to get the correct answers. It was simply amazing to see their thoughts change before our eyes as he led them on a journey pursuing this thing called truth, explaining subjectivity and objectivity in terms of ice cream and insulin, speaking about the disillusionment of relativism, and giving specific cases of how people try to question Christianity, or at least absolute truth, and how to defend it in practical terms.

Sean McDowell preaching it

Then all the students were challenged to take this into their lives as the skit team showed them the lives of 4 high school Christians struggling to live out their faith and really captured what so many in the audience were feeling.

Then we had some time for games and getting to know each other…different mentors had a plethora of experiences. It was really encouraging to hear the positive comments, and really eye-opening to how much some of these students need this.

Either way…it’s seems as if there are big things happening for the youth in the bay area…I am blessed to be able to say that I am a part of Interhigh. I know that I really could’ve used older role models and like-minded peers to help me live out my faith as I went through high school, so I hope that I can be somebody that these kids can look up to (to those of you who are laughing right now: Hey! in Him all things are possible!) and that perhaps I’ll be able to give some advice or guidance to a lost, troubled young man, not only to spare him from the suffering that I am all too familiar with, but also to lead him to the joy found in having a relationship with our Father, of whom I can never know enough.

Praying over the next generation

Pastor Will closing the night

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