The week before last was spiritual emphasis week for middle school and high school at Alliance. As a chaplain's office, we put together the week, having a chapel session every day. The theme for the week was "Seek First". When planning for the week, Jake (my boss) had asked me what I really wanted my kids to learn - what was something that I was passionate about them knowing and living in the Christian lives. I said that they seek first the kingdom of God. After some discussion, that became the theme and focus for SEW (Spiritual Emphasis Week) and also chapels for the school year.
While they often have a speaker come in for the week, this year there was a different speaker for each day - and someone from within the Alliance community. It didn't have as much hype as a normal SEW, but was a great, great week.
Each day Roberto (his wife works at Youth World) and Ricky (also works in the Chaplain's office) started the session with a medley of popular songs. The kids got pretty into it - it was a lot of fun. Then they transitioned into worship songs.
The first day, Juan, a guy who works on campus, spoke. He had a great illustration of a long, long rope. He taped off the end of it - about 6 inches. Those 6 inches represented their life and the rest of the rope was eternity. He challenged them to live for the whole rope length and not just those few inches.
The second day, an older teacher, Mr. Bovey, spoke. Students have said for years that he looks like Mr. Fredrickson from the movie Up. He decided to use that to his advantage and his whole talk was based on the movie. He had us find a Russell character to be part of his talk. I was happy to expend some creative energies to make a costume for Russell! I love it when work and creativity can intersect!
The third day Ricky spoke about God's kingdom. While it was all in Spanish and I could only catch about half of his talk, it was obvious that even though Ricky is young, God has got an amazing future for him with preaching. God powerfully speaks through him!
Mari spoke on Thursday about His Righteousness. The following week during chapel, many students (female junior highers in particular) shared how Mari's talk had influenced them.
Friday started out with a little on stage dancing - including getting Mr. Bovey up there to dance.
Brent Becker finished the week off with a great challenge to surrender to the throne of God.
It was a privilege to be a part of this week.... seeing kids make commitments to godly changes in their lives.
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