Sunday 27 August 2006

Teenstreet Germany '06 - Metamorphosis

I was part of the Service Team and was assigned to the Dining Hall team. My job involved setting the tables before the meal, clearing them after, and serving the food. Serving the food was by far the best part of the job! (The rest definitely wasn't great fun). I really enjoyed doing it because I got to have small chats with so many people and it was so encouraging to see people smiling at you and thanking you for the service you were doing - every now and then, some people gave us sweets as presents:)

We arrived on the site at midnight Wednesday and just went straight to sleep. We were placed in the Service Team tent, which was quite peculiar. It was a gigantic industrial-sized tent, that was split in half by a two-metre high wooden wall (the tent was about five times that height in the centre). This led to a quite interesting development - the first Thursday and Friday nights some guy who had a really powerful torch used it to throw a shadow of himself onto the ceiling of the tent that all could see (including the girls). He then proceeded to undress himself (at least the t-shirt). There were quite a few giggles from the girls' side. In one way it was a bit funny, but it was also a bit rude toward the girls and toward people who were trying to sleep. Ah well. Thankfully, that story represents nearly the sum of all negative experiences I had at Teenstreet!

The first big event was the first Throne Room on Saturday night. The Throne Room is the name of the event where all of TS gathers in the main hall to praise and worship God. To me, the atmosphere wasn't extremely breath-taking, but I think that is because I had experienced it before and because the atmosphere usually gets better as the week goes on. But all the people who had never been to TS before were quite awestruck, which was funny:) The band, called World News, were extremely good, but more on them later.

I never really got a lot of sleep, since a few times my shift started at 7 in the morning, which meant getting up at 6 am. Ouch. But I found serving extremely rewarding, especially spiritually. In fact, I found that being on the Service Team was much better than going as a teenager! Doing breakfast was really hard, because we had to put out butter, jam and sugar on every table. Now, remember there were something like 200 tables, so that is quite a job!! (There were a total of 4,000 people at Teenstreet, from 25 different countries, speaking 15 different languages!) To make matters worse, every morning after breakfast we had to sweep the whole hall, which took sooo long, even when there were ten of us doing the sweeping! We also had to wipe all the tables afterwards. All in all, lunch and dinner were walk-overs compared to breakfast.

As I've already mentioned, serving the food was by far the best part of the job. God just really encouraged me by showing me in a very tangible way His love, reflected through the people that came to get their food. And it was simply so fulfilling to to serve the food cheerfully, ask people how they're getting on at TS, wish them an enjoyable meal, etc.!

The one thing that really stood out to me about Teenstreet was how focused the whole event was on the most important thing - giving glory to God!! You would think that, considering it is such a huge event, it would become a bit worldly in order to be "cool" and "attractive" to teens (I put attractive in inverted commas because, in the end, what attracts the lost most is the hope and freedom that Jesus Christ brings - and not fancy bling events). But no!! The very first service team meeting I went to, the director of Teenstreet was speaking. And the one thing underlying his message was - don't put your trust in OM (the organisation that is responsible for TS), but put your trust in God alone, because people and OM will let you down! Even further, and this became more and more evident throughout the week, the leaders of TS were so focused on giving God alone the glory! It is quite hard to describe how I come to that conclusion. It is mostly through a lot of little things that are hard to recount.

I firmly believe that this is one of the main reasons God chose to move during TS. And believe you me, God moved! I get so excited even thinking about it! Firstly, I know that God really moved by talking to some of the coaches, all of who reported that their teens were opening up, sharing their hurts and their need to have Christ leading their lives. But above all, God moved during the Throne Rooms. The Psalms talk about God inhabiting the praises of His people, and His presence really was tangible during the praise and worship times. The band was so focused on God and in tune with His spirit. They had two worship leaders who alternated. So many times, the things they would speak about would speak right into people's hearts, and the worship leaders really did prophecy (as in God spoke through them). Often, they spoke about very specific things that people responded to. For example, one of my close friends has recently been struggling in that there is something that is keeping her from God, but she is not quite sure what it was. And guess what the worship leader talked about Monday night! Furthermore, just minutes before he talked about that, I was praying with a teen, who told me he had the exact same problem. Then, five minutes later, the worship leader started talking about exactly that! Praise God!

During every Throne Room there was a prayer team to the right of the stage, where people could go for prayer during the praise and worship. On the first night, not even one person went there (I know one of the guys that was on the prayer team). But on Monday night, there must have been two or three hundred that came for prayer, possibly way more (It's hard to guess numbers, but I thought I'd under-guess so as to not exaggerate too much:)! It was so amazing. The Holy Spirit just came down in power and started convicting people of their sins, and people streamed forward for prayer.

The next night, something awesome also happened. The band had one of the electric guitarists lead the worship, and he quite simply wasn't half as good as the others. The band also didn't work that well with him leading. Now, every Throne Room officially ends at 9 pm, at which time people are permitted to leave for the Interaction Zone, but the band keeps on playing for people who wanna stay and keep singing to God. There is always a few hundred that stay, and this number usually gets larger as the week goes on. But Tuesday night (only halfway through TS), even though the band wasn't half as good as the other nights, two thirds of the people decided to stay on! To put it into perspective, last year that many people had never stayed for the extra hour, not even at the end of last year's TS!! It was so awesome, because it really showed that for most of the people present the Throne Room is not about participating in top-notch music, but is about praising and worshiping God!

The teaching, although I unfortunately didn't hear much of it because it occured in the morning when I was usually cleaning up breakfast, was biblical and challenging. There was no beating about the bush - we are called to live lives drastically different to anything the world offers. It was all based on the first part of Romans 8.

Now, usually the last Throne Room is an "extended" time of worship. That's how it was scheduled in the manual, and that's what happened last year. But this year, they only played six songs on the last night! It actually took me about ten seconds to realise that the Throne Room was over so quickly. At first, I was kind of annoyed. But I've come to realise that once again, this was the leadership doing what God wanted. Because, as is the problem with all such events, it puts people on emotional highs from which they come crashing down once they get home. But, by having a very short final meeting, they were trying to ensure that people didn't leave on a pumped-up emotional high. And, from reading around on the TS forum, it has really achieved its desired effect. People left TS, aware that the "real" world is waiting and, more importantly, fully aware that they are going to have to take up their crosses and that there is a price to pay if you follow Jesus.

Well, reading back over what I've written, I'm not sure I've been able to even hint at how AWESOME Teenstreet was! Praise God for His mercy for choosing to use this event to touch and change so many lives, including mine!