Warmth in Winter

I cannot believe that this past weekend was the first time I had attended the Warmth in Winter for the Tennessee Conference Youth of the United Methodist Church, and here I am a grandparent. I was again impressed all the way around. It was a mixture of worship, devotional and reflectional experience, workshops for youth and youth leaders, games, jail-time, and fellowship.

There were four worship sessions during morning and evening hours. I won’t forget one of the messages of a hunter who compared a relationship of a hunter to his hunting dog to God's realtionship with us. As a hunter trains his hunting dog to stay at his heel until he commands the dog to go after prey, so we are commanded to stay at God’s heel until God sends us away. His vivid illustration of this was when that he had trained his dog so well that he could walk his dog without a leach. He told of one night he and his hunting dog both saw a rabbit crossing a high-traffic road. His dog took the pose to chase the rabbit so he kept saying, “heel”. And even with all his chasing body language, the dog stayed at his heel. So we, like that hunting dog may be tempted to chase after ‘the rabbit’ in dangerous roads of life, but what we must do is listen to God’s voice: “heel”.

The workshops I attended on Saturday were “Priority 1: Worship” and “Making Ministry Walk for Seniors and Adults”. The first spoke of the necessity of high quality in all parts of our worship experience, and the second spoke of the necessity of spiritual disciplines in living out our faith.

I returned after this experience that began early in the morning and lasted late into the night bodily tired while spiritually refreshed.

Although I went primarily to serve as an adult counselor that service turned into ways that God gave grace and mercy to me.