La Vie Boheme

I have been listening to the soundtrack from Rent for the past 8 days straight. Every morning when I wake up, I feel like I'm a part of an exciting starving artist lifestyle in some pocket of Seattle. Of course, I actually am in the process of moving into a 3-bedroom mountain cabin. Definitely more unabomber than bohemian...yet somehow Erin and I are standing in the YD parking lot at 9:30pm in little Arlington belting the lyrics to "La Vie Boheme." It must make sense somehow.

My past weekend was spent with students (imagine!) in Seattle. Stuart (also an Arlington YD Associate Director) and I took six students to the Dare 2 Share Conference. The point of the event was to inspire Christian students who are looked upon as leaders to be inspired and motivated to have a spirit of evangelism. YD kids tend to be slightly more rag-tag than your more typical youth group kids...so, we fittingly took kids who weren't even necessarily 'Christian' to a 'Christian leader' event.

This is obviously risky--because if the students are freaked out, they might never pursue the church again...but for no reason in particular, a few students joined us who have been connected to the church at different points but are definitely not typical 'church kids.' It's exciting--because we know in confidence that if these rag-tag energetic kids dedicated their lives and hearts to the Lord, they would do amazing things.

One student in particular, I have been friends with for the past 18 months...and for whatever reason, she came to the event, even though she's generally skeptical of Christians and Christian events. We had a great time together, and she warmed up to the idea of doing something 'Christiany' during some of the sessions and concerts. When we returned home on Saturday night and took a few minutes to debrief and pray, her response stunned me. She said, "I was really surprised this weekend to find out that people were struggling with the same things I struggle with. I didn't feel so alone." And I handed her a brand new New Testament, and she was genuinely excited.

Our speaker for the weekend, Greg Steir, said that most of us don't make 180 degree turns in our life...we make little 1 or 2 degree turns and wake up one day to discover we're going the complete opposite direction from where we were going before. As I look back on the 18 months I've been friends with this particular student, I can grin and see hundreds of little 1 degree turns in her life...and I know that she's on a cusp of a complete life transformation. It's exciting to watch.