February 21, 2009
Worship started at 9 AM and the Tyler group lead worship. Brad (leader of the band) said good morning to everyone. They sang "I Will Boast". Then Josh made announcements about the workshops offered at 11 AM and 1 PM. He said that lunch would be in the cafeteria and there would be free time after the second workshop. The workshops offered included: How To Find A Church – by Tom Teekell, Christian Community – by David Baggett, Called To Ministry – by Dan Conway, Christian Ways To Date: Go Our and Break Up! - By Max Mertz, How To Love Difficult People – by Max Adams, and "Inside the Male Mind" – by Tom Teekell. Josh led the prayer and Ben West (speaker) read from Proverbs 17:17. We sang "I Am Free" and "Better Is One Day". Peter and Brad (two Tyler group guys in the band) put on a skit. Ben read from 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 and we sang "We Are Yours" and "How Great Is Our God". Brad prayed for Ben's message and Ben spoke.
Ben said that he liked what Kalamba said last night and he would like to start there with "I am the LORD your God." Ben tells everyone who he is, that he used to attend SFA and is now an associate pastor at Tyler. He tells everyone that he is married and has a cat and a dog. He has everyone play a game where he rings a dong and everyone has to find someone they don't know from another school and talk to them and find out who they are and stuff. I met a girl named Danielle who was from A&M. Ben read from John 15:12-15. He said that friendship is something we long for. Jesus himself called his disciples friends. Back in the Old Testament, David is friends with Jonathan even though Jonathan knows that he will someday lose his birthright to be king to David. God's command to Jonathan is to love David. David puts his life into Jonathan’s hands time and time again. Paul talks about friends a lot in his letters. Ben said that he had a few ideas for how to keep in track with close friendships and relationships.
Ben said that the most important thing is to make God the most important factor in our friendships and relationships. If God is the center we can become stronger in Christ. The Apostles and Disciples were always together and never by their selves. Ben said the second important thing was to be open with one another in our friendships. He said that if we are able to share, then everything between friends is understood. He said to be careful about going to complete strangers and sharing all your intimate details. When the time comes for encouragement, when times are tough, when things are messed up your friends are there for you. Friends should never put a stumbling block in front of friends. If your friend is an alcoholic, you shouldn't get drunk with them. If they have a pornography issue, you shouldn't watch American Pie with them. Ben talks about the story of the paralyzed man in the Bible whose friends lower him through the ceiling to see Jesus. Jesus sees their faith as a group of friends. These are the kind of people that we need to surround ourselves with. If your close friends are not Christians then who will lift you up or hold you accountable.
Ben told the story of when he started at SFA his freshman year and his first real friend would get drunk and liked to party hard. He would be too hung over to help people move into the dorms. He was a nice guy toward Ben and loaned Ben his laptop and desktop computers, paper and ink, but he liked to party. His roommate at the time (Mike) came up to Ben when he first met him and told him straight up that he was not a Christian. Ben said that his friendship with Mike compromised all his Christian values that he had strived for growing up. Ben had not yet made his way to a church so Mike was the only friend he had. Ben said also though that we shouldn't burn all our relationships with non-believers, but that we should have our closest friendships with believers. One of God's greatest gifts is friendships.
Ben said that if we are trying to find good friends we should look for the following traits. 1. They should be kind and generous and most importantly a Christian. We should find a Christian Community for fellowship. 2. It helps to have similar interests. 3. We should keep God at the center of it. Ben closed by saying that God is the LORD Almighty. The Tyler band came back up and we sang "Inside Out". Ben led the closing prayer. We had a Jam song which was "Pharaoh Pharaoh" and had an hour break before workshops.
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