On Sept. 22-24, I had the privilege of leading worship at Circle Six Ranch for the Texas Baptist Student Ministry retreat
On that Friday we drove two hours to Lenorah. We had the opportunity to connect with people from the BSMs of other schools, such as Texas Tech, Angelo State, South Plains and Wayland Baptist. While we stayed within our groups for the most part, it was great to see representatives from private and public colleges and universities of all sizes come together to worship the same God together.
This was a completely different experience for me. I grew up going to church camps and retreats, so that part was nothing new. I have loved leading worship over the past few years, but I have never been on that side of it during a camp or retreat.
Going into this, I was very excited to get to serve in this capacity and try something new with a great group of new friends. The Spirit was definitely moving during the weekend. I felt comfortable going into a complete posture of worship and not worrying about keeping up my guard. The freedom that came with letting my walls come down created such an abundant worship moment for me.
When I was not helping with worship, I was able to attend small groups and hang out with friends who were interested in talking and learning about Jesus. We had a great group of women from Hardin-Simmons who attended the retreat and showed so much excitement to be learning about Jesus and growing in their faith with others. We stayed up late at night laughing and talking about our lives and our faith, and I could not be more grateful for the wonderful ladies who shared this unique experience with me..
I attended two small groups, one which discussed sharing the gospel with lost family members, and another that discussed how to glorify God in your work. Both of these reminded me that sharing the gospel is not only about sharing the death and resurrection story of Jesus, rather, it is also about creating trusted relationships with others in order to be a light to someone else.