“One” Love for God

Gilmer County has been very blessed with eight youth groups in which teens get highly involved in learning about and worshipping Jesus. These eight youth groups came together for the first time on March 16th, 2011 in the First Baptist Fellowship Hall for an event known as “One”, showing that all youth groups represented one body. They gathered to hear guest speaker Chad Cannon. Cannon spoke about how God being the standard for peoples lives. The night was put together in order to prepare the 275+ students that signed up for this year’s Disciple Now weekend, which took place on March 25-27th.

Disciple Now has been a part of one of these youth groups for an estimated six years, but this one was by far the biggest weekend D-Now in Ellijay has ever seen. The theme of this weekend was “Blueprint”, in which the students learned to trust God’s Blueprint, or plan, for their lives.

The teens were lead in worship by singer Matt Papa, a unique artist who shows his love and passion for God through his music. Some of his most popular songs are “Here Am I” and “Open Hands”, in which he tries to encourage Christians to give their all to God and to let Him guide them to places to speak of God’s love. Not only did he lead worship by these songs, but he spoke through God’s word, communicating with all 275+ people with his guitar in hand and a keyboard in the background.

Reagan Farris, youth pastor for a church in Eagle’s Landing, was the guest speaker for this extravagant weekend. The students listened intently as he began Friday night speaking about how everyone should metaphorically hand their paintbrushes to the Master Artist, and allow Him to paint their masterpiece.

Farris spoke about how everyone should humble himself or herself before God and allow Him to take complete control. Farris is a firm believer in giving one’s all to God and allowing Him to direct one’s path. Farris also spoke about how God’s love does not come with a condition, and how His sacrifice has saved all. As Farris shared God’s love on Saturday night, over fifty teenagers fell in love with Jesus for the first time, accepting Him as their Savior.

Sunday morning, the eight churches returned to their Sunday service, where some churches sacrificed their plans, in order to hear about how God worked with their youth over the weekend. The weekend was very productive and successful, and the teens of Gilmer County are quickly changing the city through their love for God.