Recap – InterHigh Monthly VII | InterHigh Fellowship

Recap – InterHigh Monthly VII

29 May 2010 207 views One Comment

Rise was five weeks ago, and it was awesome! Dr.William Lane Craig came all the way out to Berkeley to speak to us about the evidence for the resurrection. Some of you may be thinking, “Rise was so great, how could anyone possibly follow that up?” Well, we could start by asking, “Now what?” And that’s exactly what we did! Our theme this InterHigh Monthly (the seventh one, to be exact) was “The Resurrection: Now What?”

Games, Food and Praise

As soon as people started arriving, we got into groups by grade and readied ourselves for the challenges ahead. We were competing to see which team would do the best in a series of games ranging from human foosball to Team Simon Says. My group was the twelfth graders and our team name was the Beastly Butterfly Boys and Birls (Girls). After each team gave its team cheer, we all rushed off to play. My team joined three others at the four-way tug-o-war, but we were soundly (and embarrassingly) defeated by the sixth graders. Kids seem to be getting stronger these days; who knew? We played several more games, including handball, water balloon toss, and a relay-race (the sixth graders beat us again). All in all, we had a lot of fun, and we got to bond a lot through the games.

After finishing the games, we were ready for some good food. We had burgers and hotdogs with a crazy selection of condiments—even guacamole! During the dinner, the winners of the team competition were announced, along with a special award to the sixth graders for beating us twelth graders. Afterwards, we had an awesome time of praise, InterHigh style; people were jumping up and down, singing passionately, and, in short, doing all they could to praise God!

The Mentor Panels

The high school students and the junior high school students split off for mentor panels during our session time. I was with high school where Pastor Will started off by talking about the encounters the disciples had with the resurrected Jesus. One example was Peter, who denied Jesus three times, but was welcomed back and reinstated by Jesus. Then four of our very own mentors came up and talked about how they had had similar experiences with the resurrected Jesus. Mike, one of the mentors, recalled when he first became Christian and how, like Peter, he had made commitments to Jesus. However, he found himself failing again and again and feeling guiltier each time, wondering how God could ever forgive him. But as he read about Peter’s reinstatement in John, he had realized that God is always willing to forgive. He finished by saying, “I realized that God is willing to give not only second but even third, forth, or fifth chances.” It was encouraging to hear how after discovering the resurrected Jesus, each of the mentors was able to experience God in their lives. We finished with some good old small group time, making the message personal and taking time to pray for each other.

In the meantime, the junior-high schoolers were having their own session. They started off with three mentors sharing what they were like in middle school. Each mentor talked about all the silly things they had done to fit in, like trying to buy all the “in” clothes or getting good grades, but realizing that these things didn’t really work. One of the mentors, Elaine, challenged us to not live our lives stuck in front of a screen, because there’s so much more to experience! Then James (he usually leads praise) gave a short talk about BEAD. What’s that? Well, it’s an acronym to help us remember the evidence we have for the resurrection: the Burial of Jesus, the Empty tomb, Appearances of Jesus, and the Disciples’ belief. To help make the message more memorable, James did something crazy things, like tossing the handouts in the air instead of passing them out! The session was a lot of fun: we got to know three of the mentors really well and, also, how we can remember the defense for the resurrection.