"It's human nature to call out to Jesus"

Had Adrenalin today. And well... ok you can probably tell from that simple statement how I found it =P (well if you knew me pre-NS anyway). Haha yeah.

I miss old YA =(.

I mean ok I guess, different leaders will have different ways of leading. But I really wonder how it changed so much over 2-3 years. I guess the simplest way to describe it is that it was a concert. Plain and simple. And those of you who knew me before would know that I NEVER, ever, called any YA or shakers event a concert. But this was.

Basically they had the YA band up playing 2 songs. Did a very short offering, played one more song. Reggie Dabbs came up (to my relief, Reggie is still the same old Reggie =P. I still prefer what he USED to do traditionally, but hey =P), talked for around 15 mins before giving an altar call. And that was still encouraging - we saw around must be 200-300 kids come to Christ tonight? I went to help out with the follow-up... basically we just got them to fill out a form. I prayed with them a bit, but couldn't really do much else cos they needed to get back to the concert and there were like 10 of them. After that, Relient K came up and just did a concert the rest of the night.

I really wonder what sparked the change. Before, it was always all about God. The attitude during the pre-show was one of "C'mon when's the worship gonna start??" There was so much more... noise. Chaos. Passion. People even. There was more of everything before, when it was focused on God.

And I don't think I can help myself, I'm gonna start reminiscing =P. Actually I wonder if this kind of stuff is still on an existing blog... =P

I remember the year where the FIRST EVER official event held at the then-new convention centre, was Adrenalin. And it was... PACKED. FULLY. There were no chairs. Everyone was standing, and everyone was CRAMMED up to each other. It literally took us 10-15 minutes just to sit down... that was great fun haha. Like we just literally COULD NOT sit down. It's hard to imagine, but it's what happened. We were that cramped.

I remember the times when we moved to Challenge Stadium, and we'd feel so sorry for those ppl who came late. Cos essentially, if you didnt' come like an hour early, there'd be no space left and they'd have to turn those people away. We'd come like 2-3 hours earlier and just, hang out, pretty much.

The times where multiple times a year, I'd totally lose my voice. Putting all my voice and energy into something I was passionate for. Something that really meant something for me.

And YA Easter Camp. Wow. Oh man. It's been 2 hours and I can't rmb what Reliant K did anymore. It's been 2-3 years and I remember what we did in Easter Camp. I remember the sermons from Danny Guglimacci. Sheesh, I remember some of the POINTS. I remember the 'uh-uh' of the Holy Spirit. I remember there being 7 C's in the growth of a disciple, the last one simply being Consistency (i.e. rinse and repeat =P). I remember him talking about how when we did anything, we should do it as unto the Lord. I remember him talking about us simply doing the work God assigned for us, and opening our eyes to see God doing the rest. And in fact, I'm relatively sure I could find the notes I took if I really wanted to.

I remember the entire stadium, split into church groups, all crying out to God. I remember us begining to sing in unity songs that had power, but that were never released. I remember us joining hands, first within each church group, then spreading out to other churches so that eventually the entire stadium was linked together in unity. I remember even the lyrics and the tune even though they were never released. Singing "We'll go for You, to the ends of the earth O Lord. We'll preach Your Word. We'll stand for You and hold on to Your Word. No matter what may come our way. For Your glory Lord". And get this - all without any prompting from the worship team. There weren't... miraculous signs. There weren't... healings. There wasn't... anything fancy. There didn't need to be. All of us knew God was there, and His Holy Spirit was moving. And we didn't even need any evidence to prove it. It was just clear.

And well, the same night where we essentially went 1-2 hours overtime, and when questioned by the management, the leaders could only shrug and say that 'God showed up'.

That was then.

But how did it get to now? A concert where the Bible wasn't even opened or read from? Where there was a mere concept of Jesus for less than half of the time? The argument might be made that they're trying to reach out to more non-Christians... rubbish. When they didn't comprimise, they had many, many more non-Christians who they could reach. I wouldn't know, but Relient K seemed to be the main reason why people came. And yet the stadium wasn't even full.

It kept overflowing when Jesus was the focus. There was blessing upon blessing. 'Empowering a generation to save a generation' - that was the Planetshakers motto. YA were doing it. And they were doing it well.