ATF Worship

One of the best parts of Acquire the Fire is the worship. Over 4000 teens entering God’s presence in a single place is an experience that should be had at least once before Heaven. I figure that is what Heaven will be like only exponentially more. People think it is going to be “boring” but the energy and excitement of this kind of worship proves to me that Heaven will be far from boring, even if all we do is have an eternal worship set.

Enough generalizations, I want to talk about this event. We start each event with a Youth Pastor break out. It is to get us any special rules, and share a few details about the sessions and such, so we can be “in the know.” I’m a 3 time vetran now so I know exactly where to go for this, I was heading there before they finished the announcement and was the first person in the room. I like being up front for many reasons. In this room the first seat on the left side is right by an exit. I like being able to escape quickly if needed. Anyways, Mike (the main speaker) was up there with a couple people. A young woman who looked familiar to me and a young man with a faux hawk. I said to the young man, “you you must be the worship leader.” He was like “yeah, how’d you know?” to which I replied, “faux hawk.” Mike laughed and asked what a totally bald head meant (Mike shaves his head). Well he also has a goatee so I told him that the hair doesn’t tell me anything but the goatee means he is in youth ministry, it’s part of the YM dress code.

During the time I was trying to figure out who the young woman was then I realized just as she left the room to start the first worship set. She sang the “Worth it” video from last year. I made a point of remembering her name so I could tell her how much that video meant to me students last year. I didn’t get the opportunity till after everything was done and I was rounding up the last student to head out, but shockingly I remembered her name and I think she really appreciated hearing how much that video meant to my students.

Enough of that, tiem to talk about the actual worship experience. The worship was led by the School of Worship (part of Teen Mania Ministries) including the young man and woman I mentioned. They do a great job and have a great visual support team to handle the kinetic type lyrics and lighting. It’s more than that though. Like I said 4,000+ teens pushing to the stage, pouring their hearts out, lifting their hands and voices … it’s powerful. They had a worship set before each session (One Friday and three on Saturday). During dinner I was talking with my students about the event, I like to engage them during and after the event so they are thinking about it, and one of them said “I really love the whole thing, I just wish the worship sets were longer.”

Well right after dinner he got what he wanted. That session went on and on for a couple hours, almost 3. I think that, more than anything else, changed the lives of my students, I know I’m already seeing fruit from this in a couple of them.

It went well past the scheduled time, so Mike had to adjust the last session, but it was fully worth it.

Have you had the opportunity to be in this kind of worship? What did you get from it?