What a Weekend...

Greetings. This past weekend, 450 students from MN, WI, ND, and SD gathered with about 80 staff and volunteers in Alexandria, MN, for CrossTraining. It would take too long to provide a thorough recap of the weekend, so here's some bullet points:

-150+ students in 'On Campus, On Purpose,' being challenged to a deeper understanding of the various ways God can use them on campus.

-30 students approaching graduation spent the weekend unpacking what it looks like to transition well, leave a legacy on campus, and continue following Jesus after graduation.

-15 young men and women making decisions to follow Jesus.

My main responsibility for the weekend was to lead the musical worship. It's something I've been preparing for since the middle of the summer, and it was a great honor to be able to serve those at the conference. It was pretty exhausting, but I had an excellent team of musicians to work with as we led students throughout the weekend. Knowing that students were coming from a variety of backgrounds, an emphasis was placed on experiencing many different forms of musical worship, helping students get a better understanding of how people from other ethnicities and cultures might draw close to God. It was reminiscent to a musical potluck (as we led songs like this, this, this, this, this, and this), and it was amazing to see students stretching themselves out of their comfort zones throughout the weekend.

4 students from Hamline were able to be there this weekend, and as I've talked with them about their time, they were all challenged about how God can use them back on campus. My next couple weeks will be full of unpacking this more and working with those students to cast vision for those who were not able to attend.

Thanks for all your prayers, support, and encouragement headed in to the weekend. Now it's time to finish resting up and hit the rest of the semester hard. Our campus-wide Operation Christmas Child event is just around the corner.

**My camera was not in attendance this weekend, but if you'd like to see a wide assortment of pictures and student responses, they're available here thanks to the wonders of social media.