What began as a desire to encourage our local church youth grew into an area wide youth rally with several hundred in attendance.
The location was Grand Rapids and the theme: "Believe It!". The first annual West Michigan Youth Rally was held April 20-21 st. The Friday evening pre-conference was held at Grand Rapids Central Church with over 200 attendees. Pastor Keith Grey, Southwest Region Youth Director and Pastor David Asscherick, Director of ARISE, both spoke as the youth carefully listened to their messages; "How bad do you want it?" and a message based on the Internet phenomenon titled "My Disgrace".
Sabbath morning the rally moved to a public high school auditorium and with over five hundred in attendance-mostly high school youth. The morning began with a presentation from Chicago Outpost members and the Michigan Conference Megabook team leader; they encouraged the youth to be involved with literature evangelism. Afterwards we had a premier screening of the new Enzyme Productions film; "Re(ally)". Pastor David Asscherick then spoke to the youth on how God knew we were "lemons" yet He still bought us. For the worship service Pastor Grey's message lead the youth to decisions about living their own experience not relying on
the experience of mom and dad.
The young people enjoyed the break out in the sun where there were fed a free lunch. They were then separated into three rotating groups (middle school, high school and college). Each group rotated through four seminars by speakers; Pastors Grey and Asscherick, Matt Parra and GLAS Principal, Chad Bernard. The parents and sponsors attended a seminar by Elder Dane Griffin, Michigan Conference Media Specialist. Elder Griffin shared two messages; "Raising your children for Jesus" and "How to close the back door to the church".
Journey, a musical group from Andrews University began the afternoon vespers with a sacred concert and Pastor Keith Grey presented the closing message. As the rally came to a close we saw how the Lord had blessed and with decisions for Baptism and recommitment decisions it was clear the Spirit of God had been with us.
As the day drew to a close and we began to review the day's events with the one of the facility coordinators and thank him for all his help. He commented that they have lots of groups that use the facility, even Christian groups but no group takes care of the facility like the Seventh Day Adventists! What a powerful testimony by our youth!
