Awakening - Marco, Mike and Me

Day 2 of the Awakening Conference built on the momentum of the 1st day. While the youth heard from pastor Bobby Perry in the first session, the youth pastors and youth leaders got to sit in a leadership session from my friend and conference host Marco DeBarros. Marco took over the reigns as youth pastor at New Life less than 2 years ago. Prior to that, he was youth pastor at a church of 250 - the youth ministry was 100 strong! So needless to say, he knows a bit about healthy youth minsitry. His session was awesome. He talked about the philosophy, methodology and attitude that every youth pastor needs to take inventory of doing youth ministry. Incredible stuff!

In the afternoon session, Marco and I took the stage to do a song together with the GroundZero band. BANANAS! After that song, I went into my set. I decided to go all out with set so I included lots of video and visuals in the set to really get the message across. I did the songs "Masses", "After The Pain" and "Hope" and WHAT AN EXPERIENCE! The kicker during the set to me came at the end of "After The Pain" when everyone joined together as we sang "How Great Is Our God." Yes, we went into full blown worship in the middle of a HIP-HOP set. It was indescribable. Honestly, I think it was my best set yet. But when you have a crowd as engaged and energetic as this crowd was, you can't miss.

I got to conclude my set with an introduction of the next speaker - another good friend of mine Mike Servello, Jr. His message about our words and being instruments of encouragement was timeless. Great message. Check out some pics and video from my set.