As some of my readers know (those who are my friends off the internet and have talked to you recently), this weekend I got back home from another youth conference and this time it was PEAK. I’ve heard about this conference before and mostly I’ve heard bad about it because it’s such a big conference and many of the people who had sad bad things about it have never gone it to, but had heard about it “through the grape vine”. I, myself, had heard bad things about it but I had also heard it through the great “grape vine”. But I had also heard a ton of great things about it from people who had actually gone, and what they said over-road what the other people had said, in my mind. So, I had decided that if at all possible I was going to try and go to it. I’m very thankful and grateful that I was able to go!!! Even though I only got to go Thursday night and all of Friday, it was awesome! The focused a lot on the preaching and less on the worship since there was so many people there that when we did worship, you barely had much room.

The service was Friday night. The preacher was Bro. Cody Marks. The place was PEAK 2010, Tulsa, Oklahoma at the Spirit Bank Center. The message was for me and was awesome! The part that got to me the most was when he asked the congregation some questions and some of there were “Stand if you believe in one God”, “Stand if you back and support your pastor”, and a couple of other questions and most times almost everyone stood up. Then he asked this question “Stand if you are currently active in teaching a Bible study” and man that question hurt. Why? Because one I couldn’t stand up and two only about 1 out of 75 people stood up. Then the next question hurt so much that I cried because it hurt and all of a sudden I had a huge burden. He said “Stand if you have won someone to the Lord and discipled them and they’re still in church” then when he saw the amount of people who stood up, he cried like I’ve never seen a preacher cry while preaching. There was only 1 out of 150 people that stood up then (the ratios aren’t 100% correct, but they are my best guess)… It was horrible cause that was only a small amount of people compared to the 3000+ people that were there!!!! I cried and wept and began to pray cause the burden started to really press on me.

He preached for a little more, but had to stop cause the Holy Ghost was moving so strong. After a couple of other things happened and as many people that could fit in the front were down there, he asked for all the preacher’s sons to go on the platform and pray with each other.  I left where I was standing and praying with a guy in my church and went on up there. I started praying with some guys who I didn’t know, but then a couple minutes later I saw a guy who I was friends with and we started praying together. This went on for a while and then I don’t really remember what happened because some preachers came and prayed for me, and I became completely filled with the Holy Ghost all over and more. The next thing that I do really remember was laying on the ground and speaking in tongues, but my mind was going over a plan and ideas for outreaching for young people and teaching Bible Studies. I knew this wasn’t from my flesh because I had never really thought about this and honestly had no desire to do anything of the sort. Well the service ended a while later, or could have been a short time later cause I honestly don’t remember I was so out of it and full of the Holy Ghost.

After the service was over, I found a young man in my church who has brought some people from his school to our church and one of them is actually seeking the Holy Ghost right now.  I talked to him about trying to get a youth outreach together and learn how to teach Bible Studies. He was all ears and more than willing to do it, so I went away from our conversation feeling good! Well I got home Saturday night and was dead tired, in fact I went to sleep very shortly after getting home. That Sunday night when we was having youth service, two visitors showed up for the youth service. We had it and later I was to find out that they had actually been there before when I was out of town one time.  Then regular church service was going on and pastor was preaching really awesome, one of his best messages in a while (probably cause I haven’t heard him for a while, but needless it was a very AWESOME message!!!). But during his message they got up and left cause I found out later that one of them were “uncomfortable”, I could see why they were but I don’t know if that was the true reason why they did. But after the regular service ended with a awesome alter call (or after preaching), I sat down and talked with my youth leader about a ton of things. One was youth outreach, another was youth Bible studies, and another one was a name for our youth group.

The discussion with him was long and very good. We discussed youth outreaching and asked him what he thought of a different style of youth outreaching. I liked it because it’s not the norms of what we do on our regular outreach and you’re very sure of talking to someone (and they can’t slam a door in your face!!! lol). If you wanna know what he suggested, email me at: bradley (@) greywolf336 (.) com (this email is a different one then my personal one, so if you have my personal one email me there and I’ll answer the same). Then we discussed youth Bible studies and came to the conclusion that this was a must and we talked about different ones that we could do. We’re yet to make our final decision, but I’ve got one coming in the mail sometime soon and hopefully it’ll be a good one to do for the youth. As far as the name for our youth group, we’re undecided on a couple. But I can’t tell you, or it’d ruin the surprise on the one we finally did decide on and if we have something special for the launch of it.

Last night (7/26/10) I got a call around 5:45 asking what I was doing and if I was doing nothing, then did I want to go on some outreach. That call was from my youth leader, so since I wasn’t doing anything last night I agreed. We went to a pretty rich neighborhood in Lansing, KS and did some outreach there. I was starting to get discouraged because we didn’t have very good results. Nobody seemed to be answering the door, a couple told us that they had their own church and then didn’t want anything to do with us, and one person treated us like we were trash. I almost was ready to stop but then thought “that’s exactly what the devil wants us to do” and so we kept on. The last house that we did was worth the whole time we spent out there! This family had just moved into the area and the lady that answered the door seemed very interested, she seemed even more interested when we told her that we had somethings for our youth group. We told her that she’d have to see for herself what our church and church services were like! I’m praying that she and her family will come sometime!!!

Then tonight (7/27/10) I was driving home from youth prayer and some fellowship with some people in our youth group, and then that question I first asked at the very start of this blog post hit me. I started looking around while I was driving home and realized that were a ton of people outside walking around. Something in me stirred and I wanted to stop and invite some to church, but sadly my flesh and it’s “shyness” kicked in and I didn’t. When I got home I felt very sick because I didn’t stop and the thought about maybe because I didn’t stop, someone would never hear this gospel and not have a true chance of going to Heaven. I made up my mind right then and there that I was going to try and do as much personal outreaching and personal evangelism as possible!

How? By overcoming my flesh and my “shyness” and talking to as many people as I can about church and about God. Inviting them to church and then if they like it or even show a little bit of interest, ask them if they would like a Bible Study. Where would I do the Bible Studies? I want to try to do them at public places, like McDonalds and other public places like that. Why there? Because more than likely they’re gonna be more comfortable there and who knows, someone might be sitting behind and act like they aren’t listening but they’re straining to hear what you’ve got to say cause they see you’ve got a Bible out.

I’m ready to start doing personal evangelism and with the Lord’s help, I would like to win at least 10 people within 2 months! But I need your help! (You my readers!) I want your suggestions on some other things to do to help me in outreach and personal evangelism! Have any? Contact me or send me an email at bradley (@) greywolf336 (.) com – If you do send any, I’ll be in great thankfulness of you!!!

God Bless,
Bradley Hilton

P.S: Sorry for such a long post! It’s probably the longest one I’ve done yet! Lol – Also why does everyone think my birthday is Friday?? Lol I wasn’t born on July 30th….

A week or two ago I talked some with Aaron Ogle and we decided to try our hand at things again. After a couple tries of trying to create a logo, I gave up and told him that we needed to find an Apostolic graphic artist. He agreed and I started looking, and it was God that I found one (and a very good one at that). Apostolicbook now has it’s very own graphic designer. What does this mean for us and for everyone else? The world!! Or at least it seems like that.

Last night we had a so called “business meeting” that lasted from around 8 till 11 (my time). You’re thinking “Wow that’s a long time!” and you are correct, but we needed that. I think we all went away from it feeling very accomplished. We got several things much needed out of the way. Of those things, the main one I’m happy about is our logo! It’s very sweet looking and most defintally will be recoginzable any where. I won’t give any details of what it looks like (and won’t post pictures of it), as it’s not time for that. Cause like the Bible says, there’s a time and place for everything!

We did a lot of other things about Apostolicbook last night, and they are all very important too. The last thing I’m going to say is this… Be sure to start checking our Twitter, Status blog, and our homepage for updates! Cause who knows, sometime soon we might reveal a little here and there!

This is all for now! Hopefully you can tell I’m ready to start doing stuff on Apostolicbook!!! God Bless,
Bradley Hilton

One hour till I leave for prayer at church and tonight I’m playing the bass during church.
One Lord, One Faith, and One baptism – Ephesians 4:5
One more day of school!!!
One more day of school food
One way to Heaven
One more year of high school for me left!
One year till I graduate from High School
One more month till I leave for Camp Niangua 2010!!
First year of going to Camp Niangua! And yes i’m 100% excited for it!!!

This list could do on and on, but since I’m leaving in about an hour (1 hour) for before service prayer, I had better start getting ready. I’m thinking of wearing one of my new shirts that I just bought, but can’t decide which one to wear… Guess we’ll see since they are actually going to be taking pictures tonight and I was told I have to put them up online. So, I’ll make a blog post about it after I get them uploaded to my church’s website.

A couple weeks ago (12/13/09), I was lying on a pew face down praying and stopped praying for a minute. All was quiet, but wait! That’s not how it’s supposed to be! I laid there for another minute not praying and heard some adult voices praying, yet I was in a youth service and youth pre-service prayer. A couple of seconds went by and I heard something that wasn’t what I wanted to hear! The noise I heard was ever so loud that I’m surprised I didn’t hear it before, but yet that’s not what I had been listening for. After a little bit I finally recognized what I was hearing, this noise that I heard was people’s feet scraping the floor. You could have mistaken them for robots since they weren’t making any noise out of their mouth.

I thought to myself, “This can’t really be happening. I’m hearing this incorrectly.” And I didn’t want to look up because I feared that it was true. I finally did after a second or two, and my mind and heart was deeply saddened. I thought “My Lord, what is it going to take for all of us youth to bind together and have awesome pre-service prayer?!” I went back to praying and starting asking God what it would take for us to all to be in one mind with one accord, in unity and be on fire for him. While praying, I wondered if it would take us having a visiting young person in a regular church service for us to get on fire. It so happened that we had a visitor that was a young person (with her family), and I’m sad to say that we didn’t get on fire, nor did any of the girls pray with her.

I wrote down the thought “What Will It Take” and let it pass over me. Well, then December 18th, 19th, and 20^th, I was talking with someone from Louisiana; somehow,  it was brought up about the youth in that person’s church. This person told me about their church youth group and how they are all bound together and close. I found out that they weren’t like that a while back, but something happened and now they are close. When I heard the story, it worried me because I don’t want this to happen to my church’s youth group, but if it’s God’s will then it’s His will.

This person’s church youth group used to have a good amount of young people, but not all of them were into church. Yeah, they might have been going to church, but if a young person is going to last, they need to be into church. I was told by this young person that they had about half of their church leave this past year (2009) and because of that the young people are all close. This person said to me, “ever since half of our youth group split up, the remainder of us are sticking together like glue and we keep each other up”. When I read that, I was amazed and thought to myself, “Wow!!.. I wonder what it will take for my church’s youth group to become close like that…”

So, I now present you the reader with some questions that I wish you would answer in your mind and then if you want to, email me the answers that you have come up with. What will it take for the youth to be on fire for God? Why did I hear feet scraping the floor, instead of voices lifted up in prayer? What activities can be done to get young people involved in church and love church? Why do young people wait on pastor’s to ask them to do something instead of asking their pastor what they can do?

This article has been heavy on my heart for a while now, and I pray that I was able to express in words what I really wanted to say. It’s been burning in me so much, that I doubt I did a good job of expressing it.

God Bless,
Bradley Hilton