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….

Pimples are a major effect for me. (pictures) Before camp I was all stressed out and my face was full of them. As camp dates got nearer, I got even more stressed out because some things happened. My face was looking very horrible and I almost didn’t want to go to camp because it looked so hiddious. I decided that going to camp would do me a huge favor and I would get closer to God. I’m very thankful that I did go because it was a blessing and I had so much fun there! (As will soon be described in a blog post.) While I was at camp, I wasn’t stressed out or stressing out about anything. In fact, I almost had a care free attitude and I was a very different person down there. People who met me down there didn’t and couldn’t believe that I was actually a shy person cause I was that different. That was all fun and good, but when I had to start heading home stress hit me. When I got home around 4 (or so) I looked in the mirror and could see three pimples already forming. I wasn’t happy about it, but that’s when I realized it was an effect of stress.

Some people would laugh if I told them that I have gray hair at this young of age, but being 100% honest I do. How? Because of stress. Back before I started running the sound system, I had a nice one shade of brown hair color. Now you look at me and you’ll see that I have gray hair inside of my brown hair. I look a lot older now but I’m not complaining!

When I’m under a lot of stress and pressure of things, I tend to talk very little! In fact I would rather not talk at all when I’m under tons of stress because I might release some pressure out and yell at someone, not really meaning to. If I want to communicate with someone and not have an worries about telling, I write things out or type things out.

Since I’m not very talkative when under stress and pressure I do a lot of thinking and tend to have deeper concentration. If you look back at some things I’ve posted, you might notice that they tend to be a little deeper (*cough* Brianna *cough* :-p lol) and easier to read. One of those articles I think was the “What Will It Take”.

One of the last things that I’ve realized stress does to me (there are many more, but these are the main ones) is I can be very patient. To some that can come as a surprise since under stress and pressure, people tend to lose their patience and explode. I have been told that I’m one of the most patient people someone has meet, and especially an IT guy. I’m praying that the Lord helps me keep my patience and not lose it, especially when I get under a ton of stress and pressure!

Please don’t be grossed out too much by the pictures posted below, as they are pictures of pimples right after I got back from Camp! Shows how much stress does effect my face and looks.

God Bless,
Bradley

Then there’s awesome church!!! I love my church (Truth Tabernacle) and love being an Apostolic young person! I wouldn’t and won’t trade it for anything this world has to offer!! As most of my readers know I am my church’s lead sound man. What does that mean? It means a lot of different things, but I’ll summarize it for you.. We have a very nice sound system and a very nice mixer, there are areas of it that we could improve on but you have to have money for that. We also have a very nice piece of equipment that let’s us record professionally. This was a somewhat expensive too, but it wasn’t too bad. In fact here in the next couple of months we (the other sound man and I) are thinking about adding onto this so that we can have all the drum mica recorded separately and not remixes like we are doing now. We make preaching CDs and we record all the special singing so that we can make a special singing CD and sell. We’ve made one in the past, but it was all remixed and so we couldn’t really make it sound better and more professional. (As a side note, if anyone wants to buy the first special singing CD please let me know.) Back in the sound booth during worship service we control the projector that displays the lyrics to the songs that are being sung. We also display the first scripture that the preacher reads. I personally am not a fan of this because some people no longer bring their Bibles, but that’s why we only do one scripture so that if someone really wants to follow the scriptures that the preacher is reading they will bring their Bible.

I’ve learned a couple things since I’ve made a blog post. One of those things is the fact that if you give God your tithes and then more than just the 10% that he requires, He will bless you. I’ve experienced that first hand. Ever since I got my job I’ve been getting paid every other week (I think that’s how it is) and so I get to pay my tithes to the Lord. Well the other week I was going to put the money into the offering and realized that I had money the a spot where I usually keep the money for tithes. I was confused by this cause I was pretty sure I had paid tithes last time.. Well just to be sure that I did pay it I put it in the offering. That week I got some side jobs to do that are earning me some extra money! It’s a total blessing from the Lord!!!

I’ve recently been getting some thoughts for articles. The thing is though that I’ve yet to have enough time to actually sit down and collect my thoughts together and write a good article. I want to do this so bad!! I’ll have to make some time to sit down and write an article. One that I really want to sit down and write badly is “What Will It Take – Part II”. I’ve got some other thoughts running through my head, but I won’t want to share them with you cause you might steal them. Lol :p

That’s it for right now.. I’ve got to start studying for a practice A+ test I’m taking tomorrow morning before I head out for a youth service that I’m going to in Guy, Arkansas.

God Bless,
Bradley

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

Another thing that has been keeping me busy is work, which if you’ve read my blog that’s working for my school district. Well, I just got my check in the mail today and it’s way more than I expected! I’m excited about that, but I think half of it is going to be gone cause of paying my mom and dad off.

Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time working on getting new features for my school’s websites. There are two main features that I’ve added, and you can see them from the picture on the left. The main feature is what I call “highlighted articles”. This is a scrollable list of articles that have been posted to the website, and it also can have pictures of the subject. I’ve ran into a ton of problems with this! I’ve over came a couple of them, but I’m still running into a couple of them. Another feature is the search bar at the top right of the menu. The positioning of this took more work than I had originally thought it would have, but hey I love a good coding challenge every so often! I also had to edit one of the Joomla! files to make the search appear in a different page than the front page. I’ve made a good amount more of changes to the site, but those are all little details that a majority of people will never know… Haha

I hopefully will be posting an article this week or weekend that has some good meaning behind it, and might get you thinking.. Who knows.

Bradley

This week has been an interesting one all things considered. Monday at school my P.E. teacher wouldn’t accept the letter that my mom wrote to excuse me from working out since my hands weren’t healed yet. He told me that I had to have a doctors note to fully excuse me from working out. This then caused me to have to go to see a doctor, so that Monday night I did go. The doctor said that I bruised my bone and that my wound(s) were infected. She gave me some medication to take to get rid of my infection and then wrote a note to excuse me from working out until the 21^st. Tuesday another day of school and long one at that, posted a blog post, and then that night I went to puppet practice and meet up with my friend. Yeah that’s him pictured to the left, me and him are really good buddies, we’ve done I think too puppet shows together and we’re really good together! Ha-ha. Wednesday night was a another day of school, but it kind of went pretty fast which felt good. That night I got surprised because there was a visiting preacher, Elder Eldon Eckles. His preaching was AWESOME, but he had a young apostolic lady with him. I was wondering who she was because honestly she was pretty good looking. So, service went on and Pastor Chalfant introduced the preacher and then said that it was Elder Eldon Eckles’ grand daughter. Knowing me, I haven’t got the guts to talk to her because I’m too shy when it comes to talking to girls and meeting new Apostolic people in person… I’m determined to do it though! (I’ll tell you my plan here shortly.) Thursday was a pretty good day because it went by pretty fast, and I learned that I will be paid $600 for working 60 hours, working for USD469 doing technical work and things related to that. Also, Thursday night I worked on converting a website layout and design that I had done a while back into a Joomla! template, I got a good amount done, just got a whole bunch more to do. Friday (today) wasn’t the best for the first half of the day, but after school things got a ton better! Got home and worked on the Joomla! template some more (fixed some bugs here and there), then left for prayer meeting. After prayer meeting was over I stayed to practice a song for the youth service that is coming up the 23^rd at Truth Tabernacle. As we was practicing, they asked me if I could lead song service. What could I say, besides yes? So, I’m leading youth service song service on Wednesday night. That’s been this week. What about this weekend and my plan of me trying to talk to Elder Eckles’ grand daughter?

My answer is as follows. Tomorrow there is a Youth Rally at New Life in Olathe, KS. I’m excited because it’s the first one in a long time and I’m ready to be in a service with other young people that is directed to young people. I’ll try to post some pictures of it if I take any… As for my plan to talk to Elder Eckles’ grand daughter, I’m planning on getting or making myself talk to her tomorrow since they are going (my dad asked Elder Eckles). If any of you read this and are going tomorrow, want to maybe help me out or give me any pointers? Ha-ha

That’s it, except the picture to the right is the starting of what I hope is my second to next blog post. And if you’re wondering, yes I do actually write down some of blog post because I get ideas at school and can’t really type them up on a computer or on my phone. If you click on the picture you might be able to read what my title might be, in case you can’t I plan to title it “Me, Myself, and You?”. Thanks for taking the time out of YOUR day to read my blog!!!

God Bless,
Bradley Hilton