This past weekend I took some of my middle schoolers to an event called Believe put on by CIY (Christ In Youth) in Tulsa, OK. I thought that since I went to it – I could do a review for you because it’s a great youth ministry idea for middle school.

The whole event this year was themed around, “The Messiah” and it’s event that definitely catered to middle school aged youth. The first thing I noticed after I checked in our group was the set up of the event. The convention center that they used in Tulsa was a rectangular room that had about 8k in capacity, but they divided up the room to where half was an area to play on inflatables, basketball, station to grab T-shirts, CDs, and art, and an area for students just to run and play hacky sac or football with their youth ministry. I really thought that this was great because right away they could go into the event and hang out and play until it started.

The other half of the room was where we gathered around the stage which was set up just right with chairs that went around 180 degrees and room for students to gather around it to get close to what they were doing on the stage. They also had a skate stage in the back set up with the skate crew that they had at the event to start the sessions which was really fun.

The speaker was Heather Flies and she was a great speaker for the students – lots of energy and connected very well with them.

The event had a nice flow of play/break time and session time. They thought very well about how the middle schooler thinks and acts.

The worship was siiiccckkk! It was led by Worship was lead by Hettie Marie and Foundation Red Band. Very engaging and energetic and uplifting.

They also had an artist that painted during the worship times that themed the whole weekend’s message of the Messiah. His name is Eric Samuel Timm and you can see his paintings below.

321 Comedy Improv made us all laugh and have a great time – our students did the improv with each other all the way back home. Untitled Skate Boarders were really cool too starting off each session with some skateboarding moves.

During our breaks we had small group discussion time about what they speaker was talking about and helped them think about how it applied to their lives.

All in all I thought that the trip was well worth it. Hope to continue to see the spiritual impact of the weekend. Below is some pictures to help you see our trip there: