This weekend was my first event as state President of CE.*
It was a good weekend overall, a little sparse in attendance but those who were there seemed to have a really good time.
We started the weekend off at about 9:00 pm with a welcome, some music, and some snacks. Shortly after, I took the boys to our bunks and we got ready to crash for the night.
Breakfast was at 8:00 am and I woke at 5:30 am so the wait for coffee was a long one!
After breakfast we had some music then our Youth President had a devotional time.
We then went on our Prayer Walk stopping at 4 stations. One of the stations was led by a local group called Nazareth Farm.
After the Prayer Walk, we broke off into our class groups. The Adult group had a guest speaker, and the Teen group had a panel discussion with the members of Nazareth Farm. Out little ones broke into 3 groups each led by some wonderfully talented leaders.
Town Hall followed the class time. During town hall, two of our teen group led some songs and games (I won a scarecrow decoration while playing the price is right). I was impressed with their leadership skills. They kept the attention of everyone in the room from those 3 and under to those whose ages will not be listed but let’s just say they have been attending CE functions for 34 years and were adults when they started!!! Theme contest posters were presented during the town hall.
Next came Lunch which was followed by the talent show then free time.
Free time is deceiving, what it means is the teens watch the younger kids while the Executive committee hold a meeting. This was my second meeting as President and overall, it went okay. I do need to work on my presentation skills and whatnot.
We made some changes in pricing and meal times for the upcoming Winter Happening and voted on the Theme Contest entries. The voting was hard because each of us has a child who has an entry in the contest. We muddled through and chose the winners.
- First Place – $100.00 and their theme is used for the next convention
- Second Place – $50.00 and their theme is used for Winter Happening
- Third Place – $25.00 and their theme is used for Fall Retreat
After Free time was over, we had dinner – I just want to say that the food was wonderful as always. Makes it easy to be a bald FAT blogger when there is such yummy food 
After dinner we sang some more songs – The song leader was really good. He and his wife grew up in CE and drove 400 miles to come be with us. That is awesome.
We wrapped things up with our speaker. I am very grateful for the man who spoke this weekend. He not only fed us Spiritually, but was also the cook for the weekend
We closed with our friendship circle and the CE Benediction, lots of hugs and well wishing and we set out to our homes.
Thank you to all who attended. I really enjoyed myself and I hope you did to.
- Joby
*Christian Endeavor was founded on February 2nd, 1881 by Francis E. Clark, Pastor of the Williston Congregational Church in Portland, Maine. He had a great concern for the youth who had made a clear decision to accept Christ, but were not involved in the church’s activities. An invitation was extended to the young people of the congregation to come to the parsonage Sunday afternoon February 2nd. The topic of discussion was to be “Where do we go from here?”
The young people, along with Pastor Clark composed a constitution for their newly formed group which read in part:
This society shall be called “The Williston Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor.” Its object shall be to promote an earnest Christian life among its members, to increase their mutual acquaintance, and to make them more useful in the service of God. Each member is expected to attend all the meetings of the society unless there is a reason acceptable to Christ.
At the close of this meeting, fifty-seven young people signed the first draft of that constitution and Christian Endeavor has since grown into a world-wide ministry for young people, training them for leadership in the church.
(Source: Worldwide Christian Endeavor by Arno Pagel, copyright 1981)
