Here we are again, part 2. Before I start though, I thought I would let
you know how an average day went because it might be helpful because of what
and the way I'm going to be talking about it.
So, in the mornings it would be breakfast and all the youth leaders
would have a meeting. About 10:00-11:00 everyone (except the 0-11 who had their
own venues and sessions) would gather in the main venue, also known as the
youth venue, to have a worship session and to be let known what was going on in
the day. After we all finish worshipping together, the young adults(17-Youth
leader age) would split from the youth(12-17) at about 11:15 and would go the
YA venue for a preach and sometimes a little extra worship, while the youth
stayed in the youth venue for their seminar.
In the afternoon everyone would go back to either their campsites or, if
they were being catered for, the social area for lunch. From about 1:15-5:00pm
there would be all sorts of activities and workshops going on, such as,
creative, song writing, dance, band and kids’ workshops, but also sports
activities, inflatables, swimming, roller skating, etc. All the afternoon
activities were finished by 5:00 so that everyone could have dinner before the
evening meetings at 7:00. There would be no altogether meeting in the evening,
instead the young adults went straight to their venue and the youth to theirs.
In the evening meeting there would be lots of worship, a preach and a call to
respond at the end. The evening meetings were supposed to finish around 9:00,
but sometimes they went on a little longer if God had different plans.
To make the days last longer, there were after hours, to me, these were
always the best parts. In the after hours there was a silent disco, late night
worship, a cinema, open mic and more. Every night I went to the late-night
worship, except the last night because it wasn't on.
That is a summary of what an average day would be, now let's get on to
the Jesus stuff.
Limitless Festival day 1.
The first day of Limitless Festival started in the afternoon because
everyone has to get there to pitch tents, so on the first day it’s only an
evening meeting. The first night, I think, was my favourite because it was the
one that started the whole event and it is also the one that set me free
allowing me to be filled with joy and praise for the rest of the week.
Let me first off say that the theme of the week was 'Trash Talk' the
whole thing was about trash talking the devil and all the little voices in our
heads, so on the first night in the Young Adults venue the guy preaching was
talking about the past and one of things he asked right at the beginning was
"Do you feel like you aren't going forward or backward? Do you feel 'spiritually
trapped'?", and as I said in part 1, this is exactly how I felt and in the
moment, it literally felt like he was talking to only me and no one else was in
the room, but basically the summary of the preach was that we have to deal with
the past, before the past deals with us, the past can chase us down and catch
up to us and we can't move on until we deal, we will keep trying to run away
from it, but it will catch us up if we don't face it today, but there is
someone who is here to fight it with us, who will fight for us.
For me it was a battle I had been fighting for a long time. It wasn't
necessarily the 'past' I was fighting, it was almost a battle of motivation or
wandering if God was 'worth it', I of cause knew He was worth it, but I felt
like my journey with Him was getting old and boring and repetitive and so I was
kind of running away emotionally, from the responsibility of being a Christian,
I was sort of afraid of getting too close to God. I knew this was a problem and
I tried to fight it myself, I tried praying by myself, but not really asking
God for help, I also didn't tell anyone what I was struggling with, I kept it
to myself, just running and running, so when Jesse Willis (The guy preaching)
preached about the past and 'The place of no escape'(The title of his preach) I
knew it was God speaking right into me and that He was doing something inside
of me, I will never be able to explain. When it was the call to respond, I went
up for prayer, because I knew that it was time to let go of whatever was
holding me back from God, it was time to let someone pray for me and time for
me to be free, it was time to change, to finally allow God to change me. That
night I was refreshed with a new desire for God, a new yearning. I was free.
In the late-night worship session, I gave it all to God, I gave all my
praise and He refreshed me and sent His holy spirit. The rest of the week I was
free and filled with a joy I can't explain.
Limitless Festival day 2.
We now had a full day to experience God. The morning worship in the
youth venue was great, now feeling closer to God, I felt my praise was freer as
well, if that makes any sense. Anyway, when we split of to the YA venue, the
preach was spoken by a guy called Mark Ritchie, who by the way, is hilarious, but
that's off topic. Mark Ritchie was speaking on trash talking fear, specifically
fear when it comes to evangelism. My whole life I have struggled with fear, it
is an ongoing war inside of me that God is helping me fight. Mark Ritchie was
basically talking about the fact that we have a burning why inside of us, a
need to do something, a need to bring the broken people to life. He preached on
Mark 2:2-5 about the friends who lowered their paralysed friend through the
roof to get heeled by Jesus. He was basically saying that it was the why
burning in them that gave them the strength to lower their friend through the
roof. We must have a burning why for God and his broken people.
This preach got me thinking about how all my life, I have felt God
calling me to prophesy. He has always given me words or pictures, whether for
me or for someone else. The thing is, every time I could work up enough bravery
or confidence to tell these words or pictures to anyone, I would cry or go
bright red and honestly, I hated it a lot. I disliked sharing things from God,
I hated crying and being nervous and going red, but I also hated myself when I
didn't share something God gave me because I would then feel guilty and
disobedient and it would make me feel like garbage. But, you see, I knew what
God was calling me to do, so I wanted to want what God had for me, but I found
it too hard, so I avoided it as much as possible.
As Mark was preaching about having a burning why, I knew I needed prayer
because I didn't have the burning why for what God is calling me to do, so I
went to get prayer when it was the call to respond, I told the person who
prayed for me what I needed prayer for and the prayer she prayed, the words she
spoke over me to the Lord, were exactly what I needed. She prayed, from what I
remember, something along the lines of "Lord help Phoebe to have a new
burning inside of her for what you have for her, help her to have a burning why
for you, give her words to speak over others and may it be easy, Lord at the
beginning make it easy for her. Refresh her heart for you and her calling and
let her burn brightly for you." The Lord stirred something within me
through this prayer, I felt a fire light within me, I didn't necessarily know
it or acknowledge it to start with, but it was there, the burning for the
calling God had called me to, to prophesy, little did I know God would do
something incredible.
In the evening it wasn't the preach that God used to speak to me. All
the songs so far and all God was doing within me, the kind of theme or words
God was speaking to me were just 'New Life' like, so far it was just God giving
me a new life, a new breath, a new refreshment and way of seeing life. I felt
God was telling me to share this, but I didn't want to, some part of me felt it
wasn't right to share it, even after all that prayer in the morning, I was
still making excuses not to share what God had put on my heart, excuses like,
"God, I think this is just for me" or "There isn't a good
time", "someone is singing", "The mic isn't free"
Etcetera. This of cause, left me feeling terrible, I was praying and praying
that God would help me to get it out, or to take it off my heart, that there
would be another opportunity tomorrow and then I would share it or something
like that. God had a different and better plan than I did though.
When it got to the end of the evening meeting, I didn't feel finished
with God, I didn't feel like God was finished with me, so I made my way into
the late night worship, not really knowing what to say to God, just knowing
that I needed to be with him, so as I entered into the venue of the late night
worship, I found a wall, slid down it, and just started to cry, not sob, but
just cry, tears simply falling from eyes. I stayed there on the floor for a
good half an hour, not really knowing why I was crying to be honest but resting
in God's peace and forgiveness and knowing that the joy would come in the
morning. After I'd had a good cry, I stayed in the evening worship having a
good chat with a friend about life.
Limitless Festival day 3.
Today was filled with praise and thanksgiving. In the morning worship we
were just declaring that we would always sing praise to God, even in the middle
of the mystery. The YA morning seminar was done by Tim Alford, before he started
talking though, we dove into a little more worship. Tim was talking to us about
how we can use social media as a positive thing, and not as something that
makes us compare ourselves or make us feel bad. I honestly, don't feel bad when
I scroll down my social media feeds, and I'd also heard Tim Alford preach about
social media at the Gathering last year, but it was a good reminder of how
social media can be negative and positive. Tim's talk was a reminder of how,
when social media affects us, it can then affect our journey with God, for
example, if we're spending too much time on YouTube or scrolling down
Instagram, then we don't and aren't spending enough time in our bibles getting
to know Jesus. I know I am guilty of spending too much time watching things on
YouTube or Netflix which is one of the reasons why I found myself pretty lost
some of 2018. Since this preach though, I try to be off my phone or at least
off Netflix or YouTube between 10 and 11pm, I am going to change it to earlier
though when I go back to college. Tim Alford is very good at talking about
social media and how we can limit our time to then spend more time with Jesus
or simply taking time doing more of our hobbies. Tim's preach was also good at
advising us on how to be better when posting on social media, so overall it was
a good and fun talk.
This whole night of day 3 was incredible, just everything about it.
First off, the preach was incredible, even though it didn't speak to me in any
big way, it was a great time of God just teaching me and a great time of
learning how to live that little bit better and closer to Jesus. He was
preaching about ego and his title was "The battle for your soul is a
battle for your ego." He was preaching about how we have to develop
and invest in our character in the waiting. One of the things he said was that
'ability can get us through the door, but character keeps us in the room'.
There were so many things in this preach, that stuck out to me, not because of
any major thing I was going through, but simply because they were things I
needed to apply to my life, so another thing he said was that 'passion is
nothing without purpose, purpose guides the passion'. One of his main points
was that we must learn to exercise our courage, we have to face our giants
'scared is what you're feeling, courage is what you're doing'. This preach
spoke to me in so many little and amazing ways, and what’s even greater, is I
went into that meeting thinking, 'Oh I don't have a problem with ego, I don't
think I'll be taking many notes on this', but it then turned out to be the one,
I would say, I learnt the most from and took the most notes on, God always
moves in the most unexpected ways.
Day 3 of late-night worship, for me, was so powerful and so incredible
and honestly, I would say, the best night of them all. It started out with
quite a few people, we were just praising, people encountering God in many
different ways, I, myself, was down on my knees many times, just singing,
praising, asking God for more. It was this night that I felt overcome by peace,
I felt like shouting to the Lord and yet staying still with my mouth shut, all
at the same time. I wanted to stay in the presence of God, bowing down on my
knees and just listening to his voice, but I also wanted to jump up and dance
around the room, even if there was no music, it was an incredible moment with
Jesus.
Later, in the evening, it got so powerful. This guy goes up to the front
and starts talking about Jericho, when the Israelite let out a shout of praise
and the walls came down. Suddenly the whole room starts shouting, we all start
screaming and shouting to the Lord, in the Lord's name we knocked walls down
with a cry and a shout of praise. It was an overwhelmingly mighty moment, and,
incredibly loud, but the power and presence of God that was in that room that
night was so intense.
Now remember that I said in day 2 that I got prayed for so that I would
want to prophesy and not hate it when I did it and that, to start with, it
would be easy, well this night, I saw it in myself and God answered the prayer
that I had been praying over and over in my heart and I managed to go up and
speak in the mic about what God had put on my heart and I didn't cry, I didn't
go bright red, I hardly even let myself get nervous, I just did it, it was
easy. I had basically been singing spontaneously that "Faith as small as a
mustard seed can move mountains" and this then got me thinking that I want
to have more faith than a mustard seed, I want to have enough faith in God that
I would be able to move 12 mountains. The band then started singing "Let
faith arise" and I knew then that I had to share my thoughts, I knew they
were from God, and so I went up grabbed the mic and shared. As I walked back to
my seat, I was so joyful, the Lord gave me a brave, courageous heart, I
couldn't thank the Lord enough. The night carried on for quite some time, but
eventually, we made our way back to the tents, were we then found out that the
main venue where everyone meets in the morning had flooded, so we were a bit
curious about what was going to happen the next morning. It was crazy rains
that night, like I was in the tent talking to my friends and we literally had
to shout to hear each other over the rain on our tents, it was crazy, but I did
eventually get to sleep and it was a pretty good sleep at that.
Limitless Festival day 4.
Now the main venue may have been flooded, but that did not stop us from
meeting together to worship God, the leaders were incredible and set up the
morning worship meeting in the social area. The morning was incredible. You
should probably know that pretty much from the second day we'd had weather
warnings of very strong winds and storms, weather warnings so bad that other
events had cancelled, but limitless festival was stubborn, we chose to not let
the enemy win, the previous night, so many tents leaked badly, meaning that
lots of peoples stuff got sopping wet and they had to sleep in the social area,
my youth group all managed to stay dry, but there were a lot of people with big
puddles in their tents. So, when it came to worship that morning, we worshipped
loud with over 100 voices singing together as one. We sang of a great God that
fights our battles for us and how the enemy had been defeated. There was a
moment where we thought limitless festival was going to have to be cancelled
because of the strong wind warnings, but thanks to everyone's prayers and the
incredible team, everyone got moved to the cow sheds and the social area to
sleep the next night. Basically, the wind warnings were too strong that it was
against health and safety to keep everyone in tents, so we all got separated
into girls in the social area and boys in a big cow shed. Day 4 was a bit of a
crazy one because it basically meant that our morning seminars got moved to
where lunchtime was because everyone had to get packing down their tents and
moving their stuff around the site. For us ladies, because the social area
still had to be used during the afternoon, all the girls of every youth that
came, had to shove their stuff into one corner. For the boys it was easy, the
cow sheds they were sleeping in may have stank, but there was a lot of space,
so much space that it was used for the catering area for people who brought
their own food. As well as having a different time for our seminars, the
weather meant that a lot of the afternoon activities couldn't happen because
some were outside activities, this also meant that most people were in the
social area making it difficult to have inside inflatables on, all this made
the afternoon a little boring, but the day was still good.
Once we finally separated into young adults and youth, we had a woman
called Rachel Gardner come in and preach to us about 'identity' and it was a
good preach. For me it was a lot of just reassurance of what God had taught me
over the last two years. In 2017 I got to a point where I really didn't like my
body, but it quickly past when I started reading my bible more and found my
identity in Christ. So, this preach was sort of a reminder that I can always
rely on God for my future and best life.
Phil Knox came to speak in the evening, he is the guy that spoke on
stereotypes and trash talking the stereotype that young people don't go to
church. As I said at the beginning of my story (part 1) his main points were
telling us to look up, speak up and step up. There were so many things in
this preach that were so enriching. I guess that all the preaches that were
spoken over Limitless Festival were real eye openers for me, it’s like I'd
heard it all before, but never actually listened and told myself that I needed
to apply it to my life. This year at Limitless Festival, all of it has really
stuck, and I feel closer to God and like I'm able to feel him and be with Him
all the time, no matter what I'm doing. Everything that was spoken at limitless
festival was inspiring, encouraging and enlightening, I learned so much.
The last late night worship, there are no words to describe this night,
it was so, beautiful and wonderful and, uh, so empowering, there is no way to
describe it, it was pure worship, the few people in the room singing of how
wonderful and glorious the Lord is. The thing for me that night was just the
utter peace that consumed me, I had hit a point where I was like, "Lord,
what's next? I know there is so much more than this." I kept on saying or
singing over and over, that there is still more, we can still go deeper, there
is still more, Lord you're not finished yet. Because that was the thing, so
much had happened, we had seen so many amazing things happen in this week and
it could feel like we had reached the peak of what God had for us, but we
hadn't, haven't, there is so much love and joy and so many more places to go,
there is deeper water and deeper and better plans that God has that we are
nowhere near, we have, not at all reached, all of what God has for us, so I
kept singing to the Lord that I was not satisfied yet, I need more, I want more
because Lord I know there is more. A peace and joy fell over me, a flame inside
of me that would not be extinguished easily.
The late-night worship went on for so long, way longer than it was
supposed to, there were only about 13 people left in the room as we were
finishing. As they started finishing worship, I stepped to the back of the room
where there were a few people sitting on the sofas chatting quietly or resting,
I decided to sort of rest in the peaceful presence of God, so that's why I
stepped to the back, but that left about five-six people at the front plus the
3 people on band singing praise to God. After worship, the band leader decided
he wanted to pray with the people that were left worshipping. I was going to go
over there and pray with them, but I felt the spirit keeping me at a distance
for a bit, so I sat on a chair in the back, listening to the prayer from a
distance. As they were coming to a finish in prayer though, I felt like I
needed to share what this evening had been for me, so just as someone was
finishing there prophesy over someone, I quietly walked over to the prayer
circle and shared that the 'Lord hasn't finished yet, we may feel like we have
experienced all of Him, but there is so much more of Him that we have not even
began to see.' It's always a great encouragement when someone adds on to what
you have said as well because then you know that it meant something, so one of
the leaders in this prayer circle added onto what I was saying, that he too,
felt similar, that 'this year is the year of revival, that there has been
something happening in the atmosphere this week, in these young hearts, these
young people, that they are going to stir up revival in their schools and homes
and young people in general.' This is exactly how I had been feeling over the
whole of this day, that God is stirring our hearts for the broken, for our non-Christian
friends, for our family members, for our whole schools, that this is a broken
world in need of a God. One of the things that Phil Knox was saying in his
stereotype preach was that we have to trash talk the religion story and start
talking about the relationship story. Having a life with God is not a set of
rules telling you what you can and can't do, telling you what you have to do,
but having a life with God is a relationship, it's knowing that He is always
there, it’s being able to trust Him with literally everything, its having a
love that will love no matter what you have done or will do, it’s having Him
always stretch you and help you to grow, having Him always ready to listen, a
Father with His arms always open, a king and saviour and a new way of life;
Living with God is new life!
Limitless Festival day 5.
Today was a great, but sad day, it was sad because it was the last day,
but that is also what made it special.
Morning worship was back in the main venue because they had managed to
sort it out after it flooded. It was a wonderful time of powerful worship
praising the Almighty before we went to our seminars. James Aladiran was
speaking for our last day, he is an incredibly anointed speaker. He spoke about
spiritual warfare, it was another preach, where it was not anything specific
that spoke to me, but little things he said that I could agree on or know that
I needed to apply to my life, a great preach full of ministry and learning. I
went up on the call to respond because I know that I need to get out there and act,
take hold of the sword, the word of God and use it in my battles. Using the bible
rather than just reading it, is something that I struggle to do, but God is
slowly teaching me how to not only read it but use it and let it teach me and
show me how to live.
The evening was another excellent night of worship with the guy named
Mike Nicholls talking about anxiety. I do sometimes get small anxiety, but I've
never had a major anxiety attack or been majorly anxious. Mike's preach was
more focussed on people who do have anxiety, but it was still great for people
like me who only have a bit of anxiety. I didn't go up for the call to respond,
instead I waved my arms around in worship for all the Lord had done this week.
By the end of the night the whole room was alight with joy jumping around in
worship and raising a hallelujah to the one who saves.
As I said at the beginning, there was no late-night worship on the last
day, so instead I went to the silent disco. My whole youth group went to the
silent disco and so did my friends, it was a load of fun. The theme of the
silent disco was DJ requests, so there were some banger songs and then
occasionally a song I had never heard in my life, but it was exciting and jamming
and a good ol' party to finish off the event.
We slept one more night and left early the next morning.
Limitless Festival was such an indescribable event. I mean, I've tried
to describe how immense it was, but I've hardly captured the half of it. I am
so ready to start back at college. Since being home, I have done something
every day to connect with God, even when I don't feel like it, I will read my
bible or listen to worship music or colour in my devotional or written this,
reflecting on what God has done for me over the years of life or I’ve tried to
do anything to connect with and be with God each day. I am moving forward
finally, and there are so many more storms to come, but with God I know the
seas will come to a still. God is so so good and I pray for everyone that was
at limitless festival this year that they will set their schools
spiritually alight and that we would all bring revival in 2020, starting from
now.
BeeBee
xxx
