Snowball 2016

It's actually really hard to go to sleep at a regular time when for the past two nights you've been dancing around a worship center with 188 other girls. Laying in my bed just doesn't really sound appealing in comparison despite my mere 4 hours of sleep last night.

But that's the beauty of girls' retreats, specifically Snowball. 

This year, we went to Camp Widjiwagan, and talked about sisterhood and just the community that exists within the body of Christ.

A pretty universal thing I've found in churches everywhere is that there is drama and conflict in youth groups. It's really beyond me why this happens, and it makes me really upset, but that's a conversation for another time.

But we talked about it this weekend, and I really feel that it made a difference.

There are so many directions to go with the vague topic of community in Christ, and we went in all of them. We talked about how we are capable of loving others (by loving God and loving yourself), how to love yourself and begin to see yourself how God sees you, how relationships struggle but overcome those challenges, how each girl brings something unique to the body of Christ. 

And through peer groups, fellowships, small groups, group worship, and free time, we learned all of it.

To me, the coolest things we did were DISC placement and spiritual gift tests. They sound ultra lame, but I promise they're really cool. 

For the DISC profiles, there were 15ish sets of 4 words that we had to rank ourselves 1-4. For example, the four words are "humble," "enthusiastic," "results oriented," and "organized." I would rank them 2, 4, 3, 1. After doing all of them, you add up your points accordingly, and you're given 4 categories with 4 scores. The 2 categories with the highest points are your 2 strength categories. Either D, I, S, or C, standing for driver, influencer, stabilizer, and critical thinker. 

When you take this test, you'll then be given descriptors and tendencies for your categories and find yourself going "I didn't even realize..." It's super cool, and unlike the personality tests you take in magazines, this one is applicable.

The categories that are diagonal are often the ones that are find conflict between them the most, while the ones touching horizontally or vertically typically work well together.

Check out DISC's website for more information and look over some descriptions of each and see where you and your best friend fall. Are yall diagonal or horizonal/vertical? That could explain some things.

We also took spiritual gift tests, which I love. I love finding out how I best serve the Kingdom and where I really thrive.

And in addition to taking the tests, we talked about what they mean for us in daily life. Romans 12 gives example that whatever your gift is, use it. Don't hide it. Do what God made you to do despite if it's cool or not. 

Out of all 19 spiritual gifts in the bible, my highest gift was administration. Shocker. 

If we're being real, I struggle with this being my gift. I'm good at planning and organizing and logically executing, but it's not cool to me. I'm not on stage praying out loud in front of the entire youth group. I'm not walking up to strangers in Target talking about how there is a plan for them. I'm filing papers in folders and making spreadsheets for budgets and rooming assignments for a retreat. There's nothing glamorous about that to me. Until this weekend, I honestly kind of shook it off and gave myself 0 credit for being good at being organized because clutter and chaos is glamorized in our world.

But God gave me the gift of administration for a reason (1 Corinthians 12:18) and I have no reason to not totally own it.

Really, you can't love others like Jesus calls us to without loving yourself (Mark 12:30) . You have to understand who you are, why you're that way, and what that means before you can love others.

Who are you?

stay warm!
xo,
Lauren