KNOXVILLE, TN (July 13, 2009) – Erwin Raphael McManus exhorted 5,500 teenagers attending CHIC2009 on Sunday night to be courageous enough to let God “undo their lives” so they can be free to live the lives he has dreamed for them.
McManus, an award-winning author, filmmaker, and speaker, drew from Acts 7:20 – “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child” – during his address to the students who gathered in Thompson-Boling Arena. He emphasized that not a single person in the arena was born ordinary.
Rather, each of the students was a unique dream in the mind of God before any of them ever took their first breath, McManus said. “But the tragedy is that if there has never been one ordinary human being born, there are a whole lot of us who have died living, so somewhere between our first breath and our last breath we lose that extraordinary essence of our dream.”
McManus said too many of the students had either given up on their dreams or were living dreams that were far too small. “I wonder tonight if your dream became your life, would the world become a better place?’
He acknowledged that many of them are struggling just to make it through the day. “The problem is that some of you have already experienced so much disappointment and so much pain and so much failure and are filled with so much fear and doubt and uncertainty that you wonder how in the world God could ever do something extraordinary through you,” McManus said.
But he recounted that Moses had been a child who had suffered much in his life before leading the Exodus. “I like Moses’ story because it reminds me that there is hope for all of us.
“Maybe what needs to happen tonight is you need to become undone,” McManus said, explaining that trusting God to help them re-image their lives would take faith and courage.
Otherwise they might as well be sleepwalking through their lives. “Don’t sleep through your dream!” McManus said.
Earlier in the evening, the three students who participated in a trip to Thailand reported via satellite about the mission work being done in that country. The students are reporting nightly as a way of preparing the students in Knoxville for the offering that will be taken to benefit sustainable projects in Thailand.
North Park University Campus Pastor Judy Peterson told the gathering the live reports also serve as a reminder that “we cannot just talk about the world for one night.”
Students were allowed into the arena earlier than usual due to a torrential rain that was accompanied by thunder and lightening. Earlier in the day, students arrived and participated in a variety of activities.
Information and photos of CHIC are being regularly updated on the event website.
