WS Chronicle

BY TIMOTHY RAMSEY 

THE CHRONICLE

Connecting with the youth of a congregation can be a daunting task for some churches.  Members of the millennial generation are the future, not only for the country but for places of worship.

The Fresh Fire Worship Center, which held its youth conference last week, July 22-24, has seen this first hand.

This year’s conference theme was Resistance. The church is holding worship services at Waughtown Baptist Church because of its growing number of members. With the rising number of deceased members, Waughtown Baptist’s membership has fallen rapidly in recent years, so they chose to allow Fresh Fire to worship at their location.

Fresh Fire has been worshiping at Waughtown Baptist for about seven months and Pastor Phillip McCloud says he is thankful for the blessing. Seeing first hand what can happen to a church without new and young members, this conference was very important to Pastor McCloud.  To connect with the young members, he brought back Pastor Lathan Wood of It’s a Movement Worship out of Fort Mill, S.C. for a second year in a row.

“I wanted Pastor Wood to come back because of his anointing and his transparency,” said McCloud. “The young people really listen to him because he really puts his story out there.  The anointing he did here tonight impacted so many young people, their lives will be changed for the better and we thank God for his anointing that he brought here tonight to Fresh Fire.”

On Friday night of the conference the praise and worship team kicked the night off with modern Christian music that appealed to the younger generation in attendance. Throughout the night there were multiple gift card giveaways for fast food and clothing stores.

Pastor Wood then took the pulpit and immediately made his presence known. His flare for the dramatic by walking on pews and having the children run around the church and dance all resonated with the young people in the church.

“God gave me the passion and I think he puts a passion inside each person toward a certain demographic,” said Wood.  “All my life I have been in youth ministry, so when God puts something in you, you can’t just walk away from it.”

He stated his passion for the youth is as strong as ever because of the young people he speaks to on college campuses around the Charlotte area.  His message to the youth in attendance was that they have an “assignment on their life.”  He also said the assignment may be a heavy one and there are those who are to “spot” you in the lifting of your assignment.  The phrase “Hurry up and spot me” was uttered multiple times throughout the night to convey the message that you may not be able to carry the weight on your own and be aware you may need help.

Following his message, Pastor Wood began to personally pray with many individuals in the crowd and seemed to pinpoint many issues people were dealing with.

One young lady in attendance stated that he touched her deeply with his words and that she has a lot of thinking to do going forward.

According to pastor McCloud, this is the 10th year of the church and they have held the conference every year.

He feels Waughtown Baptist is the perfect place for Fresh Fire because he knows they are needed in the community.