Be free in Jesus, Baymonte! Our annual Spiritual Emphasis Week for the middle-schoolers took place last week (March 23-27). We had a great time praising the Lord, growing together as a community and experiencing what it means to be “free” in Christ! The theme for the week was “Freedom In Christ”, and the theme verse was: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” (Galatians 5:1a)
Everyday, we enjoyed worship led by musicians from churches all over Santa Cruz county and freedom related topical chapel stories. Our worship leaders – Adrian Moreno and Ryan Jones (from Twin Lakes Church), Cade Gotthardt (from Santa Cruz Bible Church), Ariana Martinez (from Pleasure Point Community Church) and Dave Enns (from Gateway Bible Church) – were awesome! After our chapel time each day, we got together into small groups and explored topics like freedom to be found, freedom to be fulfilled, freedom to forgive, freedom to be a friend and freedom to have a faith that feeds others. It was an especially groundbreaking week because, for the first time ever, the 5th graders joined the middle-schoolers for our chapel and small group times. The 6th-8th graders capped off the week on Friday with our annual Prayer and Praise Day at Mount Hermon’s Redwood Camp. The highlights included playing Capture the Flag, swimming, zip lining, eating pizza, exploring God’s beautiful creation and enjoying fellowship with each other as a school community.
One of Baymonte’s 8th graders summed up our Spiritual Emphasis Week perfectly, “I really feel like my faith was energized with the worship, hearing the chapel stories, talking about Jesus and life situations in our small groups, and having fun on Prayer and Praise Day at Redwood Camp… the week was awesome!”