At the time of this writing, Dnow weekend has come and passed. For this month’s article, I wanted to share the details for our weekend and give you a glimpse as to what the weekend looks like.
Dnow is basically a retreat weekend that stays here in Evansville and students sleep at host homes Friday night and Saturday night. Over the weekend, there are four sessions where we played group games, worshipped together, and heard the preaching of the Word. This year, I brought back a good friend of mine from college to preach and to challenge the students. And I’m happy to say my good friend Matt did a fantastic job. The students also love him; this would be their second time listening to him as I have previously brought him to our spring retreat in 2024. Something about Matt being about 6’9”, funny, and down to earth really makes the students gravitate towards him. He definitely filled the role as guest speaker for the weekend very well.
Over Dnow weekend, I wanted to challenge the students to think about what they reflect in their lives. I wanted them to take a look inwardly and see if they would notice how they have been letting outside elements, media, culture, etc. shape their lives. I created a graphic that displayed three mirrors. The mirror on the left was shattered – this symbolized do you look in the mirror and are not happy with what you see? The mirror in the middle displayed a cross – this symbolized do you see Christ in your reflection and in your life? And the mirror on the right was foggy – this symbolized are you not sure or don’t know what to do when you see your reflection? As you can tell, I really wanted the students to think about themselves and get a fresh breath of air from the Lord’s Word. Speaker Matt and I sat down for several weeks to iron out four sermons that would ask the students these questions earlier and ground them in true biblical teaching. Because at the end of all this, I really desired for the Lord to begin a work in each student’s lives where He would purify their thoughts, actions, and steps moving forward and they would be sculpted into an image that looks more like His Son.
And that was our theme for the weekend! Beside the teaching and worship times we had, we also played our annual game of Gotcha (basically a stealth tag-style elimination game with 55 people) at the north campus, enjoyed some great food from a local business and a humble life group here at Oakhill, and spent a few hours on Saturday at Urban Air where the students got to jump, climb, run through obstacle courses, and fight with padded pugil sticks on a single beam over a drop into foam cubes. That last one might’ve been my favorite as I was undefeated for several fights and even won against Phil Wiandt, although I might’ve celebrated a little too hard and hit him in the face with the pugil stick (my bad, Phil).
I’m incredibly thankful for the 55 students that signed up and the nearly 16 adult leaders that either helped with the student programming or helped make sure our weekend could happen. Thank you again for any prayers and praise God for the work He did this weekend!
