Even on your worst days, you serve a God who is crazy about you.
“Even on your worst days, God is crazy about you,” Josh White boldly reminded students from the stage in the Rubin Arena during Christival, a three-day chapel event hosted by PBA’s spiritual development team.
Christival, a PBA tradition of praise and worship, began in the 1980s and has since become PBA’s longest standing conference. This year’s event was held in the Rubin Arena where hundreds of students gathered to worship. Josh White, a Christian recording artist and lead pastor of Door of Hope Church based out of Portland, Oregon, discussed the paradoxes of a Christ-centered community and how to have joy with Jesus at the center of your heart. He also stressed that openness and confession about sin is needed in a Christian community.
Harborside Music, a worship band from Harborside Christian Church in Safety Harbor, Florida, took the stage at this year’s Christival. With a mission to impart peace in a shifting world and share love that awakens the souls of listeners, they sang with passion. Several members of the group are PBA alumni. They played classics like “I Trust God” and even taught students their original song, “Make Way.”
White offered an enlightening and raw view of how we should worship as a Christian community and overcome the trials in our lives, whether that be our own sin or other trials we face. Sharing his story of enduring trial during the passing of his mother-in-law, White explained that Christians can overcome those types of difficulties by putting their faith in God.
“I was really encouraged by the message, because it was so amazing to see someone who is going through a trial, yet has so much joy, which only comes from the Lord,” PBA student Amalia Rimes shared. “The worship part of it was a sweet reminder of what heaven may look like someday with so many people raising their hands together. That was one of my favorite parts.”
Each night, White encouraged students to remember that even on their worst days, God is crazy about them. That uplifting energy carried over into every Christival session, especially during the annual free T-shirt toss. The shirts included PBA’s verse for the year, Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” The final Wednesday night of Christival closed with students jumping, clapping, dancing, and singing along to Harborside Music’s “I Trust God.”
“I think Christival is a great tradition at PBA, and I have gone all three years I’ve been here,” Alyssa McKnight, a junior at PBA, expressed. “This year’s Christival was moving with amazing sermons and worship.”
Watch the highlights on YouTube.
