Taking “center ice” in the Nationwide Arena for the first morning youth worship service of the convention could feel like an opponent lining up against the Columbus Blue Jackets hockey team, who call the space their home.

Sleepless, travel-lagged teenagers without glow-sticks found it difficult to sustain the standard beach balls that bounce through the crowd during most services. Even a brief conga line and energetic step dance during the morning music struggled to rouse the crowd trickling in from the rainy streets of Columbus.

Then, Shane Hipps took the stage.

“I made it my mission in life to become a dancer,” Hipps told the crowd before inviting everybody to stand and learn his patented “Booty-X” dance. “It will change the world.”

Hipps’ moves had more to do with his last name, he said, than with his message, but he won over the crowd before diving into a discussion on ancient languages.

“We’ve lost sight of one of the most powerful and profound truths of the Bible,” Hipps told the assembly.

In Hebrew, the language in which the Old Testament was originally written, the word ruach means both breath and spirit. The same is true for the Greek word pneuma, found in numerous New Testament writings.

As the Holy Spirit was transmitted to the disciples through breath, Hipps encouraged the youth to see every breath as a gift from the Spirit.

“The fullness of God’s power lies in each and every breath we take,” he said.

“If you want to understand the nature of God, understand the nature of the breath you just took.”

Inviting the audience to breathe along with him, Hipps fleshed out this metaphor.

Our breath cannot reject or judge us, he said. Even if we don’t want it to, breath will flood into our bodies and give us life, just like the Holy Spirit.

Breath – which Hipps referred to as a “divine kiss” – is a gift which cannot be earned.

“If you ever wonder where God is,” Hipps concluded, “just breathe deeply.”