Look At My Face - I AM Bovvered

Youth get a very bad press. So many of the stories about young people in the media are very negative. It can be pretty bleak if you don't have Jesus. Yesterday, over 20 young people in the Church got involved in running our Youth Service and showed that not only does Jesus gives you a fresh start but a new way of living as well. Here are a few highlights for me from the morning's meeting:

Banners Becca Taylor and a few of the ENERGY girls had made two outstanding banners (big ones too!). I'd not seen them until yesterday and they blew me away. Well done!

Atmosphere One of my fears was that it would turn into a bit of a 'Let's Be Entertained By The Youth' event but God owned what we did and encouraged the Church through the input from them. The Church was full to bursting and nearly all the chairs had been put out with lots of guests and visitors coming along to enjoy the meeting. At the end, there was a real buzz in the air as people had refreshments and tucked into the huge mountain of homemade cakes and biscuits courtesy of the young people.

Baptisms It is always encouraging to see people choosing to make this public declaration of their faith in Jesus. I loved being a part of this and I congratulate Richard and Debbie!

Contributions The quality of contributions from the young people was extremely high: Russ and Steve did the 'main talk' and they actually began to preach, interact and speak prophetically to the Church rather than simply read out a prepared statement from a sheet. They volunteered to do this talky bit on Tuesday evening because they wanted to stretch their faith a bit and they were extremely well organised in putting it together. We had a run through on Saturday lunchtime and again on Sunday morning before they delivered it. You can download this message now! The Fresh Start Files from Samuel, Hana and Jo were also very well put together and informative. I wanted the Church to get more of a personal take on what we have been doing in ENERGY over the year and Esther, Sarah, Anna and Dan helped do that through their own brief testimonies.

Other Stuff Mike did a great job hosting things. It is not an easy job as you have so much to think about and you feel the pressure! He did so well though and I know he spent a lot of time planning and going through what he needed to say. The Youth Band also helped keep our focus on Jesus and introduced a new song 'Evermore'. We also had a wonderful afternoon of food and fun in the sun courtesy of Dennis and Mary (yes, they even organised the great weather for us!).

Thanks Thanks to all those of you who prayed for us and got involved and supported the Youth Service (especially Neil Taylor who sorted out all the PA stuff, the Two Towers DVD, put up with me harassing him all week with requests to do stuff etc).

Don't believe everything you see or hear in the media; there is a generation of Young People out there who love God, want to serve Him and despite considerable temptations to do otherwise, are committed to follow Jesus, live for eternity and complete what He has called them to do in this dark, dark world.