November - Youth Weekend

For the last few months we've been planning to hold a youth weekend in the church where we would put on a praise night for the youth on the Saturday night and then run the two Sunday services the next day. It finally happened last weekend.

On the Saturday night we held the first "Connect"in the old sanctuary - splitting it in two for a coffee bar and a worship area. Pete C led worship with Connor, Jonny, and Kerrilee playing in the band and I spoke on 1 Timothy 4:12 - letting noone despise us for our youth. We showed our lack of faith by only setting out about 40 chairs, only for a coach from Ballymoney to show up followed by a car-park full of cars! We ended up with over a hundred people turning up!  It was an amazing night and hopefully will lead to a few more.

The Sunday morning service at church started off with Suz doing an amazing job at leading communion and then Pete C and Nicky leading a really relaxed and minimal worship time with just Pete on keys. Joel then got up and preached it! He spoke on "missed potential" and how the global church seems to be missing the mark when it comes to how to 'do' christianity. The service was ended with a call to prayer in the back room for anyone who wanted to make a fresh commitment to following God.

The Sunday evening service had Pete C preaching on love. Comparing the love God shows us to the love that we tend to fail to show the world. Even with his proper panic session beforehand he was amazing and a natural! Kerrilee and her band, Jonny H (drums), Nathan H (bass), Adam M (acoustic), and Michael M (lead) led the worship afterwards. They were incredible and need to be used more often!

All in all the weekend was amazing and showed the potential within the youth in the church to arrange, organise and staff a weekend of worship and teaching to the glory of God. Hopefully we set an example, and it wont be the last. 

 

d

October - Ganaway

In October there was the weekend away at Ganaway. Nothing was really planned, just time to chill, have a bit of craic , play pool and eat free chinese. Pete C led worship on the Friday night and Pastor Brian led a communion service on the Sunday morning. 

 

On the Saturday morning most people had a blast on the ropes to varying degrees of success. then in the afternoon some did archery and the rest went on the climbing wall. There's plenty of photos on the facebook page (you need to become a member to see them though).

d

September - IceBowl and Pizza Hut

In September we had the ultimate Church youth group night out by heading to the mighty Ice Bowl (Speed skaters only on the ice") and then to pizza hut for food.

Jeanette had some dodgy vouchers from the internet to get us money off but they wouldn't accept them so some Del-Boy did a bit of negotiating and got us all 25% off anyway! 

d

A long time coming...

Seems to be that every post here starts with "sorry for the delay in posts, but..." so I'll not bother. 

Since the last post we've had a few things happen;

 - an old school Sunday school trip style night out at the mighty Ice Bowl and Pizza Hut.

 - a weekend away to Ganaway for a bit of craic.

 - a new Facebook group set up to let us get in contact with everyone at once. 

 - and a youth weekend in the church with the youth taking the two Sunday services. 

I'll throw up a few posts with photos for each one later.

d

Coffee night this Sat

As announced on Sunday at church - there's a coffee night this Saturday night being held in Eat etc. - the new coffee shop on the old movies and mochas site. 

We don't have the place booked to ourselves, but the owner has told me that the last few Saturdays there's been noone there after about 7.30 - so it should be pretty much just us. There wont be anyone playing - they couldn't get the license in time, but have applied for it so that we can have an open mic in the next few months if we want. 

We'll hopefully be able to get a chat about the residential - see what you all want to do and tak about cost etc!

d

Also - don't forget Ryans's coffee morning in his house on Sat morning to raise money for going to Kenya.  

July Event?

Apologies for the lack of posts here lately, and the lack of any events in July!

We had a meeting on Monday night and have came up with a program for the next six months or so - these will be taken to the church for approval on some of them then we can start announcing them here!

First up is an open mic night on Sat Aug 16th. Venue is still to be confirmed, although currently chatting with the owner of an amazing place that would be perfect for it - hopefully get that sorted soon - if it works out it would be really good!

Anyone interested in doing something at the open mic, be it acoustic covers, originals, spoken word, or even interpretive dance (think Kerilee has already claimed that one!) let me know at some stage.

Take it easy, hopefully have more updates soon.

d

18-30s event - Glenmachan

On 21st June there will be an event held in the church for 18-30s. Guest speaker will be Jay Marotta from Newtownards Church of God, although Ive no idea what the topic will be!

We're trying to get invites out to all local churchs to send people up so bring anybody who you can convince to come!

I came on holiday a week ago and all the above was true when I left - if Jeanette has changed her plans then my apologies - go with what she says!

d

Action Night - Wed 4th June

The church is running another action night on Wed 4th June - this time on the title "dating and physical attraction". The last few have been really good, and although not exclusively for 18-30s (age group is 16+) I think it'll be particularly good for our age group. 

Four weeks notice gives plenty of time to research the topic and have plenty to talk about!

d

Barbeque - Sat night

Barbeque this Saturday night at 8 on the church grounds. Hoping for good weather so we can get the tables and chairs outside on the grass - pray hard! Bring people (as long as they're over 18 - and meat eaters!)

d

Comments

I've just noticed that comments had been disabled on all posts unless you were registered with blogspot. That's changed now so anyone can comment on any post. Feel free to - just remember to sign them.

d

Blog Update

We think it would be a good idea to keep this blog solely for promoting any events arranged for re:late and for posting reviews after events. As a result we've decided to take any topical posts off and post them elsewhere. Anyone who had offered to write articles for me to go on the blog these will also be posted on a new blog. Thanks a lot, and keep checking back here for news on re:late.

d

More pictures from Saturday

Launch Night

Well, regardless of what anyone else thinks, I had a class night last night! We finally got something going, and as an opening night I think it was a success. The place seemed to fill up quite steadily from about 8.15 or so, and developed quite a chilled out atmosphere where people seemed to relax and enjoy themselves (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about that!)

Music was sorted courtesy of Karen Teeney and Leah McFall who were absolutely amazing. Please click on their links to go to their respective pages and give them some support - can't stress enough how good they were!

From talking to people afterwards you seemed to enjoy yourselves and have a good night. We really need people to be making suggestions about what you want to do. Some people gave comments on the night - if you didn't please speak to someone in church or post a comment on this. We need ideas!

Pictures below taken by Sam, for more visit the re: late flickr page.

Cafe Culture - TONIGHT!

Tonight: 8pm - 10pm.

We expect to see you there!

New name required!

The working title of "re: late" may or may not be kept in the long term. We're not the most creative so any suggestions for a new name are more than welcome!

Sat 3rd - Cafe Culture

As you're aware the first event for re: late is this Sat night at Cafe Culture on the Belmont Road (about 5 doors up from Movies and Mochas). We have the place to ourselves from 8-10 and can pretty much do whatever we want. The place will be staffed as usual and open for coffee and buns etc. As far as I'm aware the kitchen wont be open for hot food. 

Pete has booked Karen Teeney to come and play so should be a pretty chilled out atmosphere. We've nothing at all planned to happen on this night, its really just to come and chill out with each other over coffee. And the novelty of having the place to ourselves is pretty cool!

 

Karen Teeney: Let Go

As we said in church on Sunday, absolutely no idea what will be happening next so bring some ideas.

d

what is re: late?

If you're taking the time to read this then you probably already have as complete an idea of what this concept of "re: late" is as we do! In all honesty this has come out of recognising a need within church for something for those of us in the 18-30 age group - without knowing exactly how to meet that need!

Its fairly clear that the people in church who 5 - 10 years ago were the youth, going to the after meetings every Sunday night, and hanging out on weekends - going to each others parties etc. have kind of grown apart. There no longer the same friendships that there once were and there's probably people that you've known all your life in church and probably haven't even said hello to them on a Sunday morning since Christmas!

Equally important to us is the ability to provide something that unsaved partners or friends can come to, and be introduced to people in the church their own age without having to overcome the barrier of getting them to a church service. Where they can become part of the social group within the church without feeling pressurised to come to services. 

We see re: late as something that can hopefully build up relationships within this age group in church, and encourage fellowship with one another - pushing one another forward in our relationships with God and in service both within and outside the church. 

d