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.
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