Natasha Dinsmore writes: As a young member of Leckpatrick parish, I have noticed that not many young
people attend church. When I came back from Uni at Christmas and Easter I felt
that God was calling me to do something about it. ‘What good is it, my brothers,
if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?..’ James 2:14. I had thought
about running some sort of youth club during the summer to show young people
that Christians can have fun too and to try to get rid of the Christian
stereotype that is attached to Christians, as many young people think being a
Christian is just about rules and that it is boring. So I spoke to some friends
in University and they said they could come over and help with it and so I
prayed about it. I spoke to Reverend Irene Lyttle and she thought it would be a
good idea and that we should definitely do it.
As I was preparing for my trip to Moldova, trying to study for my exams and organise our Mission Week in University, I found it difficult to get much organised for the week in Church. Because of this I had thought that we should cancel it and do it next year instead as we would have more time to organise it. I was worried that it would be a disaster and that no-one would turn up. But I was reminded by a friend that I don’t have control of it, God does and I should just trust Him. So that is what I did. Four of my friends from Liverpool came over and one from Downpatrick, to help with the week. To my disbelief, over 30 young people showed up!! God really is faithful!
We
ran our ‘Events Week’ from Mon 25th July to Thurs 28th
July. During this week we had a morning session and an evening session. The
morning session was a more chilled time where the young people played of the
things we had set up and just chatted and relaxed. Some of the things we had set
up were; two Wiis, dance mats, Football on ps2, Buzz, Jenga and Scrabble as well
as some juice and biscuits! It was good to see the young people enjoying
themselves, even when Josh delivered
short talks on God. It was in the evenings when we held the ‘Events’. We had a
Quiz night, Film night, Games Night and BBQ. We finished most sessions with a
couple of group games, which received good participation. Josh also delivered a
short talk in the evenings and the young people listened well.
To finish the week off, the young people thought it would be a good idea
to end with a water fight after the BBQ!
The week went really well and the young people all enjoyed themselves and the
feedback we got from the young people and their parents was very positive. I
know as a team we all really enjoyed ourselves! It has definitely been
worthwhile, especially when they were asking if we could do it again next year!
