This last term has been a really encouraging one. We ran our Youth Alpha course leading up to the confirmation service. For anyone unaware of what the Youth Alpha course is, it is a ten-week course where each week we look at one of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity. This helps young people decide what they believe and leads to a deeper understanding of their faith.
Each week there is a 20-minute video with three questions to look at throughout. The first question is always an icebreaker question, for example: ‘If you had 24 hours to do anything you wanted, what would you do?’ This leads to some great ideas and the young people are able to relax and have a laugh. After that, the questions would be related to the topic. The discussions we had were great and the young people felt free to ask any questions they had.
We always had pizza cooked by Caroline (a big thank you to her) and cake made by Karen Cox-O’rouke (a big thank you to her as well), which, as I’m sure you can guess, the young people enjoyed a lot. One very special day was our Holy Spirit day. I often find we teach about God and Jesus a lot but don’t touch on the Holy Spirit much at all. So to have a day dedicated to learning about him is really important. During this day we spent time waiting on the Spirit and some of our leaders had words for our young people as well and seeing what the Spirit was doing in them as we prayed for them. It was a wonderful day.
At the beginning and the end of the course we were shown this picture and asked the accompanying question: If this pool represents a relationship with God, which character do you identify with most?
Image © Alpha, used with permission.
It was interesting to see how the answers had changed by the end. I want to encourage you to think about this question yourself.
It was lovely to see some our young people get confirmed a few weeks ago. It has been a privilege to lead them in the Youth Alpha course and see them step up and make that public commitment that they believe in and love God.
Nathan Bendell, Youth Minister
