Pitch Your Tent

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In just over 2 months time, LLYFC will be taking a group of young people down to the Staffordshire Showgrounds in Stafford for Soul Survivor; an annual Christian Summer Camp for Young People.

It’s a great time, and lots of fun.

Every single one of the young people we’ve taken down to Soul Survivor have come away from the week more enthused about God, and wanting to return the following year.

This despite the weather being so inclement last year that we started rewording the chorus of Michael W Smith’s ‘Let it Rain‘, singing instead ‘stop the rain, stop the rain, please send it away down to Devon.’

Sleeping in tents that at times leaked!

But we pitched our tents in that field in the middle of England because we wanted to meet with God and with other believers.  We wanted fellowship with our Creator and each other more than the minor discomfort brought about by the foibles of camping.

We were willing to put behind us the permanence and familiarity of our homes and all that we were used to, in order to meet with God.

Not that we cannot or could not meet with God right where we are, but that it showed an attitude of heart that says ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to meet with Jesus’.

Like the Israelites in the desert we pitch our tents where God’s presence is;  following the cloudy pillar by day and the fiery pillar by night.

“36 In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; 37 but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out – until the day it lifted. 38 So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels.” Exodus 40:36-38

Thinking about it though, in the same way that we pitched our tents in Soul Survivor, and the Israelites did in the desert, the apostle John at the start of his Gospel says: “14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14

The word translated ‘made his dwelling’ in the original Greek is σκηνόω (skēnoō), which means ‘to pitch tent, to tabernacle, to dwell‘.

Jesus came and pitched his tent (his body), on earth because He wanted to be with us. He (our Creator) was looking for fellowship with His creation. It brings to mind the Bible passage: “Come near to God and he will come near to you” James 4:8 (1).

There’s a desire in God’s heart to be with His people, and equally, His people want to be with Him.

So roll on Soul Survivor 2016!

But in the meantime, and indeed at all times let’s pitch our tents where God is leading us.

Could You Sponsor A Tent?

On a practical note. As I mentioned earlier, some of our tents were decidedly leaky, and in-between Soul Survivor 2015 and now, our largest tent has been broken, so we are looking at purchasing some new tents for this coming summer. Ideally a handful, up to 6, smaller 3 man tents would be perfect for Soul Survivor. We want these to be decent quality, so that they will last for many wet and wonderful years to come!

If anyone out there reading this post would love to sponsor a tent or more for our next trip to Soul Survivor, that would be amazing. Please do contact us and let us know.

Thank you.

‘Sola’ Powered!

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Now by the title, despite the picture above, I don’t really mean ‘solar powered’ like the pictured superhero; but rather ‘sola powered’, referring to the five solas of the Protestant Reformation.

‘What are the five solas?’ – I hear you say.

The 5 solas, or solae of the Protestant Reformation are a foundational set of Biblical principles held by theologians and churchmen to be central to the doctrine of salvation as taught by the Western Protestant church. “Sola” is Latin meaning “alone” or “only” and the corresponding 5 ‘solas’ are:

  • Sola Fide, by faith alone.
  • Sola Scriptura, by Scripture alone.
  • Solus Christus, through Christ alone.
  • Sola Gratia, by grace alone.
  • Soli Deo Gloria, glory to God alone.

Although they were often used by Reformers in the 16th century in their writings and speech, such as when Philip Melanchthon wrote in 1554 “sola gratia justificamus et sola fide justificamur“(“only by grace do we justify and only by faith are we justified”), they were never formally compiled or grouped together until the 20th century. A great example of this compiling of the ‘solas’ is in The Cambridge Declaration of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals (1996).

Recently at ‘Redefine’, our Sunday evening youth Bible Study, we had a look at the 5 ‘Solas’ as part of an evening themed around the idea of survival and what do we need as essential for survival; a question often posed and answered in demonstration by people such as Bear Grylls.

It was a fun night, and we really wanted to see the young people grapple with what the essentials of the Christian faith are, hence a look at the ‘solas’.

They are a great way of summing up essentials in the Christian faith.

Faith alone (Sola Fide): Justification: being put right with God is received by faith alone, without any need for good works. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

Scripture alone (Sola Scriptura): The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behaviour must be measured. The Bible can and is to be interpreted through itself, with one area of Scripture being useful for interpreting others. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Christ alone (Solus Christus): Jesus Christ is the only mediator between God and man, and there is salvation through no other. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father. (Hebrew 10:12-14)

Grace alone (Sola Gratia): Salvation comes to us by divine grace alone, not as the results of anything we have earned or merit.  It is given by “unmerited favour”. This means that salvation is an unearned gift from God for Jesus’ sake.

Glory to God alone (Soli Deo Gloria):  All glory is to be due to God alone, since salvation is God’s gift and work. Our lives as a response of God’s great gift of making us right with himself through the death of His Son Jesus, is to live lives that bring glory to Him (1 Cor 10:31).

That is the 5 solas very briefly summed up, I must say.

The reason I tilted this post ‘sola powered’ and put the picture of ‘Superman’ at the top was because it was catchy, but also to get us thinking of the parallels the metaphor presents.

‘Superman’ gets his great strength and abilities from how his Kryptonian physiology metabolises solar energy – he is quite literally ‘solar powered’.  As Christians, we get our strength, encouragement, gifts, in fact, all we need for life and godliness from or because of Jesus (Phil 4:13, 2 Thess 2:16, Eph 4:7, 2 Pet 1:3). Jesus is God’s great gift to all mankind. Jesus is our source. He is our sole provider; to quote the Parachute Band’s song ‘Amazing‘. We are ‘sola powered’, referring to the 5 ‘solas’ as explained briefly above. Our strength and provision comes from God, and God alone.

We are not like Superman empowered by the sun, but are rather empowered by the Son.

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” Heb 1:3.

“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” 2 Cor 3:18.

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Col 1:15-20

Let us thank God for sending His Son Jesus.

Let us thank God for giving us His precious Word.

Let us trust in and rely on Christ’s strength in and through our lives.

Let us live lives that bring glory to God alone, responding in faith to His great grace towards and for us.

Tim’s Five Year Anniversary Note

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Five years ago I started at Llandudno Youth For Christ.

These five years have not only been an absolute pleasure and grand adventure – but they also mark the longest I have worked anywhere (which I think bodes well!).

Together – over the past five years – we have spoken to thousands of young people about Jesus. Together, we’ve seen dozens of young people commit and recommit to following Him. Together, we have consistently run weekly projects, annual events and developed a ministry that effectively reaches out into many corners of Llandudno.

This adventure has been worth every moment.

The highlights for me will always be the people. I’ve made lasting friendships and developed an amazing team of front-line youth workers. I’ve been able to speak into the lives of many local young people. I’ve been well looked after, mentored and supported by the entire church community, and I’ve found something of a home in this quiet (but never boring) part of the world.

From London to Llandudno

12715499_10153975531037952_762494985466792296_nMy wife, Katie and I moved here in 2011 from London, after experiencing a somewhat chaotic and very busy city life working for a large South London church. After spending seven years in various parts of the capitol, moving to North Wales was absolutely a culture shock!

In London, the streets start come alive at 7pm, in Llandudno, the streets are quite suddenly empty at 7pm. The serenity, however, was a much welcome reprise from the ongoing hustle and bustle of the city. We quickly got stuck into the local culture and soaked up the incredibly scenery and the outdoor world – hiking in Snowdonia every week.

Then and Now

Llandudno is alive with both spiritually curious and supernaturally aware young people. When I first arrived, I explained in our newsletter that it felt like ‘Aslan was on the move’, and we are now seeing the fruit of that.12400446_10153911789247952_8565866727020926367_n

There was a small cluster of young people spread around several churches, now we have a vibrant weekly community that gathers dozens of young Christians from across the region. There was some polite interest in a weekly lunchtime group at Ysgol John Bright, now we have two weekly meetings, regularly teach and take assemblies, and run several large events at the same school.

What About Reverb?

10535085_752656041493234_5364843689060054505_oReverb Youth Bar has been through many transformations during the past five years. When we first arrived, it was a great coffee-shop centre with a small core of young people who loved it. We made some changes to attract new people, but quickly attracted too many. As great as large numbers can sound, 80+ young people on a Friday night, crammed into a little coffee shop on the high street does not make for good ministry!

We made some successful changes to steady it out – and wonderfully saw through a generation of young people from first connection, to leaving for college. This was a magical time!

Once this season was over we made the much anticipated move to a larger centre with more facilities. This demonstrated better stewardship of our resources and a much greater potential for our future.

So What Next?

This new season is all about making new relationships with young people that we haven’t managed to connect with yet, particular younger age groups. You may have heard of our Reach Campaign? We want to:

•    We want to reach further to connect with every young person at Ysgol John Bright.
•    We want to reach further to ensure that no young Christian feels isolated or alone.
•    We want to reach further to provide a weekly space for any young seeker to hear and respond to Jesus.
•    We want to reach further to develop and train a whole generation of young Welsh leaders.
•    We want to reach further and call every church in this area to pray regularly for the young people in the community around us.

How can you help us do this?

It always comes down to the same three things; we need prayer, people and provisions.

Pray for us! Come to our monthly prayer meetings, stick our pictures up on the fridge and give us to God every day.

Volunteer with us! Everything from front-line youth work, to admin, to serving in the cafe, to helping us fill in grant bids, to being a YFC champion in your local church.

Give to the work we’re doing. If ten people in ten churches gave just £10 a month we would be able to settle into our projects with security and really push forward in the work that we do.

Thank You!

Thank you for sharing this journey with me! Please consider how else you could be involved. We believe this is God’s mission, and – with His help – we will take the good news of Jesus Christ relevantly to every young person in Llandudno.

Tim

Redefine Easter Feast

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Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Psalm 34:8

At the end of the Easter Break we had a special night at Redefine, where we laid out a feast for all the young people to enjoy. It truly was epic, and like Jesus feeding the 5,000, we had baskets of food left over… At least until the following week when all the remaining crisps and snacks were gleefully gobbled up as we watched the ‘Minions’ movie at a Reverb night.

I can definitely say that here at LLYFC we don’t know how to do minuscule and small scale when it comes to celebration.  We always enjoy celebrations on a grand scale with generous amounts of food, fun & fellowship.

This night was no different.

To accompany the actual feasting on food, we looked at the metaphor of ‘feasting’ on God’s Word: the Bible.

This imagery of God’s Word being like food is found in the Bible; with the idea of it being life giving, nourishing, tasty and even sometimes a bit difficult to digest, but worth it in the end (makes me think of prunes & celery for some reason). “…man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Deut 8:3. “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Psalm 119:103.  “Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me once more: ‘Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.’ So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, ‘Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but “in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.” I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour.” Rev 1o:8-10.

It was an evening to remember, and really reflected God’s generosity and the extravagance of His love for us.

It left us with a lot of food for thought and we are definitely looking forward to the next Smorgasbord!

Spark On The Road: Holyhead

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For some background, Spark was the brainchild of one young person who bought a team together of other young people to run an event to support even more young people across North Wales!12961310_1029710860456389_5891959997538634512_o

As LLYFC, we hold the team accountable and shepherd these events through from start to finish. So far we’ve run two: the first at the end of last Summer with Rob Beamish coming to speak, and the second at Christmas with a dinner. Both have been amazing events!

12957554_1029710980456377_2801422948270159878_oThis weekend we held our first ‘Spark on the road’ event at Elim Church in Holyhead. We had just under 50 young people and youth leaders show up from Bangor, Holyhead, Llandudno, Llanfairfechin and Old Colwyn.

The evening included games, worship, two fantastic testimonies by Redefiners (Fu & Lauren), Grill A Christian/Gospel talk with text in questions (with Tim) and a great meal to end.

The night was a tremendous success! It was amazing seeing youth groups mix and new friendships being12998440_1029710867123055_1622656958474303371_o forged. It was a great night for non Christians to watch their peers worshiping God – and they responded really well to the ‘grill a Christian’ session. The team of young people running it are really coming into their own and are maturing very quickly!

We’re excited to see this organically grow, excited to see Christians networking, and excited to see people hearing the Gospel for the first time – bring on the next!

Nerf Night

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We had a terrific night at Redefine last Sunday running a ‘Nerf War.’ Lots of different games, teams, rounds, scores and general mayhem! We we’re also able to run a short ‘leaders trial’ beforehand and work an effective Gospel message into the evening.

Both Dewi and Chloe (volunteers) led teams in ‘team deathmatch’ and ‘capture the flag’ scenarios (2 to 1 Dewi!). Then we tried to survive a ‘zombie apocalypse’ and ended with a ‘last person standing’ elimination round.

Everyone massively enjoyed it (huge understatement – you should have seen Facebook afterward!) and it was easily one of – if not the – best social we have ever run. Well worth it!

Soul Survivor 2015

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We all survived ‘Soul Survivor’!!!!!!

Seriously though, it did rain a lot, although not of Biblical proportions as we saw in December in the UK, but it was a great time for everyone who attended; wet, but wonderful.

Lots of friendships were made, and a lot of fun was had, despite the weather.

Soul Survivor, is a great event for our young people. There are insightful and impactful talks, fun activities throughout the day, great resources, powerful worship and lifelong memories to be made.

Our First SPARK Conference!

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‘For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.’ 2 Timothy 1:6

Spark North Wales came out of the heart of the young people that attend our weekly Sunday night Bible study: ‘Redefine’. They wanted to organise an event for Christian young people in the North Wales area that would encourage and empower them to share their faith. Out of that desire ‘Spark’ was born.

It was great to see the young people meeting together regularly to plan this event and pray together for it. Everything from contacting speakers for the conference to designing the promotional artwork and flyers was done by the young people (with some help and support from LLYFC team members).

It was really well attended, with young people coming from as far afield as Penmaenmawr and Holyhead.

Many connections were made, and friendships built that will continue to be grown and developed, as was the case when at the end of December, the Redefiners organized a Christmas ‘Spark’ mini-event. This like its big brother was a great success, and a lot of fun was had.

Through events such as these, the young Christians in the area are being strengthened and encouraged in their faith, and are also developing their God given gifts and talents to serve each other and spread God’s message of grace and forgiveness to their communities. The Kingdom at work to see lives impacted and eternities changed.

But don’t just take our word for it; here’s some responses by the young people who attended these events:”It was AWESOME. All of us from Holyhead thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you” Brooke (Holyhead.)

More Spark events are planned for 2016; please check out Spark’s Facebook or Twitter account for more information.

Highlights & Roundup from 2015

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2015 was definitely a year of change and transition. The past year reminds me of what John 3:8 where when talking about the Holy Spirit, Jesus says “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Jesus paints a picture of God’s Spirit at work in believers being active and moving; no stagnation, no doldrums; but a vibrancy and life with an exhilarating unpredictability. It’s great how God keeps us on our toes, following Him in faith and expectation as we adventure with Him.

The past year has been full of adventure. We started with a large group of our volunteers attending the YFC National Conference, where they were blown away by the powerful and impassioned teaching of Wes Stafford (former direction of Compassion). They returned from the conference full of vision and ideas fro the year ahead.

Another great RE Day Conference over the Easter period was held with Ysgol John Bright, and many young people were given opportunity to think more deeply about the Easter story.

The hunt for a new place to make our home was started in earnest in the spring: it was time for us to pack our tents and follow God’s lead to where He wanted us to go.

Talking of tents and camping, our annual trip to Soul Survivor was lots of fun, with great fellowship amongst the young people who attended, despite the typical British Summertime weather. It’s amazing how many people can crowd into a small gazebo to huddle away from the wind and rain over a nice pot of spaghetti or whilst making toasted marshmallow smores.

A brave supporter of the work of LLYFC raised money for the work we do by shaving all of her hair off, and getting sponsorship for doing this amazing deed of selflessness (If you have any ‘hair-brained’ ideas to help us raise funds please don’t hesitate to get in touch)

Then it was full tilt into our premises move in July and August, with our last day in our Madoc Street premises being August 31st. So many memories to cherish and take with us.

Even before we had fully settled into Ty Llywelyn in September we held our first conference there on August 29th called Spark. This was organized (with a little help) by the young people, for the young people.

All of our regular events went from strength to strength, and we had a great Christmas period exploring the message of the Nativity, and finished off our Christmas program with a great Christmas buffet for all the young people.

2016 here we come.

 

Our Move To Ty Llywelyn and New Website!

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Well, we have moved! Yay! We have been in Ty Llywelyn Community Centre; our new home; for the past couple of month and we are loving it.

Thank you to everyone who helped with the move; from those who packed and carried boxes to those who faithfully prayed for us during our period of transition. We couldn’t have done it without you.

All of the events we regularly held in our Madoc Street premises have settled well into the facilities here; from our Thursday evening drop-in ‘Reverb’, to our Sunday evening Bible Study ‘Redefine’.

We are holding our ‘Monthly Meet’, training night here too, and have even run 2 fantastic youth conferences under the banner ‘Spark’, which were great successes: more on that to be read on p?.

Please come and visit us at our new abode; our administrator Todd can be found beavering away in our new offices every Monday and Friday between 9am and 5pm.

Our new contact details are: Llandudno Youth for Christ, c/o Ty Llywelyn Community Centre, Ffordd Yr Orsedd, Llandudno, LL30 1LA. email: llandudnoyfc@gmail.com. Tel: 07517 429 763. We also have a new website www.llandudnoyfc.com.

We hope you enjoy the rest of our Blog entries, and look forward to hearing from you.