It’s so good to be back… ish

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Over the last few months we’ve been running all of our projects online. Redefine, Shuffle and Shake, Show Up and Write, Den Fest, and MORE have all been digital-driven, zoom projects. And that’s been great – they’ve been fun, engaging, and supportive. But young people have also been in school online, seeing family online, meeting friends online. This ‘digital generation’ is – quite frankly – onlined-out!

It was so good, then to finally meet in person this last Sunday. We have to meet outside at the moment, but as organised young people’s activities are authorised for outdoors only now, we just had to jump at that chance. We took every care to make an outdoor event safe, and got to work.

Twenty three of us met for a campfire at The Lighthouse Community Church on West Shore. It was quite a cold campfire as so many of us distancing in a ring means you don’t really get too close to the fire, but it was still brilliant! Seeing people’s faces again, and providing them the opportunity to see each other was gold! We talked, shared, played games, told stories, and had hot chocolate. It felt just like old times.

We’re hoping to keep doing things like this for the time being, so please keep supporting and keep praying for us as we move forward.

We’ve also gotten to that place where we are going to start to need to recruit new team members too. So if you’re interested in volunteering and helping young people’s lives be changed by Jesus, then email us at llandudnoyfc@gmail.com

All the best everyone.

Stay safe – love Jesus – pray for young people

Tim

Do you recognise the photo?

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It’s North Shore beach in Llandudno. I took this photo on a 35mm point-and-shoot camera in the mid 1990s. It was Easter People, and this was the week that I gave my life to Jesus.

I was sat on the floor of St. David’s Methodist Church in Craig y Don, which was used as the youth venue. During the evening someone read a verse from Jeremiah that really spoke to me, and I got up the courage to speak to one of the team, and became a Christian there and then. That was the most important day of my life. I can remember exactly the way I felt.

Did you know that the vast majority of Christians accept Jesus before they’re 14 years old? That means that most Christians became so as a young person, and it means that the very best time to share the gospel with someone is when they still are a young person.

There’s never been a more important time to be good at what we do. Youth for Christ in Llandudno are doing all that we can to help young people have that same experience as I did nearly twenty years ago. At the moment that means YouTube content, Instagram Live videos, Zoom meetings, one-to-ones over the phone, and support for parents. The mission hasn’t stopped, it’s just changed shape.

Please keep standing with us. Please consider supporting the work that we do. Please pray for every young person in this town to say ‘yes’ to Jesus.

Thanks!

Tim

Created & chosen

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“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” – 1 Peter 2:9

Last Thursday at ‘Reverb’ our after school drop in youth club we had our usual mix of fun, fellowship & food for thought. It was another great evening and the young people really enjoyed themselves.

We started off the evening with a time playing games around the board game tables, or playing pool/billiards, or playing the fun game ‘4 square’ which is always enjoyed. Then we all moved into what we have dubbed the quiet room which has a large L-shaped sofa, in to hear a brilliant talk given by our director Mr Tim Gough.

Tim spoke about how God has created each and every one of us, the young people included. The He did this in love and threw away the mould when He created each young person, because He created them as a unique expression of His love. They are each made to do unique tasks and be unique expressions of God’s love in action.

Tim encouraged the young people that the best way to discover what the unique tasks or calling the young people had on their lives was to get to know Jesus through reading the Bible and talking to Him in prayer. The young people were very thoughtful as they listened to Tim words of encouragement.

We then went through to the big hall where we play 4 square and everyone took part in some groups games before we all helped pitch in with the tidying up of youth club.

All in all it was another brilliant night at Reverb and the young people really enjoyed themselves.

This is the sort of meetings we have with the young people, building friendships with them and encouraging them in the Christian faith.

Please do keep praying for the work of Llandudno Youth for Christ. Praying that the seeds of God’s word sown into hearts and lives week in week out, would bear much fruit and we’d see many young people respond positively to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Be blessed!

Your Kingdom come…

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The last couple of blog posts have been focussed around the themes of prayer and connecting with God in heaven. This post is going to follow on with that theme.

This coming Sunday at Redefine we are going to be continuing our study of the Lord’s Prayer, looking at “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” – Matt 6:10.

Last Sunday’s study of the first part of the Lord’s Prayer went really well and the young people really engaged with the Bible and the whole aspect of God being Our Father. It was so great to hear them talking animatedly about the themes of prayer and God’s Fatherhood. We are looking forward to more of the same as we look at God’s Kingdom and Will being done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is an important aspect of prayer, how as we engage with the things of heaven, heaven and earth meet and there is transformation, both of us as the prayer, but also the world around us as prayer changes things.

Just like in our previous blog post about Jacob and the stairway to heaven, there was change from having a vision of heaven. Jacob’s life was transformed as he encountered God in a dream. As we encounter God in prayer, our lives are transformed.

In this part of the Lord’s prayer we are calling for the earth to be transformed, for God’s will to be enacted and His kingdom reign to be established in the earth.

Please be praying for the young people, that they would be transformed by engaging with heaven and seeking God, for His Kingdom to be established in their lives and the lives of those around them.

Be blessed!

Soul Survivor here we come!

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In 12 days time Llandudno Youth for Christ will be taking a group of young people to Soul Survivor for the very last time. This has nothing to do with Llandudno Youth for Christ stopping attending a Summer Christian camp, but rather the sad fact that this is going to be the last Soul Survivor ever.

We have so many great memories from our many years of attending the Soul Survivor Conference. Lots of young people have come with us over the years and been impacted by God and His love for them in ways that have transformed them for life.

This year we have great expectations for God to move in the lives of the young people that we will be taking along with. Please do be praying for us during this time – Saturday 3rd August till Thursday 8th August. Pray for safety on the outbound and return journey. Pray for good interaction and fellowship between the young people and leaders that are going. Pray that everyone would hear from God and come back changed by having met with Jesus. Pray for fun, good food and good weather.

We also want to say thank you to everyone who has over the past several years volunteered and helped out with out Summer Soul Survivor trips. Know that your labour for God was not in vain and that you were used to make a difference for the Kingdom of God in the lives of many young people.

Thank you.

We will put up a blog post after the young people come back from Soul Survivor with news about what went on during this great event. But in the meantime, please do be supporting us in prayer.

Be blessed!

Ain’t no mountain high enough…

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Last week two of the young people who regularly attend our Sunday evening Bible Study group did a sponsored walk up the Glyders in the Snowdonia mountain range. This was all in aid of raising money for one of the young people who, come September, will be heading off to Youth for Christ‘s national office for a year’s internship. They will be working in the media department of Youth for Christ.

We are so pleased to see a young person that has been a faithful and regular member of the Llandudno Youth for Christ family going on to serve God and continue to grow in their relationship with Him.

I’ve not only mentioned mountains in the title because of the sponsored walk up the Glyders, but because last night at Redefine we continued our Bible Study on our identity, this time looking at what God thinks about us and how our identity is all wrapped up in His opinion of us.

We looked at Psalm 139 – “I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex! Everything you do is marvellously breathtaking. It simply amazes me to think about it! How thoroughly you know me, Lord! You even formed every bone in my body when you created me in the secret place, carefully, skillfully shaping me from nothing to something. You saw who you created me to be before I became me! Before I’d ever seen the light of day, the number of days you planned for me were already recorded in your book.” and saw how God painstakingly made us, knit us together in our mother’s womb.

We also looked at the epistle to the Ephesians where the Apostle Paul writes “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Eph 2:10. Another translation says that we are God’s masterpiece. We discussed how God to time and care in making us. There was a lot of love involved in how He put us together.

On the back of this study we then wrote in permanent marker pens the words that we would use to describe who we are in God onto a T-shirt. It was a fun and profound exercise and the young people got really stuck in, putting down words such as ‘amazing‘, ‘loved‘, ‘worthwhile‘, ‘forgiven‘ and ‘chosen‘ amongst others.

The song lyric excerpt used in the title to this blog post is from a song by Marvin Gaye and it is a love song between and man and a woman where he is saying that many different obstacles, such as mountains and rivers will not keep him away from her. But in God’s love, we have something even more secure and powerful and there is nothing that can separate us from the love of the God who carefully created us. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Rom 8:38-39.

I hope this encourages you.

Be Blessed!

The Hunt for Red December….

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Well we’ve just had a white Christmas, so we do not need to hunt for the snow, we had a lovely disruptive drop of flakes on Sunday. My kids loved it. Catching snowflakes on their tongues and having a snowball fight with mum & dad in the garden. The title of this post hearkens back to the 1990 film ‘The Hunt for Red October’ which is based upon a Tom Clancy novel of the same name. However, instead of an elusive soviet submarine, it is ‘Santa Claus’ that we are hunting for; he is the man in ‘Red’ in December.

This is a link into one of the main events at our ‘Spark‘ Christmas Bonanza. We will be holding an epic ‘Hunt for Santa‘ game, and it is not to be missed. So please do come along to ‘Spark‘ if you are aged between 11 and 18 years of age. For more details see our ‘What a Bonanaza’ blog post.

I’m also writing the post to speak about the real ‘Santa Claus‘, not the jolly red elf of our present day traditions, but St Nicholas, the real inspiration behind the myth.

The real St Nicholas was a Christian that lived in Asia Minor during the 4th century A.D. He was also called Nicholas of Bari or Nikolaos of Myra and was in-fact the Bishop of Myra. HE was born on 15th March 270 A.D. in Patara, Lycia and died on 6th December 343 A.D. He is the patron saint of children, sailors, repentant thieves, merchants, brewers, archers, students and pawnbrokers in various cities and countries around Europe. The whole gift giving aspect surrounding this saint is from his most famous exploit of surreptitiously providing the money needed for a wedding dowry for a poor man’s 3 unmarried daughters. In all of the variations of the stories he provides in different ways 3 purses of gold that he delivers into their house under the cover of darkness, in order for his generosity to remain secret. It is from this that we get the modern day story of ‘Santa’ delivering gifts to children on Christmas Eve.

One of his most famous exploits (thought said to be possibly apocryphal) is that he was said to have been so angry with the heretical presbyter Arius for his teaching about Jesus, that he hit him in the face.

St Nicholas is also called Nicholas the wonderworker due to all of the miracles that occur throughout his life as God answers his prayers. Such as the calming of the sea during a storm whilst he was on his way to Jerusalem and the bringing back to life of a sailor that had been killed during the aforementioned storm.

As you can see St Nicholas was a dedicated, if like all of us flawed, follower of Jesus and was passionate about the gospel, not only in word, but in deed. Not the mystical and magical man in a red suit that is portrayed in films at Christmas, but a servant of God that knew he was dependant on God for provision and life. A man who knew that the true gift of Christmas is not found in shiny paper under the Christmas Tree, but in a feeding trough in Bethlehem all those many years ago; Jesus – the Saviour of the world.

So this Christmas, may you have a blessed time, and if you have not received God’s greatest gift, Jesus; I pray that you do.

Have a great week-end, and don’t forget to come to ‘Spark‘.

 

Outstanding!

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In this blog post I want to commend the amazing young people that come to the events that we hold. They truly are outstanding!

Often in so many ways young people are looked down upon and disrespected by those that are supposedly older and wiser. Sometimes this does hold water, and the young people in question are not acting or behaving in a way that will earn them any respect because they are not giving any. However, this is often because they have not had the good role models and input that they need from those that have more life-experience.

Equally though, young people should never be written off because of their age. Indeed, throughout the Bible we see examples of God using young men and women who have a passion to serve and follow Him. Young people such a King David, Mary, Esther, Jeremiah, Joseph & Timothy. These are just a small sampling of such individuals within the pages of God’s Word. As Paul wrote to Timothy to encourage him “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity” – 1 Timothy 4:12.

Last night at ‘Redefine‘ our amazing young people did just that. A handful of them presented short 5 minute talks in-front of their peers. Talks about various topics, but all centred firmly around their Christian faith. They were inspirational; and it was so good to see what God is doing in their lives. In a day and age, where the young people can be written off and side-lined, it was great to see so many of them stepping up to the plate with a strong voice; declaring the truth of God and having a voice that needs to be heard. Heard by their peers at school and in the community. Heard by parents and teachers, pastors and preachers. Old and young, weak and strong. Sorry started to get a bit poetic there.

The young people are not the church of the future, they are the church of today, and have a voice that needs to be heard.

In the book of Deuternomy God commands His people regarding His laws, to “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates,..” – Deut 11:18-20.

We have a responsibility as God’s people to guide and instruct our young people in the way of following God. At Llandudno Youth for Christ, this is our main aim, to share the gospel relevantly with the young people in Llandudno and beyond. We want to see God’s love at work transforming lives and changing hearts.

Last Sunday night at ‘Redefine‘, we had great testimonies of just that; young lives transformed by the power of the good news of Jesus.

So I not only want to applaud all of our young people, but I also want to applaud all of the parents, teachers, church leaders, church members, Sunday school teachers and friends that support the work that we do at Llandudno Youth for Christ. Upholding us in prayer. Giving much needed finances to the work that we do. Faithfully supporting us in the Reverb Saturday Cafe @ St John’s. Taking part in and volunteering at events we hold, and spreading the word about the work that we do in your churches and beyond.

Thank you.

Keep on doing what you are doing. Like our amazing young people, keep on being outstanding.

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” – Colossians 3:17

Be blessed!

Walrus cruise anyone?

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Hi all, just a quick post about a great opportunity coming up this Easter holidays.

The Walrus Cruise; a Christian voluntary organisation which provides sailing holidays for boys and girls from the ages of 13 to 18; is having their Easter Cruise this year between the 8th and 15th of April, and they still have spaces available for this great adventure holiday opportunity.

The Walrus Cruise started in 1924 and today operates on the inland waterways of the Norfolk Broads and the coastal waters of the Western Isles of Scotland. It’s aim is help young people explore, grow and develop in their Christian faith.

The first official cruise took place when Joe & Bill Church took five teenage boys on a single yacht, way back in 1924. At the time that the first cruise took place, each of the local boatmen who earned a living on the water used to wear a distinctive drooping moustache that made him look a bit like a bull walrus., this inspired the name for the cruise.

Despite many changes to the types of yachts used over the years and the technological improvements that have been made to the yachts; the cruises still provide a challenging environment where each person can have great fun and, at the same time, learn more about themselves and their faith.

Many of Jesus’ first disciples were young men and teenagers who worked on the Sea of Galilee and were aware of the rigours and challenges of working on the water. One of them even walked on the water with Jesus.

I love it how God can speak to us so well through the world around us, and personally, having grown up on the island of Anglesey, I have a strong affinity for the water, and love sailing, so I can understand how this adventure holiday can really be a life-changing experience for those that decide to step aboard a Walrus Cruise.

If you want to have an adventure this Easter, deepen your faith, and learn great skills that will be with you for the rest of your life, then why not consider checking out the Walrus Cruise.

 

 

Theobibliophiles Rule!

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This is a bit of a follow up from our last Blog post. The title of the post is meant to get people thinking ‘what does that mean?’, ‘what are they talking about?’ Let’s break it down…

Theo – God or of God.

Bibiliophile – lover of books.

So the title is saying that people who love God’s books (The Bible) rule. They’re ok. It’s an encouragement for people to get into the Word of God, just like the Bereans in the book of Acts chapter 17 (read it here).

At our ‘Monthly Meet‘ we had a great time looking at some up to date research on youth work ‘small groups’ from ‘Youthscape’ – “A  national youth work organisation working for the good of young people of all faiths and none”. Check out their findings here.

Then we looked at John 2:1-12 and spent time in groups underlining, highlighting, circling and writing on the handouts to really try and get to grips with the passage we were studying. It was great!

My handout with its myriad of scrawls is just here ->

It was great to read, study and discuss the Bible, with no other agenda than to let the Bible speak for itself. Not have a Bible Study with leading questions and tailored results, but rather be open to letting God speak to us as a group and as individuals from the passage we are studying. It’s something I would really encourage everyone to get into. Let’s be Theobibliophiles in 2017 and beyond!

I also love our ‘Monthly Meet‘ training nights. They are an invaluable resource for youth workers in the North Wales area, and I really get a lot out of all of the training that is done at these events.

Our theme for next month is looking at how to get kids involved in church more. Looking at how to help them engage with church life in their community; and we have a fantastic speaker for this; Andy Hughes, the director of Urban Saints in Wales. He has a wealth of experience in youth work and this is a not to be missed night. Do come along; Monday 20th February, 7pm @ Ty Llywelyn Community Centre.

If you want to come to our ‘Monthly Meet‘ and be kept informed about when the next free training evening is being held, then subscribe to our mailing list on our Blog post homepage (top right hand corner of the screen) or email us in the office asking to be added to the ‘Monthly Meet‘ mail-out. Also, please let anyone you know that you think would benefit from this great resource know about it.

Finally, in-order to continue to hold such great training evenings for free, we need on-going financial support from our local community and beyond.

We love it when someone generously gives finance to support the work that we do at LLYFC, and especially if it is a monthly direct debit or standing order; as it assures us of regular income for the various ministry work we are doing; like the ‘Monthly Meet‘ training events.

Thank you to all of our regular givers, we really appreciate all of your support for what we are doing to impact generations with the good news of Jesus. If you want to support us financially, you can do this by filling out a support form and sending it to our office; or via our ‘Give.net‘ online donations page.

LLYFC Financial Support Form 2016

Thank you!