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Evangelism
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for evangelism to young people
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Evangelism
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It's been a little while since the last one, but the June 2005 eBulletin is ready to read! Even better, because you lovely eBulletin readers save us money on printing and postage, we can treat you with some updates & extra articles that we could not cram into the paper version.
This bulletin we focus on prayer. As a team God has been impressing upon us the need to pray sacrificially, and the benefit is meeting with God in new and refreshing ways. Exodus 17:10-13 are great verses on prayer:
So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.
The implication is that when Moses held up the 'Staff of God' he was holding up the situation, the battle, before God and asking for God's favour. The battle is different now than for Joshua and the Israelites, but the need for prayer is still great. We hope that you will be able to read the bulletin and hold us up to God and pray on our behalf.
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If someone had told me two years ago that I would be Director of Norwich YFC, I might not have believed them. Nevertheless, God in his wisdom ('But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise' 1 Corinthians 1:27) has brought me to this new role. First of all I want to thank the team: they have been outstanding at welcoming me and helping me settle in. Thank you to the Trustees as well as they have done more to support me than I expected.
Before I started as Director I prayed and put some ideas down about possible programme development. At the very top of the list was 24/7 Prayer! So I am obviously very excited that it is happening and we have been asked to help organise it. It is my personal belief that the greatest investment that any one Christian can give another is vital intercessory prayer. In James it says 'prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.' James 5:16b.
As the new director please can I ask each of you to invest in Norwich YFC by praying? It is easy to go to God with our perceived needs and sympathy's hoping he will provide for the circumstances. It is more time consuming to spend time with God and to identify ourselves with God's agenda for the Young People of Norwich and the surrounding area and how Norwich YFC can help.
Funding continues to be an ongoing challenge, but we will not let it distract us from working towards the vision of what God has called us to do. When friends learned of my new appointment to Norwich YFC some asked what was my vision. My temptation was to quote from the 24-7 prayer web site:
'So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision?
What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this…
The vision?
The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism'
The 24-7 initiative has been raising the profile of prayer for the last six years, from humble beginnings in an English church to a world wide movement committed to praying non-stop.
In it's purest form 24-7 means setting up prayer rooms for a week and getting people to pray for an hour or two at a time so that the entire time is filled with prayer. Several churches in Norfolk have already run their own prayer rooms, and usually report a fantastic time for all involved.
Now, NYFC is excited to be co-ordinating a city-wide 24-7 prayer room, running for three weeks rather than the usual one, and bringing together churches from across the City and denominations to join in praying for our city and beyond. As well as spontaneous individual prayer, there will be information and prayer aids on some specific themes: unity amongst the church; transformation for our city; our representatives in parliament; social & justice issues; the G8 summit, and more.
The prayer room opened from the evening of 18th June, through to the ending event on the 8th July. We'd love to see people from across the church signing up to pray, and we're also asking churches to consider 'sponsoring' a block of time – anything from a few hours to an overnight vigil...
For more information, and to see how you can get involved, either call NYFC on 01603 620678, or click here for our 24-7 website. The website includes an interview Mark gave to Radio Norfolk recently, and some pictures of the prayer room, so even if you are unable to join us, you can see what happens!
On Saturday 21st May we had a great interclub event with twenty-seven young people and four not so young people at the Horstead Centre. The day included three sessions: one on the high tower, one on the high ropes and one raft building.
The day for most meant experiencing many new activities, like taking the zip wire off the high tower seeing if you could grab a leaf off a far tree (only achieved I may add by a few with a little extra baggage), and high ropes. For those who do not like heights it was a real achievement. I watched as one young lady edged her way round the high wire course legs, literally shaking the whole way, but her face at the end was great to see.
The afternoon was spent on the river building rafts in teams. The leaders watched this challenge but after much encouragement joined in (I mean were put in the river) although some managed to stay dry unbelievably! We made it back to the centre before the heavens opened but unfortunately the coaches from Horstead did not and we finished the day off totally drenched!
Quotes from the tower:-
'Absolutely immense, high, brilliant,’ Josh said about the high wire, ‘amazing scary but great when you finish.’ We had been looking at the leap of faith in Youth Alpha so it was really appropriate.
High ropes:-
‘Really good, funny scary, hilarious, challenging.’
David's quote when he fell in the river the second time, ‘it’s colder in the middle!’
Hannah said, ‘Brilliant, excellent can we do a residential next time?’
Emily said, ‘I am glad I did it!‘
So after an exhausting day we thanked the great staff at Horstead and left ready for a hot shower and time to put our feet up. We look forward to the next interclub event in the Autumn Term. Please remember these events are open to all Rock Solid 1 and 2 Clubs.
We have concessionary rates for Living Water for Rock Solid clubs contact me on rocksolid@norwichyfc.co.uk or 07747 471221.
Wed 18th May saw the Rock Solid leaders come together for their summer BBQ and training. As usual we enjoyed the food and fellowship plus the chance to catch up with other clubs. This time of year is always a good time to reflect on achievements, good and bad points, and to pray for the coming year together. After an encouraging time of prayer with the seventeen leaders, a suggestion was made to have 'prayer buddies'. This will involve each club being nominated one other club to pray for during the year. It was felt this would encourage mutual support and develop interclub relationships further.
This was also a good time to introduce one of our new Rock Solid volunteers, Mary Carpenter, to the clubs. She will help at events like Horstead and visit some of the clubs in the Norwich area. Chris Smith from Fakenham will support those North of Norwich and both will be helping in the Rock Solid seminar at Living Waters.
These training sessions are well supported and most clubs find them really useful so if you have not attended one so far give it a go next time.
I would like to thank all who were able to make this training and look forward to seeing you again in the Autumn. Our next session for leaders is Wednesday 2nd November and the speaker will be Randall Williams, so put the date in your diary.
Prayer Points:
This Sunday (May 22nd) St Mary Magdalene congregation saw the first visit
of a young girl to her local church. The girl had attended both Rock Solid
and Ronnie's (Youth Drop-in) and just last week she decided to venture into
the Youth Alpha Group. She is a young person who many of us believe has a
particular need for Jesus in her life and we have been praying for her for
some time. To see her at church, join in the Rock Solid 2 group and then to
see her obvious joy as she joined the other church young people in playing
the tambourines during the last hymn was an utter privilege!
Afterwards, the smile was still there and she declared her intention to come
with us to Living Water in the summer. We will of course continue our prayers
for her and all the other young people in the Silver Road area. Whilst we
can not expect them all to join us at church, we can and do expect to see
more signs of God at work in the lives of all the young people we are reaching
out to.
Mary Carpenter - Volunteer Rock Solid Worker
Interclub events seem to be the “in thing” for me at present; here are some examples:
Megazone: In February we joined Rock Solid for an inter-club competition with 25+ young people over 2 games. I believe Poringland got individual highest scores in both games, so well done to them, and they got to know other young people from the Rock Solid clubs in the area too.
10 Pin Bowling: In April we arranged a bowling tournament between Acle and Poringland. Acle won both the trophy for highest score and the used pin for the lowest score! Well done to them as well.
24 Hour Famine: Raising money for “World Vision” in May. Again based at Acle as last year with young people from Acle and Poringland coming together. This should have been in February but got put back. Fun was had by all with radio control cars and tanks, a miniature car track was very effectively made in the evening using glow sticks. These little rechargeable cars can be bought for as little as £10 each and are on 3 frequencies, it's a good session to try. We also watched movie clips and used these to stimulate discussion on Bible topics. On top of this we had a football competition against another Acle youth club, the score ending 5-4 to them. The young people visited two churches performing a drama and sharing what they were doing. This was all good fun and for a good cause too.
Horstead Activity Centre: In May we had another trip with Rock Solid clubs which included: rock climbing; high ropes (which I did and was very, very scared of heights!!!!); abseiling; Zip Wire; Raft building and team river crossing; and walking on a rope across the river. The young people enjoyed it so much they are interested in Attending “Byond Blief” in July!
Coming events:
Prayer requests for the coming months:
Thanks for your continued prayers and support in all areas of the work - Rob
Recently I decided to change the name of Christian Unions to lunch-time clubs for two reasons:
Or at least, NOT YET! A few weeks ago at one of the clubs I was talking about prayer. A young non-Christian girl put in a prayer request that her Dad would see her more because they do not get to see each other very often. The next week she came in all excited because her Dad had found a way of getting her to his house which was much faster and cheaper, so she could go and stay more often! This is really exciting as I am witnessing young people see how prayer works. When talking with them about what a Bible looks like, they seemed to think that for a book to be the Bible it had to be black with gold letters on! I have about 20 young people who go to one lunch-time club, and about 5 who go to another. I would like to give each young person who goes to these two clubs a Bible. The Bibles I would like to give them cost £12 each, at this point in time NYFC cannot afford this. I am going to approach trusts for this money, please pray that I am successful.
Prayer Points:
Working with Wymondham Baptist Church as part of the Fusion
scheme allowed me to put on an Oscar Night for Friday Crew, the weekly youth
club (I guess it was just another opportunity for me to put on my dinner jacket
and bow tie!).
The evening started with nominations for the awards mixed in with non-alcoholic
cocktails and a live band called 'Something Else', made up of young people
from the club.
Ten-foot Oscars on the walls, silver podiums, forty metres of rope light and a red carpet helped add to the evening. As the evening unfolded we saw a plastic bag fashion parade and some of the girls make up the guys with wigs, dresses and make-up!
A big part of the evening gave the young people a chance to show off their acting skills by preparing a drama ready for the Best Movie Award. The film titles were given to them and slightly doctored. They included : The Kingdom of Kevin, The Quorn Identity, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Cadbury.
After filming them all, the movies were shown on the big screen as part of the Award Ceremony.
We had a spectacular performance from all of the groups but the winning movie was 'Star Warts Episode III.5 : Revenge of the Quiff'.
Complete with Golden Oscar Statue Awards going to the best leading actor and actress it seems that the night went down well and everyone enjoyed dressing up for the occasion.
The reason behind the Oscar evening was to have fun and to put some effort into something big and out of the ordinary. I wanted the young people to grasp the idea that no matter how they dressed, no matter who they are or what they've done – God thinks they're great and loves them so much. I think investing time, creativity and energy into things we do helps the young people see in a very practical way that we care about them and we want the best for them.
Andy
Call me biased, but I think Reepham is the coolest place to work!
Hi! I'm Dave Garcia, I'm the Fusion worker in Reepham and I have been with NYFC in some shape or form for about 3 years, but actually started working here in December 04. So what have I been up to? The largest proportion of my time is helping out at the drop-in at St Michael's hall, at which I have a team of wonderful volunteers who travel from Norwich to help out. Tim Blanch, Pete Tyson and Rachel Bridge are an absolute pleasure to work with (along with the brilliant team who established the drop-in 6 years ago). The evenings are fairly free flowing with snooker, table tennis tables and the much loved and well used Xbox games console.
Recently, we received a grant from which we have been able to buy a complete PA system (I connected it to the Xbox and had some fun!). We hope to hire this out to the community in the future to raise money for the drop-in, but right now we are focusing on doing our own events. This Friday (May 27th) will be the first of many events we will hope to be putting on this year that combine great music (courtesy of some local bands) with a nice fat slice of the gospel.
The young people in Reepham (like many young people today) have so many questions without answers. I recently wore a badge that asked, "If you bumped into God one day, what would you say?" The answers I got ranged from the silly, "why are bananas curved?" to the sillier, "Is Elvis still alive?" to the quite profound: "Who made you?", "What is the true way to heaven?", "Why is there suffering?". For me working in Reepham is about giving hope to the hopeless, listening to what is being said and giving answers to the questions people have (as opposed to answering questions no one is asking). God is good and he is showing more of himself to us as a team and the young people every time we meet.
Prayer Points:
If you want to know more about my work in Reepham, feel free to email me.
Dave
Due to team growth we can no longer fit in the offices at 3 Brigg Street, so we have been praying for new premises. God has been gracious and answered our prayers!
Our new address from July 12th will be 36 St Giles, Norwich, NR2 1LL.
This building belongs to the Salvation Army, and we are pleased our rent will again be going to a worthy organisation. We will be occupying the 2nd floor, so we will still be keeping fit by climbing stairs everyday. We are opposite the Waffle House, and Catherine's Coffee shop is below us, so keeping fit maybe quite important!
Can you (or anyone you know) help us? We need the following items if they are in good condition:
Alternatively please let us know of good, affordable places we can purchase these items! Contact Fliss at the office on 01603 620678 or email office@norwichyfc.co.uk
Quick IdeasName Badge Questions - One question that is often put to me from youth leaders is, “How can I start up meaning full conversations with young people?” One way to help this happen is to put simple questions on a badge and wear it like a name badge. Questions like these work well:
You will be surprised how many young people will respond to you! Videos That Teach - Videos That Teach is a book published by Youth Specialities, written by Doug Fields and Eddie James. The purpose of the book is to give tools to create discussion within youth groups on the back of popular films. The book outlines specific lines within films that can form the base for discussion, and then suggests prompting questions. A note of caution though - these discussions can often lead to many not so helpful tangents! Prayer - I am continually amazed by the power of prayer, John 15 v 5 says “apart from me you can do nothing.” Within our youth groups and volunteer teams we need to pray. Prayer should be happening before and after youth meetings take place and also within the team of leaders throughout the week. The difference it makes it incredible and immediate, we should be treating the need to pray at least as importantly as the need for first aiders or child protection policies. Prayer PointsWe have tried to give you prayer points along the way in this bulletin, and hopefully the different articles give you lots to pray about, but here are a few more points:
Thank you so much for standing with us and holding us in prayer.
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Dates17th June – F2 VolunteersAs an organisation we rely heavily on volunteers. If you have a couple of hours to spare on anything from an ad hoc to regular basis, I’m sure there’s something for you to do. This includes working in nightclubs, helping at Fridays or drop-in youth clubs as well as needing help with stuffing envelopes! We urgently need volunteers for some of our drop-in youth clubs. We will provide appropriate support and training for any posts with us. If you’d like to get involved contact the office. Gift AidIf you give to NYFC and pay income tax, you can help us reclaim extra money from the government by completing a Gift Aid Form. You only need to do this if you have not already done one for us. Contacting UsIf you want to email us our addresses are: office@norwichyfc.co.uk If you prefer the more traditional approach, then our postal address is: Norwich Youth For Christ, 3 Brigg Street, Norwich, NR2 1QN Our telephone number is 01603 620678
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Any Questions?Q. Who are
you people? Q. Why have
you sent me this? Q. This is
a great piece of communication, but why do I get this as well as a paper
copy? Q. I don't
want anymore of these sent to me? Q. Actually
I've changed my mind, I don't want to stop receiving this, in fact I
want all my friends to get it! How do I do this? If you prefer the more traditional approach, then our postal address is: Norwich Youth For Christ, 3 Brigg Street, Norwich, NR2 1QN Our telephone number is 01603 620678 Check out our website – www.norwichyfc.co.uk |
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The 24/7 movement has spread across the globe, and we are excited
to be part of it here in Norwich - 