Christ Church Bromley

A few Sundays ago the youth and children's groups met for the last time this academic year. For the leaders, the few weeks between the end of the term and going on a summer venture (such as Bredon 1, 2 or 3) is an odd time. Your mind and body tells you to take a breather and recover a bit of energy, yet your diary tells you to pick up the pace because you've still got lots of preparation to do for the summer... and only a few days to do it in!

It is also a good time to reflect on the year gone by. For the youth groups, it has been a great year, which is why I thought I'd post some of the highlights and challenges on the church website so to share them with the rest of the church family.

Spiritual appetite

Whenever the youth group leaders get together to pray after the youth group meetings, there is often a great thankfulness at the work God is doing in the lives of many of the young people. In both groups we have teenagers who are hungry for truth and are asking searching questions, which means the times we have our Bibles open are usually very fruitful. It is great seeing teenagers who were dis-engaged with the God spot talks 18-24 months ago now coming regularly each week to engage with the Bible in small groups midweek and listening to a talk on a Sunday.

The biggest encouragement of the year, however, was when a member of one of the groups gave their life to Jesus. This particular young person shared their testimony with the group and explained how they realised that giving your life to Jesus can be as simple as saying, 'Yes, Jesus, I want to live fo you now' and allowing God to re-focus your priorities in everyday life to be centred around Jesus.

Great atmosphere

In the youth group main meetings, almost anything can (and does) happen! This term alone we have had members giving a live news broadcast from Philippi (based on Acts 16 ), a Bible game called 'biblical two name tango', a memory verse involving the Rocky theme tune, Eye of the tiger (the verse was Philippians 1:21 ), numerous improvised sketches, human battleships and much, much more.

Meaningful relationships in small groups

The small groups in both the 11-14 Pathfinder group and the 14-18 Spectrum group have continued to grow over this last year. Specifically, we have started two new Spectrum midweek small groups, one for girls and one for boys, which see six to eight regular members coming to open the Bible together and pray for one another.

Enjoyable socials

Each youth group has at least one big social each term. For the 11-14 Pathfinders group this was a family BBQ event mid-term to welcome the new members up from Explorers. It was a great chance for members to have fun together while leaders and parents could get to know each other and chat away the evening.

For the 14-18 Spectrum group, we set off for a boating trip in Tonbridge... only to discover that the boating company had recently closed the business! Still, unphased by this minor set back, we found a crazy golf course nearby and embarked on the 2009 Tonbridge Open.