What does, bean bags, nacho's, a pulse, and a Cold Chisel song all have in common??
Answer:
The experiment that was just performed on the young people at our Church tonight.
Tonight was the inaurgral running of PULSE.
Pulse is a new event that we have started which is kinda like church, but not really.
It has music but not the type of music we have in church. We had driving guitar, big bass, loud drums, very little keyboard and loud singing.
It had a message, but one that involves questions and answers, feedback and discussion with the youth group and the all important ingredient, chocolate.
It has food, but not morning tea, we had nachos and a canteen selling drinks, chips and chocolate, which were eaten in the middle of the night when we had a break for dinner.
We had seating, but not chairs we had, BIG gym mats, little gym mats and everyone brought their own, as it was BYO seating, so we also had, bean bags, cushions, blankets. Surprisingly no one brought their brother or sister to sit on as I had also suggested.
Anyway, we launched it tonight with great result. Being a test run we didn't advertise widely, we gave some flyers to the youth group and said invite friends, and we had 20 kids turn up, our youth group is only 14. Of the 20 kids there were more than half I had never met before because the young people had brought their friends.
Musically it wasn't great, but it was fun, I just embrace the verse "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord." and pray that music isn't a strong point for God, you know too busy creating plants, animals, blah blah blah to embrace a musical instrument.
The message was very simple "Who are you?" and answered the question from Ps 139 and 1 Peter 2 and presented myself, again which was okay but would have preferred it be someone else. Any takers, we can probably give 30 bucks toward travel cost, you will have to cover the other $3000 to get here, but we would love to have you anytime your in Australia (for those of you overseas). Any suggestions of local speakers would also be gladly received.
The night was all round a good night the young people seemed to enjoy themselves they didn't seem embarrassed by it and we made connections with 10 new people.
Apart from that I had a blast, it's great worshipping God loudly.
Blessings
Em
PS The Cold Chisel connection is the song Saturday Night (do doo doooo do doo do do do) one of the greatest all time Aussie Pub Rock bands
8 comments:
that sounds cool
an awesome way to reach out to the young people in the community.
no suggestions for speakers right now, but if i think of anyone, i'll let you know
Hey congrats on starting up Pulse. Hope it continues to reach young people.
That sounds like a great ongoing project.
At my church we have an after-school program called Weird Wednesdays, where kids can hang out, listen to and exegete music;-), and do theology with our pastor. We've arranged with the local school system to have the schoolbus drop the kids off who want to participate. Sometimes our pastor will have them help out with church things like changing paraments; sometimes he'll take them on a field trip to his shut-in visit. Our church has maybe 90 regular attendees, almost none of whom are teens...but we regularly draw 15-20 kids from the neighborhood for Weird Wednesdays, and these kids also raised much of the money to send themselves to church/confirmation camp this summer. We're still trying to understand the dynamic of their not showing up on Sunday morning...but we're happy to minister to them on Wednesdays, and very happy that so many of them come from unchurched/underchurched homes...that they just show up at our place because they can have fun and talk about important stuff with adults who care about them and treat them well.
Sounds like so much fun even though I am bit beyond the teen years (actually, much beyond).
When you reach out to teens where they are, they will respond.
wonderful to hear about this, mnany blessings as you journey forward
sounds like your youth had fun!
Good stuff! May Pulse keep beating and drawing in new kids!
This sounds awesome, Revem! You've given me oodles of food for thought.
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