Is This the Generation to Change the World?
We can only pray:
I spent Saturday at YC Alberta. I'm sure I was the oldest guy there.
Alpha's own Ben Woodman spoke at two sessions Saturday afternoon, to a total of several hundred young people. The first session was on sharing one's faith with friends, the second was about going deeper in a relationship with Jesus.
This picture was from the first session, where Ben, at the end of his talk, interviewed some high school students about Alpha's Youth Film Series in their schools. One student was from a Pentecostal church but ran Alpha in the Catholic High School he attends. Another spoke of praying with her peers when they were organizing their Alpha, for, first 20,then 30, 40 50, guests, then thought they should stop praying because they might be asking for too much. They had 80 kids come to their first session.
The third commented that the school's entire Gay-Straight Alliance came to their first session. I should have asked (but didn't) if they stayed for the entire course. It will be interesting to find out.
I may have written, but it doesn't hurt to say it again, that in all my travels around Alberta so far, I have not heard one negative comment about this Youth Film Series. (Well, I did hear one - someone thought the rap at the beginning of one of the sessions was a bit cheesy, but I think it was supposed to be.) Its reputation is catching on like wildfire, and it has only been out for less than a year. Churches across the Province are planning to run and rerun it. Young people are way better at inviting friends than we adults are, and in many courses, over half the guests are from outside the church - and they're staying in the group.
Having said all this, I have also been listening Sunday mornings on my way into church, to the White Horse Inn program. The last couple of weeks have been on preparing our young people for the time they leave home and high school and head off to college, where they will often meet a worldview and a morality in direct opposition to their Christian faith. Statistically, there is a great fall-off at these times of a young person's life, even among those who have grown up their entire lives to this point in the church. It would pay, especially for parents or grandparents of teenaged kids, to click on that link and listen to the podcasts.
There are serious things to think about, even in light of the buzz of YC.
Blessings,
John
PS: I also have a selfie of Ben and me, just to prove I was there, but some pic's are just too embarrassing to post.
I spent Saturday at YC Alberta. I'm sure I was the oldest guy there.
Alpha's own Ben Woodman spoke at two sessions Saturday afternoon, to a total of several hundred young people. The first session was on sharing one's faith with friends, the second was about going deeper in a relationship with Jesus.
This picture was from the first session, where Ben, at the end of his talk, interviewed some high school students about Alpha's Youth Film Series in their schools. One student was from a Pentecostal church but ran Alpha in the Catholic High School he attends. Another spoke of praying with her peers when they were organizing their Alpha, for, first 20,then 30, 40 50, guests, then thought they should stop praying because they might be asking for too much. They had 80 kids come to their first session.
The third commented that the school's entire Gay-Straight Alliance came to their first session. I should have asked (but didn't) if they stayed for the entire course. It will be interesting to find out.
I may have written, but it doesn't hurt to say it again, that in all my travels around Alberta so far, I have not heard one negative comment about this Youth Film Series. (Well, I did hear one - someone thought the rap at the beginning of one of the sessions was a bit cheesy, but I think it was supposed to be.) Its reputation is catching on like wildfire, and it has only been out for less than a year. Churches across the Province are planning to run and rerun it. Young people are way better at inviting friends than we adults are, and in many courses, over half the guests are from outside the church - and they're staying in the group.
Having said all this, I have also been listening Sunday mornings on my way into church, to the White Horse Inn program. The last couple of weeks have been on preparing our young people for the time they leave home and high school and head off to college, where they will often meet a worldview and a morality in direct opposition to their Christian faith. Statistically, there is a great fall-off at these times of a young person's life, even among those who have grown up their entire lives to this point in the church. It would pay, especially for parents or grandparents of teenaged kids, to click on that link and listen to the podcasts.
There are serious things to think about, even in light of the buzz of YC.
Blessings,
John
PS: I also have a selfie of Ben and me, just to prove I was there, but some pic's are just too embarrassing to post.
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