News Archive
Encountering God
Jen and I are almost fully recovered from our 'Encounter' weekend. Encounter was an idea we came up with almost four years ago. The idea was to get a bunch of young people together, get them to stay in church for 24 hours and... just see what happened!
From there it became an event we started running at Easter and we used the 24 hours to focus on the last moments of Jesus' life and the characters who encountered him in those moments. This year's was perhaps the most successful we have done. The young people all seemed to have a great time and many had some life changing encounters with God and the Easter message.
The day started when we loaded a minibus full of youths and went to Herrington Country Park in Sunderland and did our very own message on the mount! We also paid a visit to Segedunum, the site of an ancient Roman fort discovered some years ago in Wallsend. Activities over the 24 hours included Playstation time (essential!), dance mats, setting up our own youth cafe, midnight communion by candlelight and after-hours storytelling in the park (which even caught the attention of two police officers who were investigating what a bunch of teens were doing late at night in the park with candles).
The event took it out of us but it was well worth it. The BBC has said that they would like to do a follow up feature on the event, so watch this space!