It felt more like a crossroads than a day of input and discussion when 33 Fresh Hope youth and young adult leaders gathered together for a Youth and Young Adults Summit on Tuesday 6th October.
The day signified a turning point as they asked: rather than be discouraged by what has happened this year, what could happen if we took constraints off our dreams and truly believed God could do amazing things through us?
“We believe God often speaks to the group as much as to the one,” said Fresh Hope’s Youth Ministry Catalyst Charlie Burke. “The day was an opportunity for leaders to be heard, both in terms of their worries about the future but also what they’re seeing God doing in the present and into the future.”
“There’s this biblical trend of God doing great things through the emerging generations, and if you look at some of the great revivals that have happened they have often come through young people and young adults. So what does it mean for us to believe that God could do that again? Why can’t God do something to renew his church through his young people?”
The Summit was conducted in a round-table format with plenty of butcher’s paper, time for discussion, intercessory prayer for local churches and COVID-19-safe worship. In the midst of a year that has contained much disappointment and uncertainty, it provided an opportunity for leaders to refocus on prayerfully dreaming about what God might want to do both now and into the future.
Adam Squires, Kids and Youth Coordinator at Telopea Church of Christ, attended the Summit and remarked, “It was a great time to not only gain some fantastic insights into what we could do in our own ministries on a week to week basis, but what could be done as a youth movement in this state and country. I hope to see our movement encounter kids and youth in new and dynamic ways to reach those who we have previously not been able to reach.”
The event has birthed a much greater sense of unity between churches, with leaders continuing to share ministry resources and ideas with each other through the month of October.
“This opportunity could have just passed us, but it felt like a real cross-roads moment. There was a real optimistic sense of, ‘yeah, God’s doing something here’,” said Charlie.
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