Read all the latest buzz from PYM’s February edition of the Buzz newsletter.
The Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) is holding a Youth Assembly in Indonesia in April.
Young adults from the Presbyterian Church with an interest in this can apply to be a delegate (the age criteria is young adults aged 20-35). Some travel subsidy will be available, but all costs are not yet confirmed. Download application forms here. Applications will need to be confirmed by the Assembly Executive Secretary. The closing date for applications is 15 February.
If you would like to consider this, please contact Global Mission officer, Rev Phil King for more information.
URGENT PRAYER REQUEST | Can we ask you to join together to pray for the wellbeing of our young people in Canterbury?
(Letter from Mike Dodge, our regional youth enabler in Christchurch)
All of us who are working with young people are very concerned at the alarming increase of suicides across the region this month. In my 36 years of youth work I have never seen anything like this before. We strongly feel the need to call “the whole church” to prayer together over this (PUSH – Pray Until Something Happens)
Can you as a church pray this Sunday (and the following weeks) – as we stand together with all the churches of Canterbury – praying for breakthrough in this area of mental health. We would love you to ask and encourage your congregation to pray over the week, in their personal prayer times and small group gatherings.
Over the last year at least 6 different prayer gatherings have all had a similar picture of a black cloud/heavy fog/pollution/smog and darkness covering the Canterbury region.
We’re asking that you would pray against this dark cloud of anxiety, depression, despair, self-harm and suicide – especially among the young people of our region. Pray for hope instead of hopelessness, light instead of darkness, love, power and a sound mind instead of fear so that we would see a change in the mental health and wellbeing of our young people.
We are in need of a miracle and I love that as the body of Christ we get to stand together, pray together and see what the Lord does in response. He is the only one who can bring light and change to these situations.
God-Talk is a digital outreach-training resource for youth and youth leaders. It includes free online video content, and is purposed to see young people throughout our nation talking about the Christian faith again.
Currently God-Talk currently has 5 video for training youth to share the Gospel.
Kara Root has put together this awesome liturgy to use in youth group or youth services when collecting and returning devices.
RELEASING PHONES
We surrender our phones
To acknowledge that we are not as essential
as we would have ourselves believe.
And to recognise how essential we are
to this moment, this conversation, this process.
We put down our phones
to put down the false belief
that we can be more places than here,
doing more things than this.
And to commit to being fully present, here and now.
We turn off our phones
to turn to each other and to the moment at hand,
with full attention, creativity and welcome.
May we receive the gifts of full presence and essential connection.
May God meet us in this moment.
Amen
(phones are shut down and surrendered eg basket passed around and phones placed in them)
RETRIEVING PHONES
We return from this moment, taking with us the gift of being fully present.
May we return with gratitude and perspective
to the tasks before us and the noise around us,
a little more willing to resist the urgency
and a little more able to receive the quiet gifts of each moment
where God is present alongside us.
Amen.
(Cell phones are retrieved)
Copyright Kara Root
Shared with permission.
Applications for the 2016 round of Presbyterian Foundation grants are now invited, and application forms can be downloaded from the Church website. The Presbyterian Foundation is a trust fund, the interest of which is distributed to support the mission of the Church, particularly innovative mission at the local and regional church level. Applications close on 15 September.
Full information about Presbyterian Foundation
This quiz has circulated around the internet for a long time. I have used it with a variety of age groups. I have often found that students get a bit angry and incredulous when the answers are revealed. They find it outrageous that the ‘facts’ they know about the Christmas story don’t really appear in the Bible but are the result of tradition. In fact while many of the things we have added in tradition may be reasonable assumptions this quiz is a good reminder to us all at Christmas to go back to the source of the nativity stories. Children can find this quiz confronting and I have even had students say to me: Do you even read the Bible?!?!