Northwest News!

We had a great time at our youth drop-in club on Friday night.  We had 6 young people come, and David did a great job preaching on “Attitude” from the story of Ahab and Naboth.  During the club, I was able to go out and talk with about a dozen or so young people who congregate on the walls.  Despite all the drink and profanity, we had a couple of good talks about God, and I was able to witness to them and invite them to the drop-in club.  I met one young man who came to our youth meetings that we had about 3.5 years ago when I first came to Northern Ireland.  All our young people worked hard to invite their friends and pass out leaflets as well.

I want to praise the Lord for the 12 people we helped today with community outreach.  We put leaflets through 300 letterboxes today!  Thank you to everyone who helped.  It was great fun and good exercise, so if you can help us this Saturday, we would really appreciate it.  Our goal is to 634 doors a week, so we are getting closer and closer.

• WHEN: Friday, 4 April, 4.30 - 8.30 PM
• WHERE: City Centre (Meet in front of the Junction on 8 Bishop St. at 4.30 PM)
• WHAT: Follow clues around the city centre that will lead you to hidden treasure.
• WHO: Ages 11 and up
• COST: Free for the activity; bring money to buy food at Burger King when you are finished, if you want.
• QUESTIONS: Phone 077 7220 6876.

We had a good time tonight at our Youth Drop-in Centre at the Junction on Bishop St, City Centre.  There were 5 young people, 3 helpers, and 1 adult.  We have 30 minutes of games (table tennis, video games, darts, and pool), 30 minutes of music and a message from God’s Word, then snacks and some more time for games.

The hall that we have rented for this is in the city centre where young people from all backgrounds congregate.  Continue to pray for us as we try to reach young people and train them to be Christian leaders.

Pastor Martin Wickens from Faith Baptist Church in Glengormley just emailed and said they have half a dozen teenagers signed up to come on Saturday to the youth rally.  We are looking forward to a good time, and it is a blessing to have friends in the ministry like Martin and Carrie Wickens.

I want to say, “Thanks” to everyone who is continuing to promote the youth rally.  Some of our young people are talking about inviting their friends.  Others are leaving flyers at local shops.

Yesterday, Jonathon and I took stacks of flyers to 9 various secondary schools in the city.  We have two more that we are going to take them to today.  Pray that some of these flyers will make it to the students.

If you can come to the youth rally, 1 December, 4.30-7.30 PM to help us with the food, greeting, talking to the young people, and dealing with those who respond to the call for salvation.

Also, pray for Evangelist Chris Stansell as he prepares to preach to the young people that night.

I just got word from Pastor Don Randall in Portadown that he will be coming up to our youth rally and bringing a group of about 10 from Lighthouse Baptist Church with them.  I hope that you are making plans to come, inviting people, and praying for this special event.

 We are very excited about our POWERHOUSE Youth Rally coming up the beginning of December.  Evangelist Chris Stansell is coming over to preach for us during the Rally.  Please pray for God to bring in a lot of lost young people to whom we can preach the gospel.  Pray for souls to be saved at this event who will become the future leaders of the church.

What are we going to do about the young people who are “out of control“?

I don’t have all the answers but I want to suggest a couple of things:

• Prayer - this should be our first resource not our last.
• Modelling - parents and leaders are quick to criticise and condemn but very slow to model and lead by example.
• Discipleship & Mentoring - one of the greatest needs for young people is a good role model.  They have many bad role models but few good ones who will mentor and disciple them.
• Challenge - we need to put the challenge of serving and loving God before them.  Being a Christians is not for the wimps and the weaklings; it is for the courageous.
• Parents - the most important person in a young person’s life is their parents.  We can blame young people all day but most of the problems can be traced back to a negligent, careless, indifferent, abusive, angry parent.

Do you have any other suggestions to add to the list?

We just got our youth ministry website up and running.  I hope you will go and check it out and encourage any young people you know to come to the youth meetings and youth activities, as well as get involved in our church.  Young people are most valuable resource, and we need to do all we can to pray for them, encourage them, train them, and help them to serve God with their lives.

We have tried to make our Friday youth meeting a fun time but the main purpose of it is discipleship of the young poeple who come.  We had a good time tonight.  We had five young people in the meeting.  We are doing a series called, “Extreme.”  Tonight we looked at how to have Extreme Peace.  Here is a picture of the young people playing “Chubby Bunny.”