We've been really busy lately with 3 packed weeks of ministry. We had 2 weeks of school holidays, so had a 3-day Vacation Bible Club with a space theme. The leader spoke about the astronaut James Irwin, then the life of Jesus, then the fact that Jesus is coming back one day and are we ready for him?
Then a big day with 3 local youth groups. I organised the theme on 'No more electricity: how can we cope?' at the isolated home of one of our church families. There were 4 challenges to complete in teams: how to kill and prepare a chicken, how to recognise edible plants and some of their medicinal uses, collecting and storing wood, making an oil lamp. The message was 'working as a team, focus on the essential and God provides all that we need'. I used many verses from Psalm 119 and we found lots of references elsewhere to show that God's word is all sufficient and He helps us in all situations of life.
After that it was the church lunch and fellowship meeting - for the first time in a long time we were able to sit around together and look at our church's weakened situation. Thank God for this special time.
Then 3 days of National Pastors' conference where we mainly presented the Vitality Pathway - designed to help churches evaluate if they are healthy, missional churches or not, and then to accompany them through the process of getting it together again and letting the Holy Spirit take his rightful place.
Not only do we need to do this for ourselves and our churches, but for our young people who are eager to believe and to follow the Lord and who want to be convinced by seeing alive, passionate Christians living out their faith!
See my other blog page for more details and photos:
http://aheartforfrance.blogspot.fr/2014/05/our-young-people.html
