Welcome to the Families Blog
Welcome to the Families Team blog!
If you are taking the time to read this blog, the first thing I want to do is thank you.
As the Families Lead for all our sites, I am really excited that we will use this space to share what’s happening within Kerith Kids & Kerith Youth.
A thought that occurred to me over lockdown was that for a 4-year-old, the time we were missing out on in-person church, was nearly half their lifetime! For us a little older….perhaps 1/40th of our lifetime, or even less! We all of course desperately missed gathering together in person, but the older we are (depending of course when we met with Jesus for the first time) - the more years of our faith formation, and the more years of experience of church we’ve had under our belts. Just like Joseph in the Old Testament had stored up grain during the season of abundance, to see people through the years of famine that followed – those of us a bit older had more spiritual grain in our storehouse to sustain us through that season than those younger members of our community.
I know others were concerned about our children & young people during this time also. What about those who didn’t have Christian families around them to disciple them? What about all the children and young people had missed out on? They lost opportunities to be discipled and worship together with their peers at church, they missed leavers assemblies, proms, cancelled sports days and exams. Of course, many children & young people gained a lot during this time also. So, what would it look like to regather again at church in person? Would they want to? Would they care? Would we see the same hunger for God that they had before this season?
Last summer our Kerith Youth gathered at their weekend residential that we named 'Summer Sanctuary'. This was the first in person gathering they had experienced in some time. Some had only ever engaged in Kerith Youth over Zoom, not having been at church since they were Kerith Kids.
In our first session together the temperature of the worship session was lukewarm – for some of them, they were a little unsure, a little hesitant and perhaps self-conscious. It was like they were learning to ride a bike again after a long break! However, God of course moved powerfully, and by end of the weekend the temperature was hot! They were so hungry for God that over lunchtime, while their physical hunger was being fed, their spiritual hunger was also, as they broke out in spontaneous worship over lunch. Young people gave their lives to Jesus – some have been baptised since and testified that it was a turning point for them.
For our Kerith Kids, the focus when we first regathered was on getting them settled into church. They couldn’t learn or experience God if they were crying for their parents! We’ve seen babies & toddlers arrive at church for the first time, gradually settling into their groups. Some children have skipped an entire age group as they’ve returned a few years older! Now they are settled and enjoying being at church, it’s time to turn up the temperature dial again in our Kerith Kids ministry.
I passionately believe we can see children and young people on fire for Jesus. For them to be filled with the Holy Spirit – there is no junior Holy Spirit as we know! Some of us have recently been to Wildfires Festival, and we heard amazing stories coming out from the kids & youth venues at the festival. Many of our young people were baptised in the spirit for the first time – some were speaking in tongues for the first time, some receiving pictures from God and words of encouragement - some of these were for themselves, or their peers, and some of them have been for adults in our community. We’ve heard stories of how they were engaging in sung worship in new, fresh and deeper ways to how they have been previously.
So, we have lamented, and perhaps still will for a bit longer, all that our children and youth lost over the last years. Let’s now focus and pray for all they will gain in this next season! God is alive and working in our young people, and my prayer is that we will see more of the work the Holy Spirit was doing at Wildfires, in our local site Kids & Youth ministries. We don’t want a generation of young people with a lukewarm faith – as the name of the festival suggests, we want to see our children & young people on fire for Jesus, where their faith is contagious and spreads like wild fires to those around them! Our prayer is that this fire will quickly spread amongst our Under 18s and beyond – to their peers in schools & college, to us adults and all they come into contact with. We are going to make more space for the Holy Spirit to move and speak to our young people, we are going to wait on Him and listen to Him in ways we haven’t before. And we can’t wait to share with you all He is going to do!
Thank you again for taking the time to read this blog. We would love it if you would subscribe, if nothing else as a reminder to pray for our precious children & young people from our Kerith Sites. You may not be in a position to directly disciple a young person, or serve in the Kids or Youth teams, but covering them in prayer is the most important thing you can do. So, in anticipation, we say: Thank You!