A new season, a new location, and many new faces but the same great experience had by all that attended our St Mungo’s Youth Weekend Away a couple of weekends ago. After a very difficult two years for us all, just to be away together as a St Mungo’s Youth family felt like such a positive step in the right direction for us all.
As one of our young people remarked in their feedback:
“I loved it so much and am very grateful for all the effort put in to make the weekend the best that it could be and for us all to feel like the family that we are.”
That family aspect was on show throughout our weekend in the west of Scotland as the young people engaged in activities, social time, and meetings as a youth family together. The weekend started with a great talk from the Limitless National Director Tim Alford on Friday Night around how as Christians we are part one big family of God that spans multiple churches, cities, countries, and continents, with the young people who wished to signing a unity covenant, vowing to always strive for unity in our relationships with both Christians and Non-Christians.
Saturday morning saw a familiar face return to Mungo’s Youth, as Kate Millar returned to share brilliantly, humbly, and honestly about how we can be one with God, with Kate sharing on many practical ways we can be in relationship with God, whether that be through things like prayer journaling or taking walks in nature.
Following Kate’s message, we moved into our own SMY Winter Olympics competition featuring versions of sports like curling and ice hockey (without the ice!), whilst Malcolm’s vast nerf gun collection that he kindly left to the 0-18 team were put to good use in our own take on the biathlon. For those less sporty, the creative juices were allowed to flow in creating yogurt lid for the winning team.
Saturday afternoon featured many different activities with our young people and team taking part in activities from sledging to laser tag and trampolining to bowling before we attended the Limitless One event at Paisley Elim on Saturday Night. This was undoubtedly a real highlight for many of our young people with Tim’s talk centred around Elijah’s story in 1 Kings 18-19 and how the LORD strengthened Elijah after his fall into depression. Given the events of the last two years and the mental strain this has been on the young people, this felt like a very significant message from Tim and our young people responded to the message in great numbers, with more than half of our young people seeking prayer ministry and a number having very significant spiritual encounters during this time. This included six of our young people, who responded to the Gospel for the first time and gave their lives to Jesus. The perfect end to a fantastic Saturday!
Sunday ended with a final meeting where we had Dave Crow join us and lead us in worship and I shared on spiritual gifts what it means for us to be ‘one church but many different parts’, encouraging the youth to discover the spiritual gifts that God has given them specifically and exploring they can be used correctly for the greater good of the church. During this meeting we also took time to pray for healing for one of our young people who had been suffering all weekend and this was a very powerful moment where our youth took the lead praying really encouraging words and prayers over the aforementioned young person, with one picture about an oak tree being an extremely prophetic and encouraging word for both him and his family. This session also allowed time for the young people to share testimonies from the weekend with one sharing how having only attended St Mungo’s for the first time two weeks ago, she’s been amazed by how God has worked to bring her into a friendship group in the youth (through a chance encounter at school as well!), explaining how that’s positively developed over the weekend and another sharing how God really worked in her the previous night, bringing healing into a lot of mental struggles she has battled with over the last 2 years.
Overall, my reflection on the weekend is that of joy. Joy that we managed a residential as a youth family once again! Joy that we had a lot of fun in new settings for the majority! Joy that God’s word was respected and taught so well by all involved that it had a strong impact on the hearts of all there! And joy that there were so many spiritual encounters that we continue to pray leaves a mark on the faith walks of all who had these moments!
As I finish this newspost can I say several massive thank yous:
Firstly to the volunteers that made this weekend possible and came with such enthusiasm and expectation that no doubt encouraged our young people to approach it in the same way. Thank you.
To our incredible catering team led by Emma and Mark Galloway who adapted to a new kitchen so easily and kept us all fed and energised throughout the weekend, just making it so easy for us leading it. Thank you.
To our worship leaders for the weekend, Euan Paton and Dave Crow for leading us so sensitively in worship during our sessions and to Scott Wallace from 21CC who done an incredible job at making our meetings sound fantastic. Thank you.
To Tim Alford and Kate Millar for their preparation and raw and open teaching that impacted all who heard and has given each of us, a lot to chew over in the coming weeks. Thank you.
To Bruce and Cheryl at Bible Centre for hosting us so well and providing us such a peaceful and relaxing environment to base ourselves for the weekend and providing us with a real answer to prayer with the use of their minibus on the Saturday. Thank you.
And finally, to all our young people who came open minded to giving a different type of residential a try and by the end leaving having had an extremely enjoyable experience and looking forward to doing it all again next year! Thank you!