Southern Youth Councils

On Friday I helped drive members of Southampton Shirley youth to their youth councils evening in Poole. I was quite interested to go after experiencing youth councils in the LNE division for so many years and I am pleased I went. The theme was Transformers and although the evening was certainly different to the way 'we' do youth councils those that were there had a good time. There was one bit in particular that really hit me. After the sermon bit the worship band led the us in a song called God of Justice. This song had been taught to them at summer school but on Friday evening they used it in the response time. The response was to stand on a particular line of song that you will do. This may not make much sense if you do not know the words to the song so I will put them in now.


God of Justice, Saviour to all

Came to rescue the weak and the poor

Chose to serve and not be served

Jesus, You have called us

Freely we've received

Now freely we will give

We must go, live to feed the hungry

Stand beside the broken

We must go,

Stepping forward keep us from just singing

Move us into action

We must go

To act justly everyday

Loving mercy in everyway

Walking humbly before You God

You have shown us, what You require

Freely we've received

Now freely we will give

Fill us up and send us out

Fill us up and send us out

Fill us up and send us out Lord

I was truly amazed to see youth responding to this. Youth were getting up and saying yeah lets make a stand, I want to do this, this is what needs to be done. It was a special moment for me. I didn't know all the youth unlike here at home but was so proud I guess of the way they responded.

Whilst we were singing this the line that struck me the most was 'We must go, Stepping forward keep us from just singing, move us into action'. In the Salvation Army and in some ways Church in general we are known for singing lots of hymns and for many that's all we do, meet on one day a week and sing but I believe it is time we did this and we made this line our prayer and truly meant it, please Lord move us into action, keep us from just singing.

Belonging

This is going to be a mix of my thoughts, thoughts I have been thinking for a little while. I cannot promise they will make sense but this may be the most honest post of mine yet, that I cannot promise though. Apologies if this does not make any sense but just needed somewhere to write.

For a long time now I have been thinking about the term belonging in relation to how I belong and how other people see the term belonging. I have been thinking this in relation to our church, our corps, and am struggling with belonging. Just because we have been there for our entire lives does that mean we belong? If it does why do people still feel alone and that their home church no longer feels like home? Do people presume that everybody feels like they belong because they have been there forever?

I know this probably does not make much sense, it doesn't even to me really. These are just some of the thoughts in my head that I was able to put into words.