Back with a passion!

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Hi all! Well, this is the first week back for everyone after the Easter holidays I guess.

We held our first ‘Redefine‘ Bible study for young people this week after a week’s break on Easter Sunday. We will also be holding our first ‘Recess‘ lunch-time school’s club; our first ‘Reverb Youth Space‘ after-school drop-in club (3:15-5:15pm @ Ty Llwyelyn Community Centre), both this Thursday 27th April.

We have just had a great ‘Monthly Meet‘ training night with the Rev Tim Hall on Monday 24th April. He taught us so much valuable information regarding conflict resolution. I know that many people went away with great tools to use in their youth groups, homes & churches; and I’m looking forward to May’s ‘Monthly Meet‘ where we will be looking at the whole area of ‘design‘; from websites to poster, flyers, newsletter and presentations. It’ll be great.

We had our monthly prayer meeting to support the work that we do at Llandudno Youth for Christ; and as usual it was well attended, with a couple of new faces too. We are looking forward to May’s prayer meeting on Sunday 28th May at 7pm. We hope you can join us.

We are also looking forward to the months ahead of us as we head towards the summer.

There is so much going on.

We have Tim Gough’s charity bungee jump – ‘Tim’s Big Jump‘. Please do check it out here; and please support this crazy act of bravery for a good cause.

Let others know too.

Then we have our new teaching series at ‘Redefine‘ called “What makes us tick“. This is a series where the fantastic leaders that volunteer at the Sunday evening Bible study will be sharing about things they are passionate about and how their faith is supported or inspired by these things. Such as my own enjoyment of superheroes and comics and how in all of them people are looking for a Saviour; and how in Jesus we find the Saviour we have been looking for (in fact I did write a blog about that here.)

It’ll be an opportunity for us to talk about things we are passionate about; and we pray that the young people will be inspired to pursue their God given dreams and passions as a result of these Bible studies.

We will also be holding our AGM which will include a showcase of all the different events that we hold; and well worth coming along to – Save The Date ‘Wednesday 7th June’.

So as we move forward into the Summer, please do continue to support all that we do in prayer, with financial provision and if you feel that you would love to volunteer at any of our events; especially our Saturday Cafe where we need more volunteers, especially as we head into the warmer months; then please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Have a great Spring and be blessed!

Egg-sellent!

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Happy first Monday after the Easter holidays!

I hope that everyone has had a wonderful Easter break and that we find you on this first Monday after the Easter holidays, full of the joys of spring and not suffering from an overindulgence of chocolate eggs!

I was meant to post the following on Easter Monday; but due to the busyness of the holiday break, it slipped my mind. Sorry. Hope you enjoy the post.

Easter Monday is a holiday celebration in over 100 countries. In some countries it has different names. In South Africa it is known as ‘Family Day’, and is viewed as a day to spend time with friends and family. In Egypt it is known as Sham el-Nisim (Egyptian Arabic: شم النسيم‎‎,) – meaning literally “smelling of the breeze”. On this day people spend the day picnicking in any green spaces, such as public gardens, on the Nile, or at the zoo. They traditionally eat fesikh (a fermented, salted and dried grey mullet), lettuce, green onions, tirmis, and colored boiled eggs (Easter eggs).

Again we come back to the eggs.

Those eggs that now come in so many colours, shapes & sizes.

As regards the origins of those eggs. As spoken so wisely by a young scottish girl to her dad; the little girls asks ‘Is the Easter Bunny in the bible?’ The exchange is hilarious, but it certainly gives you some food for thought about how we celebrate Easter. You can see the original video here.

The whole Easter bunny thing could be a throwback to the pre-Christian festival of spring where the goddess Ēostre is worshipped. There is debate about whether this goddess of the dawn was a true ‘deity’ or just an invention by the venerable Bede; but that’s a debate not to be held here. Be that as it may, she was linked with the idea of spring, new life, fecundity & love. Hares were associated with her as a symbol of fertility. I guess eggs speak the same message. One of new life.

The Persian Zoroastrians had a celebration called Nowruz, that marks the Spring Equinox and as part of this celebration painted eggs were eaten. Again representing new life and fertility.

So it is not such a strange idea that early Christians adopted the practice and imagery of the painted eggs for the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. The eggs symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus and the breaking of them can be seen as the stone being rolled away from the tomb and Jesus rising from the dead. In Orthodox Christianity the eggs are painted red to remind us of the blood Jesus shed on the cross.

So whatever you think about Easter eggs and their origins; it is good to be reminded that Jesus is alive.

Death is defeated.

He has come to give us new life (John 10:10, John 11:25).

His blood has paid the price for our forgiveness (Colossians 1)

Be blessed this Spring and celebrate the King!

Robot Wars – Extreme Cardboard Edition!!!!

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On Sunday 9th of April we had our last Sunday evening Bible Study – ‘Redefine‘ event before the Easter break. To make it a fun-filled and special night, we held our very own, and back by popular demand, ‘Robot Wars‘ evening.

We had 3 teams of engineers that were given sheets of cardboard, sticky tape, packing tape, cable ties, scissors, aluminium foil, card, tissue paper, a ball of thick cotton string, and a 3 wheeled garden planter base. Out of these materials there were tasked with constructing their very own ‘battle-bot‘ that would need to fight it out over a series of rounds to see who was the champion.

The contest was judged by 3 of our volunteer leaders; who were judging the contestants on the amount of control they had over the robot, the amount of aggression shown during the rounds and finally the amount of damage inflicted or sustained during a round. If a robot was completely incapacitated due to being irreparably damaged in some way they were automatically disqualified. Equally, if a robot was knocked out of the ring, this resulted in an immediate disqualification and loss of the round.

It was a lot of fun. Everyone got into creating and designing their robots with a lot of enthusiasm and good teamwork. It’s so good to see the image of God as our Creator shining through as we create things. Also the whole aspect of working together to see something made came out brilliantly on the evening; with everyone playing their part to produce their finished robot. Two of the volunteer leaders even created a new house robot to challenge our director Tim Gough’s championship winning robot ‘Sir Gingerlot‘.

When the field of play started we had 3 robots at the ready; ‘Barn-Alpha‘, ‘Poppet‘ & ‘Rollo‘ (I guess two of the teams were getting hungry from all of the building and creating and were thinking about chocolate snacks by the time it came to choosing names for their robots?!)

‘Barn-Alpha‘ was a sleek, hot rod or rocket looking machine, with ailerons on the side for control and a nicely shaped wedge at the front for getting under an opponents ‘bot’ to lift it up and incapacitate it.

‘Poppet‘ looked a bit more akin to a cardboard pig, with a large snout-like battering ram at the front and rolls of sticky tape at the back to balance out the weight.

Finally we had ‘Rollo‘, complete with ‘Rollo’ decal on the side of its fuselage. This too had a battering ram on the front, though to the side and not centrally located.

The first round went to ‘Barn-Alpha‘, who demonstrated better control and more aggression, despite not inflicting significant damage to ‘Poppet‘. ‘Poppet‘ fared little better against ‘Rollo‘ on the damage front, but due to ‘Rollo’s‘ lack of aggressiveness the round ended in a draw. ‘Barn-Alpha‘ then went on to win their round against ‘Rollo‘. It seemed that ‘Barn-Alpha‘ was going to walk away with the competition; as they had been in the lead for most of the event. However disaster struck when they entered their second round against ‘Poppet‘ and their undercarriage and wheels were mercilessly ripped off by ‘Poppet’s‘ large battering ram.

This was a huge blow to Team ‘Barn-Alpha‘ and after their bot was unceremoniously dragged from the arena, it was time for a final showdown between ‘Rollo‘ & ‘Poppet‘ to see who would emerge victorious. After 30 seconds of gruelling blows between these evenly matched bots, ‘Poppet‘ managed to knock ‘Rollo‘ out of the arena and earn the title of the night’s ‘champion‘ bot.

Congratulations were given and commiserations received; and the night was capped off by the exhibition fight between ‘Sir Gingerlot‘ and ‘The Tapenator‘. ‘The Tapenator‘ was not fairing well against the solidity of ‘Sir Gingerlot’s‘ tank like structure, despite having hobbled him by knocking one of his wheels off! In-fact it seemed like his days were numbered when ‘Sir Gingerlot‘ eliminated himself by knocking himself out of the arena trying to knock ‘The Tapenator’s‘ battering ram off!

Shock’s all round it seemed from the night. The little David’s managed to defeat the mighty Goliaths; a good lesson to be learned there.

It also is a good reminder to us as we head into the Easter week-end of God defeating sin & death on the cross.

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” – Colossians 2:13-15  “None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” – 1 Corinthians 2:8.

On Good Friday as were remember Jesus dying for the sins of the world on the cross; let us also remember that He won. He defeated sin & death and rose again victorious. This was a great surprise to the devil and all his angels.

So this Easter week-end, let us celebrate and rejoice that Jesus has won. Jesus has paid the price for our sins; and that Jesus is Lord!

Be Blessed!

NERF WAR!!!!

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This Thursday 6th April we held our last ‘Reverb Youth Space‘ night before the Easter holidays!

To blast this night off and get the Easter break started with a bang, we had one of our epic ‘Nerf Wars‘

It was a battle royal between the Disney Princesses and the Pixar Sidekicks; with only one side emerging triumphant!!!!

We had a great response to this event; with 15 new faces turning up at Ty Llywelyn to take part in the last Reverb before Easter.

A lot of this interest from the young people was as a direct result of all of the assemblies that our director Mr Tim Gough had held at Ysgol John Bright in the last week of the Spring term. A big thank you to all of the teachers and staff at Ysgol John Bright for letting us hold assemblies in this past week. We really appreciate the work we are able to do with our local schools.

The teams, once they had gathered in the armoury (where all the ‘Nerf Guns’ were laid out; and in reality the 50s style diner at Ty Llywelyn) were given their rules for the night’s Nerf Battles by Tim Gough and then assigned into their respective teams; with two of our volunteers leading each team.

Then it was whistles blown and the battle commenced with the Disney Princesses; all eager to shoot their enemy with itching trigger fingers and pastel coloured pompoms at the ready. They were faced against the hordes of team Pixar Sidekick waiting to ambush them in the main hall.

Nerf foam darts were flying everywhere (in fact the cleaning team have still been finding the odd one or two around the building, despite our thorough clean-up with the young people at the end of the event); and our two judges were walking around, making sure that no-one was cheating or breaking any of the rules.

4 rounds of games were held in all; including a last man standing round; where it ended up with 3 players still being alive at the end of play. This lead to a Mexican stand-off tie breaker which revealed to us our ultimate winner who survived to be the ‘last man standing!’

I almost forgot to say; the overall winners of the night were…..(drumroll please)…..’The Disney Princesses’ (I’m slightly biased as this was the team that I was leading)

Everyone involved had a blast; literally. Everyone played well and safely, and lots of happy young people went home at the end a little more tired out than at the start, but a lot more joy filled than they arrived.

This was our last ‘Reverb‘ before the Easter Break; and when we get back after Easter we will be having a ‘Movie Night‘, complete with popcorn and snacks!!! It will be a blast; starting at 3:15pm in Ty Llywelyn Community Centre, Llandudno, LL30 1LA; on Thursday 27th April.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we engage with the young people in our area and share the good news of Jesus with them relevantly through word and deed.

Also, if you know of any young person that might benefit from one of the events that we hold; then please do let them know about ‘Reverb‘.

Be blessed!

 

All for 4 Square & 4 Square for all!!!

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Last Thursday at our Reverb Youth Space after school drop-in we held our very first ‘4 Square Tournament‘. The order of the event went as follows:-
3.15 – 3.30 – Open practice
3.35 – 3.50 – Round 1
3.55 – 4.10 – Round 2
4.15 – 4.30 – Final
4.30 – 4.35 – Closing ceremony & prizes

It was a great evening, full of lots of fun and excitement; with quite a number of attendees. The competition was quite fierce at points, with two of our regular Reverb attendees battling it out for first place. We had an expert referee on hand to sort out any disputes over whether the ball was in or out and also to tally up the points scored by everyone playing; not the easiest of jobs to do, but he did it admirably.

Tim commentating on the tournament

We had some great joke-filled commentary from our centre director Mr Tim Gough and regular volunteer Mr James Edwards; and the music in the DJ booth was suppled by our administrator Mr Todd Warden-Owen.

Tim Goughs wife Kate receiving the Epic Fail Award.

Everyone who was not doing another job took part and at the end of event after 2 exhausting but fun rounds of 4 square we held our prize giving. We had 4 awards to give out; the prize for the overall winner of the tournament, an award for the best sportsmanship behaviour during the tournament, an award for the best trick shot played during the tournament; and an award for the most epic fail during the tournament (like the wooden spoon in other games).

Our fabulous 4 square tournament trophies

Tim had hand-crafted the trophies himself out of DC comics justice league figures glued to

wooden plinths and spray painted gold and silver respectively. They looked rather impressive, if I might say so myself. We also gave easter eggs to all award winners; and also everyone who had taken part in the tournament received a ‘cream egg’ as a mini prize.

 

It was a lot of fun, and everyone went home happy.

So as you can tell, this was a great success, and the young people are looking forward to more ‘4 Square tournaments‘ at Reverb.

This week we will be holding one of our infamous ‘Nerf Wars‘, but instead of it being Santa & his helpers v the elves; as we did at Christmas; this Thursday 6th April @ 3:15pm will see the ‘Disney Princesses v Pixar Sidekicks‘…who will emerge victorious?!? Come along and find out!

If you know of any young people aged 11-18 who might be interested in coming along to Reverb, let them know about this fantastic event; or if you yourself are 11-18 years old, come along a join in the fun.

Plus, with exams starting not long after the Easter holidays, we will having a ‘Revision room‘ set-up as part of every ‘Reverb Youth Space‘ night from the 11th May to the end of term.

Have a great week & be blessed!