Easter here we come!

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Well the schools will be breaking up for Easter this week. I’m sure the young people are relishing the 2 week holiday ahead of them and thinking of all the fun that they can have whilst not at school.

Visiting friends, or maybe going away with family somewhere and of course eating lots of chocolate eggs.

After all it is Easter and eggs are what many people think of when it comes to Easter. However as Christians Easter is about far more than Easter Eggs.

Easter is a remembrance and a celebration of the death, burial & resurrection of Jesus.

At all of the different events we run, Recess (our lunch time Christian Union meetings in Ysgol John Bright in Llandudno and Ysgol Aberconwy in Conwy), Reverb (our after-school drop-in youth club) & Redefine (our Sunday evening discipleship Bible Study group), we have been looking at the different events of Holy Week – From the Triumphal Entry to the Resurrection (which we will be looking at during this coming Sunday’s Redefine); helping the young people grasp exactly what it means that Christ died in our place to deal with sin.

This, like Christmas is a great time to share about the good news of Jesus relevantly with the young people that come to the different events that we hold.

Please can you be praying for the young people of Llandudno and beyond this Easter, that they would grasp how deeply loved they are by God. “For this is how much God loved the world—he gave his one and only, unique Son as a gift. So now everyone who believes in him will never perish but experience everlasting life.” – John 3:16

Pray that God would keep them safe during the holidays and that they would enjoy their time off school.

Thank you for all of your support for what we do at Llandudno Youth for Christ. We’re all about seeing young lives changed by Jesus and we love that by your faithful support, in prayer, financially and by volunteering, you are co-labourers with us in this grate work.

Thank you and just as for the young people, we wish you a truly blessed Easter.

PS: We’re back on with all of our different events from Thursday 2nd May 2019.

Be blessed!

 

A whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on!

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No I’m not doing a blog post about Elvis or his music, but am instead referring to the new event being run by Llandudno Youth for Christ in Colwyn Bay – ‘Shuffle & Shake‘.

For this post I interviewed the man heading up the new event; ‘Shuffle & Shake‘, Mr Korey Finch. Below are parts of that interview:

Q1: Korey can you give us a short introduction about yourself?

Korey: I’m from Texas originally and I met this amazing girl from Manchester named Miriam back in 2007 and decided I wanted to marry her, and as a result God put on my heart the desire to be a youth worker in the UK, so here we are now 10 years later. Married and living in Colwyn Bay, doing youth work.

Q2: How long have you lived in Wales?

Korey: I’ve been living here since 2013, so we’re coming up on 6 years now.

Q3: Can you give us a passage of the Bible that has really impacted you?

Korey: I really appreciate the passage, I think it is in Corinthians where it says “my strength is made perfect in your weakness”(2 Cor 12:9). It just helps me see that even though there are things that aren’t perfect in your life, God is still able to perfectly use us.

Q4: What do you do whilst working for or at Youth for Christ?

Korey: Mostly play board games actually…just kidding. There is a lot of office work that I need to do, planning for different events; planning for regular weekly meetings. Sunday I help with Redefine in Llandudno. Monday I’m at ‘Shuffle & Shake’ in Colwyn Bay. Wednesday I’m in the office preparing. Thursday I’m in Ysgol Aberconwy helping with the Recess Christian Union, and then helping with the Reverb after-school drop-in club in Llandudno. Saturday I mostly spend time with the family, but there is the odd day where I might have a Nerf Battle kind of thing like we did this last week, and so, yeah it’s just a balance of events and admin/management.

Q5: Brilliant. So, you just mentioned that you like board games. What is your favourite board game and why?

Korey: I’ll give you two because they’re both totally different. The first is ‘Scythe’, a gigantic, huge game. It weighs a ton, it’s amazing and I love it because I just feel like I’m immersed in the theme: a very diesel punk alternate reality, post world war 2 and there are robots and I like robots, so yeah. That’s fun. I also really like a simple game called ‘Sushi Go’; which is a little card game, about the size of ‘Uno’, but it’s so totally different than anything I’ve ever played and it’s actually inspired me to try to make my own board game..

Q6: You mentioned Redefine, Reverb and Recess, which I’m sure our readers have already heard about, but there was a new one amongst them, ‘Shuffle & Shake’. Can you explain a bit more about it?

Korey: Yeah, the idea is that it’s basically like a youth board game café. It’s open one night of the week for a couple of hours and it’s specifically for young people to have a place where they can connect around a table, and that’s kind of the idea behind that word ‘shuffle’. Not only are we literally shuffling cards etc., but that people’s lives will be mixed and shuffled together. And in that mix they’ll be introduced to Christ. Also part of the name ‘Shuffle & Shake’ is the second part ‘shake’. And that’s just simply ‘we have milkshakes’. So, ‘Shuffle & Shake’ it’s like a board game café for young people.

Q7: In what way can our readers help support the work that you do at ‘Shuffle & Shake’?

Korey: If any adults were interested in helping out or passing along the word about the event, that’d be great. We want to be a help to the community in Colwyn Bay; a bright spot so to speak in Colwyn Bay, and so just letting people know where we are and what’s going on would help. Also if people are able to support financially, by giving to Llandudno Youth for Christ. So, giving to Llandudno Youth for Christ, encouraging people to come to ‘Shuffle & Shake’, thinking of adults that might be able to volunteer and help out, all those are great ways to help support us.

‘Shuffle & Shake‘ is held at Prince’s Drive Baptist Church in Colwyn Bay, typically on the 1st & 3rd Monday of the month during school term time, running from 7:30pm to 9pm. Please do consider supporting this new event that’s seeking to reach young people relevantly with the good news of Jesus Christ.

The next 2 ‘Shuffle & Shake‘ meetings will be on Monday April 8th & Monday April 29th.

Be Blessed!

Nerf Said!

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We all had a fantastic time on this past Saturday 30th March. Here at Llandudno Youth for Christ we held a mega epic Nerf Battle for young people at Gloddaeth Church.

We are so grateful to Gloddaeth Church and its pastor Rev. Neil Kirkham for allowing us to hold this great social event in their building. It’s brilliant to know that we are so well supported and championed by the amazing churches in our area.

The Nerf Battle was heaps of fun, with lots of young people from Llandudno and further afield coming together to take part in this exciting event.

It was a night that I’m sure the young people who attended will not soon forget. Not only did we have many different games of Nerf, from a ‘capture the flag’ game to ‘last person standing’. We also had snacks and refreshments half way through for everyone to be able to re-energise themselves.

Whilst everyone was eating and resting, our director Tim Gough gave a short 5 minute talk about how, in the same way that his favourite Nerf Gun had been carefully worked on and lovingly modified to make it even more efficient at firing foam darts, and for that reason it was his favourite. We have all been carefully and lovingly put together, created by a God who loves us and wants us to get to know Him.

The young people listened attentively to this encouraging and hope filled message, which for some was their first experience of hearing how much God loved them.

It’s really brilliant being able to hold such events that have a great impact upon the lives of so many young people.

And we wouldn’t be able to do events such as these without the help and support of churches and individuals in our area and beyond.

We need people to volunteer to help run the events and work that we do.

We need people to be faithfully praying for the events and work that we do.

We need people to faithfully support us financially for the events and work that we do.

Please do continue to support us, and let others know about the amazing work we do to see young people reached with the love of God.

We want to be able to continue to impact young people’s lives with the good news of Jesus, and cannot do this without your help and support. Thank you and be blessed!

 

Urgent! – New Volunteers Needed!!

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This is a call to all of our wonderful supporters.

We are in need of new volunteers at our Reverb Saturday Cafe. We have had key members of our team step down for various reasons and need people to step up to the plate and fill the following positions:-

  1. Pancake Cook: Cooking pancakes and stove items including sausages, bacon, mushrooms and onions. A pancake mix is used and there is generally less time pressure than for the cook doing toasties. The key skill is being organised and keeping supplies of the hot items going as neededon the day. Rota would be roughly once every 6 weeks, perhaps a little more in the summer holidays.
  2. Dishwasher: Loading the dishwasher with dirty crockery/cutlery and removing after the 2 minute cycle is complete. Some washing of pans in the sink also needed. No great skill required, you just need to keep an eye on which items are most needed (such as teapots) and some strength is required as the trays can be quite heavy when full of crockery. Rota would be roughly once a month or as much as you can manage.
  3. Kitchen Organiser: Keeping tabs on all the orders and making sure that the food and drink is made in the right order as quickly as possible. Key skills are being highly organised and calm under pressure. Rota would be roughly once every 6 weeks.
  4. Cakes: Baking three cakes of your choice. Popular ones are sponges and just about anything that has chocolate in it but a bit of variety is good occasionally too. Rota would be roughly once every 6 weeks, perhaps a little more in the summer holidays (could be less if you would prefer.)
Reverb Saturday Cafe sessions are fortnightly on the
2nd and 4th Saturdays of each month, starting at 10:00 and ending at roughly 15:00 or so. Half sessions of roughly 2.5 hours for roles 1-3 can usually be arranged if the person isn’t confident they could manage the whole time. As usual, a free lunch is provided, and there is sometimes cake to take home at the end of the session.
Please prayerfully consider what position you could fill. Or if it is none of the above, but you still want to volunteer, we also have waiting on positions.
You can contact us on 07517 429 763 or email: llandudnoyfc@gmail.com.
Be blessed!

E-Nerf fun for everyone!

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At Llandudno Youth for Christ, we are excited to announce that we have some brilliant social events coming up in the near future. Indeed 2 of them are in the very near future.

On this coming Saturday 23rd February we will be having a ‘Girls’ Night’ social event and a ‘Lads’Night’ social event. These will be two great community building events.

The Girls will be spending time together eating ice-cream and watching a movie at Gloddaeth Church from 6-9pm. At the same time the Lads will be meeting at TyLlywelyn Community Centre for an evening of eating pies, playing games & taking part in bouts of inflatable boxing.

Then in just over a Month’s time we will be all meeting for an epic ‘Nerf’ battle, again in Gloddaeth Church on Saturday 30th March, 6-8pm. This will be a fun time for everyone.

So, if you are aged 11-18yrs of age, or you know someone who is, and you think you might enjoy these events, please do come along/let them know.

Also, please be praying for these events. Praying that everyone will have a good time and a real sense of community and fun will be built amongst all who attend.

Thank you, and be blessed!

Love is…

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This Thursday we are all going to be inundated with red roses, chocolate hearts and romantic cards. Yes it’s valentine’s day.

You might be fed up with this annual celebration of romantic love and see it as simply a commercial endeavour set to line the pockets of businesses. However, as it does focus on the most impart thing in life, ‘love’, it shouldn’t be so quickly dismissed.

Interestingly enough, this last Sunday at ‘Redefine’ we were studying chapter 12 of the gospel of Mark; verses 28 to 34 to be precise. In this passage a religious scholar asks Jesus what the most important commandment is. Jesus’ reply is this “The most important of all the commandments is this: ‘The Lord Yahweh, our God, is one!’ You are to love the Lord Yahweh, your God, with every passion of your heart, with all the energy of your being, with every thought that is within you, and with all your strength. This is the great and supreme commandment. And the second is this: ‘You must love your neighbour in the same way you love yourself.’ You will never find a greater commandment than these.” – Mark 12:29-31

Jesus is saying that loving God and loving those around us are the greatest commandment. It’s all about love. After all God is love.

And loving our neighbour just means those around us, even those people who dress differently than us, who think differently to us, who have different beliefs than us. Those people that we don’t always get along with, or want to get along with. As we love them, we are demonstrating our love for God also. For the apostle John in his first epistle writes “Anyone can say, “I love God,” yet have hatred toward another believer. This makes him a phony, because if you don’t love a brother or sister, whom you can see, how can you truly love God, whom you can’t see? For he has given us this command: whoever loves God must also demonstrate love to others” – 1 John 4:20-21.

This is a tough call and a difficult ask. The romantic love of Valentine’s day may be easy, as easy as popping to the shops and buying a card and some flowers, but the powerful and robust, unconditional love of God; the Agape love of God; is much harder to do. Indeed, it is impossible for us to do in our own power and strength. We can only accomplish it by God’s Spirit moving in and through our lives.

So this week as we are reminded of love wherever we go, let us remember that God loves us with an unconditional and reckless love and as we are transformed by that love, let us love those around us with the love He gives us.

Be blessed!

More than meets the eye…

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The title to this blog post is the tagline to the Transformers franchise. I’m writing about Transformers (no, not the electrical one for changing voltages), because my son and daughter just received a surprise bag of some vintage and nearly new Transformers for them to play with. They loved them and were very eager to play and ‘transform’ these toys.

The Transformer toy line has been around since 1984 when it was created by Bob Budiansky and Nobuyuki Okude as a joint American Japanese venture between Hasbro (USA) and Takara Tomy (Japan). I grew up with Transformers and in fact if you ever visit the Llandudno Youth for Christ offices, you’ll see 4 vintage Transformer toys from my childhood on display above my desk. Transformers are robots that ‘transform’ into various vehicles and objects, they are ‘robots in disguise’ (another tagline for them). Some are easy to transform, whilst others are quite tricky and complex.

Indeed, 2 of the new Transformers my son had were so tricky that even I didn’t know how to transform them from vehicle mode to robot mode. I needed either a direct line to the toys’ creators or at the very least the instruction manuals.

This struggle with the transformers sparked something in me, and whilst I was praying at Redefine, I kept on getting images of Transformers in my head and realised God was trying to tell me something. So I listened more intently to what the Spirit of God was telling me.

I felt God was saying that as human beings we are even more complex than Transformers and that we need both the Creator and the instruction manual in order to be transformed. God was reminding me that it was His job and responsibility to bring the transformation in our lives and that we cannot do that on our own, but by letting God transform us by His presence and His word (the Bible).

I was really encouraged by this and by these words from Psalm 139:13-16.

“13You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside
    and my intricate outside,
    and wove them all together in my mother’s womb.
14 I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex!
    Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking.
    It simply amazes me to think about it!
    How thoroughly you know me, Lord!
15 You even formed every bone in my body
    when you created me in the secret place,
    carefully, skillfully shaping me from nothing to something.
16 You saw who you created me to be before I became me!
    Before I’d ever seen the light of day,
    the number of days you planned for me
    were already recorded in your book.”

Remember there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to you. God has made you and He doesn’t make mistakes. He created you and He knows what you need.

This week as you meditate on the above truth, please be praying for the young people that attend the different events we hold. Pray that they would come to realise that they are a beloved and unique creation of a loving and unique Creator, God.

Be blessed.

ἐν ἀρχή…(In the beginning…)

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“Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God. He created everything there is—nothing exists that he didn’t make. Eternal life is in him, and this life gives light to all mankind. His life is the light that shines through the darkness—and the darkness can never extinguish it.” – John 1:1-5 (TLB)

January is almost gone and we’ll soon be stepping into February, but now whilst we are still at the beginning of the year, let us look forward to all that is in store for us in 2019 with hope filled hearts and joyous expectation.

Like Paul, let us forget what is behind and press forward to what God has in store for us in the coming days, weeks & months.

Let us remember that the God we serve is one of life & light and a light that the darkness can NEVER extinguish!

There is nothing ahead of you in 2019 that God is not big enough to carry you through.

Perhaps there are new opportunities coming your way? New connections to make or perhaps God is going to resurrect dreams that you long thought were dead and gone.

Perhaps God is asking you to step out in faith and partner with us here at Llandudno Youth for Christ. Either financially by becoming a monthly financial supporter of the work we are doing in seeing young people’s lives turned around by Jesus, or partnering with us in prayer, daily seeking God for the lives of the young people in Llandudno and beyond and joining with us monthly at our prayer gatherings.

Perhaps it is in partnering with us by volunteering at one of our events, such as ‘Reverb‘, our after-school drop-in youth club that is held every Thursday during term time from 3:15-5:15pm. Or perhaps volunteering at our community cafe ‘Reverb Saturday Cafe @ St John’s‘ where we serve people in Llandundo with coffee, cakes & a friendly smile – this is a great ministry that not only blesses the people of Llandudno, but also raises much needed funds for the ministry work that we are doing.

Please prayerfully consider how you can help support the work of Llandudno Youth for Christ in bringing Jesus’ light to the young people of Llandudno and beyond.

Have a great 2019 and shine His light for all to see.

Be blessed!

We are…….?

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We’ve all just come back from the Youth for Christ National Conference in Didsbury, Manchester.

A great time was had by all of the team that went, and now that we are back, we are getting stuck into 2019 and all that God has in store for us this year.

The theme of last year’s Conference was ‘Renovation’ – and was all centred around the idea of God renovating us as a ministry and as individuals. For Him to tear down the superficial and rebuild us all to prepare us for what He is doing in Youth for Christ Nationally, Regionally & Individually.

This year the theme was ‘Core’. We went back to looking at the core values of Youth for Christ. What are the essential aspects of everything that we do.

As Youth for Christ UK, we are….

Courageous – We want to step boldly into the future, trusting in God’s direction & provision.

Helpful – We want to help our communities, churches & young people to engage with Jesus.

Relational – We are all about building bridges between people and creating caring communities.

Innovative – We want to be relevant and creative in our communication of the gospel.

Spiritual – Everything we do is so that young lives are transformed by Jesus.

Together – We want to work alongside local churches and communities to see God’s kingdom grow.

All of this together spells CHRIST.

We’re all about Jesus and seeing Him change young people’s lives.

This year will you please partner with us in prayer, with provision and perhaps volunteer at one of our many ministries.

Here’s to 2019 and all that God has in store for us.

Be blessed!

Youth for Christ National Conference here we come!

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Yay! Youth for Christ National Conference here we come. We’re so looking forward to this year’s national conference, and all that God is going to be doing through it. Please be praying for us during this week; praying that we would clearly hear God speak to us on this week away. Pray that we will come back refreshed and strengthened in our faith and raring to go.

Also, please be praying for our director here at Llandudno Youth for Christ, Tim Gough, as he is going to be leading a teaching seminar entitled ‘Where we’ve failed and where we’ve borne fruit in our youth work.’ It will be held on Tuesday 8th January at 11:30am. Pray for this session to be fruitful and encouraging for those who attend it.

Going to National Conference is a great time of being able to look back at 2018 and thanking God for all that He has done in and through the ministry of Llandudno Youth for Christ. It is also an opportunity to look ahead at the blank canvas that is 2019 and seek God’s guidance and wisdom.

At this time of year when so many people are working out their New Year’s resolutions it’s great to come together with the greater Youth for Christ family, and encourage each other with stories of all that God has been doing in the lives of young people all across the United Kingdom and beyond. “He gave his life for us so that we may share in resurrection life in union with him—whether we’re awake or asleep. Because of this, encourage the hearts of your fellow believers and support one another, just as you have already been doing.” – 1 Thess 5:10-11

We thank you for your amazing support and encouragement during 2018 and we look forward to 2019 with expectant hearts. Please do continue to journey with us and encourage and support us faithfully as you have done. We really appreciate your support in prayer, with finances and with volunteers at the different events we hold.

Thank you and be blessed.