Archive for category: Schools Work

This coming Wednesday 17th August, Llandudno Youth for Christ are holding our annual ‘Refresh’ conference.  This is a 1 day fun-filled event that we hold at St David’s College in Llandudno.

Like its name, the day is aimed at giving the young people a time and place to let off some steam with fun activities, such as Ultimate Frisbee, a Wide Game, Acoustic Music around a Campfire, 9 Square and some Storytelling. A time for them to relax and refresh themselves before the new academic term starts in September.

We have held this conference at St David’s for the past several years. St Davids is a school that was founded with the aim of offering an education system that impacts upon the whole-person, not just stimulating the intellect. The school was founded by John Mayor in 1965 on Christian principles and outdoor education.

We love having this conference in such a fabulous setting and are extremely grateful for all of the staff at St David’s for all of the help they give us.
The conference will run from 12 – 4pm this coming Wednesday.

I posted the above picture for the conference, not because we have a ‘colour run’ as part of the conference, but just for the play on words of a wet wipe being refreshing upon your face, and that the people in the picture look like they could do with a wet wipe to clean their faces with.

In the Bible, I found some references to ‘refresh’; ^“I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” Jeremiah 31:25. “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.” Psalm 23:2 “By all this we are encouraged. In addition to our own encourageent, we were especially delighted to see how happy Titus was, because his spirit has been refreshed by all of you.” 2 Corinthians 7:13

We see from these verses that God refreshes us, and that also in the context of Christian community we can refresh each other and encourage each other in our walk with God.

We hope and pray that the young people that do attend will indeed be ‘Refreshed’.

Will you pray for the day, that God would bless everything with His presence and that many young lives would be impacted by the love of God.

If you are a young person who would like to come, or you know a young person who would like to come, please download the permission slip and bring it along to the event completed.

Thank you.

Refresh-Form-2016

With exam season well and truly upon us, we at Llandudno Youth for Christ are well aware of the pressures that this can place upon the young people that attend our different events.

Indeed with this being the case, last Sunday evening at the start of the summer half-term we held a great social event where we took advantage of the gorgeous weather we have been having finally here in North Wales and headed out to the West Shore of Llandudno for some beach time.

We met outside the beautiful red brick building of the ‘Zion Baptist Church’, and from there headed down to the beach to play some ball games, relax and hang out together.

It was a welcome break from all of the exams and revising for everyone.

A much needed evening of rest.

This got me thinking of how good God was in giving us the ‘Sabbath’ as a rest day.

^“Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don’t do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day.” Exodus 20:8-11

I love that the word we use in the UK for a ‘vacation’ is ‘holiday’. The root of this is ‘holy day’ a day set apart, and was originally used to denote days where religious feasts and festivals took place. They were times when people stopped their regular work and rested; which included fun and celebration.

Holy day…holiday.

A time set-apart.

Like that special suit you set-apart for a special occasion, or perhaps a treat like a favourite ice-cream or chocolate that you set-apart for a special occasion.

When we set something apart, make it ‘holy’, we realise that it has special significance and importance.

The Hebrew for holy is ‘קָדוֹשׁ’ – qadosh, which can convey the sense of something high and lofty, something higher than us. Something to be honoured. So when God commanded us to set apart one day as special and honoured it was a good thing for our benefit.

Unfortunately we can all too easily see it as something we must do and tie ourselves up in legalistic red tape and this was not God’s desire when he commanded us to keep the ‘Sabbath’.

Jesus really unpacked this well for us towards the end of the gospel of Mark chapter 2.

Jesus points out that God made the ‘Sabbath’ to benefit us, to do us good, not for it to be an onerous, religious millstone around our necks.

I love how our God is good and knows that His people need to rest.  They need to set some time apart to be rested, refreshed and refocussed.

They need some holy time on a holiday.

A time to spend relaxing with God and getting His perspective on life.

I’m so glad we were able to give our young people an opportunity to do that.

Do you need a ‘holy-day’?

Do you need to set-apart a time to rest with your Maker?