Evening.
A brief update of what's been going on first:
This summer has been relatively unfruitful so far, lots of rejections for jobs, but it's not been so bad...the day after getting back from Newday I popped back for a night, and then had an impromptu few days in Wales with the family, which was sweeeeet.
The bulk of this has been written from the first class carriage from the train from Birmingham to Bournemouth (amazingly cheap tickets advance from the internet), and I'm now finishing it off from the front room of a vicarage in Poole. It's been a funny old day.
But there's plenty to say.....At base, this is going to be a retelling of the nuts and bolts of Newday.
For a more general overview of each day of the week, visit the official blog here
I'll be concentrating on a personal, in-the-field kind of view.
So, let's get down to it; Newday is a conference run by NewFrontiers, the network of churches that Oasis and my home church are involved with.
It’s for youth groups primarily, but more and more, they're running seminar streams for slightly older and younger people too, with 7000 people crowding out a showground or racecourse for a week every year. As we approached Norfolk showground for this year’s knees-up, I was somewhat nervous because, despite being a verteran of the event, I travelled with the youth group from Oasis. A new group who didn’t know me well at a new venue; it was always going to be interesting. More than I might have guessed.
After the inevitable funny looks whilst Bryn and I put up our tent (a borrowed one that was about two people smaller than I expected it to be), I began to settle in and get to know the group. Props to Pete, Cheryl, Matt and Cath (the other leaders), and Gus and Jane who looked after me as much as the rest of the group in the first day or so. Anyway, camp was set up and Swingball began, but it was when we reached the big top and packed in to be led by Simon Brading in worship that I finally felt on familiar, comfortable ground.
True, there were moments throughout the week when the younger echelons got a tad too boisterous and it became more like a concert than real, zealous, celebratory worship, but I have to commend the worship leaders all week for their wisdom and sensitivity to the spirit- Phatfish and Matt Redman led other sessions and along with Simon were quite brilliant. But we weren’t just there for a party...Stef Liston kicked off the characteristically solid and challenging teaching with first of two talks on forgiveness, the firstly from God, and then on the second night, the equally important subject of forgiving others, which ended in much emotion, but it was necessary emotion, not hyped up or stirred up- it was constructive emotion. Something I need to work on distinguishing in myself.
While we’re talking about the teaching, it would be good to talk about the other stuff that went on during the week. In the mornings, meetings are split according to age (12-14 and 15-19). For the younger group, Andrew Wilson (just about my favourite writer at the moment) used the mornings to talk on the subject of ‘Who is Jesus’, which I understand to be basic apologetics. I can’t think of a better person to be bringing such a massive subject to life for that age group. For the older lot, whom I was looking after, Joel Virgo preached some of the most relevant and frankly interesting stuff I’ve ever heard from him, on the subject of Peter; his life and the effect Jesus had on him. There was a range of seminars after the morning meetings over a huge range of subjects, some of which I’ll touch on later. As I said, Stef crammed a huge, huge amount into the first two evenings, and then Mike Pilavachi took to the stage for the next two nights. From past experience, I was prepared to laugh a lot, be challenged a lot, and then for things to go a bit chaotic. I was not disappointed.
The first evening, he spoke on the relevance of the Old Testament and how throughout it, there are mirrors and whispers and signposts all pointing towards Jesus, the hero of the whole story. I haven’t read it, but I imagine it was a very condensed version of his book ‘Storylines’. It’s something that I have only just come to realise a bit more, and it’s helped no end in studying the OT, because it’s a bit like when you watch a film again, and because you know the plot twist at the end, you understand nearly every scene far better, for example The Sixth Sense or Fight Club. So, good stuff from Mikey.
He finished his talk, sat down on the edge of the stage, and then said “We’re going to just wait and see what God does next”. Bold words to say in front of thousands of excitable teenagers. As part of the ministry team, I can say first hand that God came and genuinely met in a powerful way with a lot of people, which was hugely exciting, especially to see some of the younger guys from our group (who, at this point, I was becoming a far better friend to, and fascinatingly, a real figure of authority- I was asked multiple times every ‘Can I go to the toilet’ – bless!) being filled with the spirit and being able to say things like ‘God was so close that I felt like I could almost see Him’ and ‘This is the first time that I’ve ever felt sure that God really loves me’ and ‘I really just want to tell everyone about how good God is’. For a leader, there aren’t really many better words to hear. The challenge comes in encouraging them to turn words into action, which is something I am itching to crack onto come September. Having said all of that, there were a few in the group who were quite understandably spooked by everything that was going on, so we had a bible study over breakfast from Acts and Joel to straighten some things out. It was at this point that I began to really feel like a leader; to serve and to bring understanding. It was a special moment.
Anyway, the day passed and Mike came to speak again. He had obviously anticipated some confusion, and spoke on the spirit, His role in the trinity, what He does, and what He doesn’t do. It was truth wisely and delicately delivered, and the evening came to a head with a little more cohesion with less misinterpreted acting and more real encounters. The second of the major standout points of the week occurred that evening. One of the chaps in our group had requested prayer because he wanted to speak in tongues, and after praying for others, I got the chance to pray with him (sadly I hadn’t got my red ministry team cap at this point!). Now, those that know me will know that one of the things I am passionate about is delivering a rational and well reasoned argument for the existence of God, but far more than any theology, philosophy or scientific discovery could, the biggest point I have is that our God actually does stuff! I prayed for this guy and a fabulous new language of praise came pouring out of him, and the joy and gratitude of the moment is almost too great to put into words without seeming insipid or massively hyperbolic. I was beginning to learn that though the way I approached the week was different, and my focus in the meetings was on multiple targets, God was still in charge, and almost every time does things different from what I expect. Being a leader and having responsibility for 20 youngsters certainly alters the way you approach the meeting, but it wasn’t hindering in the way I expected. New blessings and ways to worship present themselves, and the amount of satisfaction gained from seeing our group grow and come out of their shells during the week was something I had not anticipated. To have people come and ask for help with a verse in the Bible or for prayer for something is a massive exercise in humility because you realise that you really, really need to rely on Him!
This sentiment became more apparent the evening after, when I finally had the chance to don my red cap. Now, one of the best evenings at Newday is the night that Adrian Holloway (read his books!) prays for the sick and then delivers an interactive, engaging gospel message. Like small group meetings in front rooms, it’s moments in time like this that the New Testament comes alive, the church comes into her own as God comes and does more stuff than we can do on our own. In other words, the mere words of a prayer cannot heal people, it’s God responding to the prayer, and He did. Over 300 people were healed, some of which were straight out of the New Testament- blind people literally were given sight, deaf people literally could hear again. People who had had curved spines danced on stage. Again, more reason to bow in awe than can be written by the best human minds. Then, using the parable of the prodigal son as a base, he preached the gospel.
Using two huge white staircases on wheels (which must have been a nightmare to square with health and safety), he illustrated the closeness God intended, and then the separation we created, and then, walking through the aisles to the back of the big top, he continued talking, stopping by the PA rig to pick up a piece of wood, which He carried on his back, returning to the stage to use the wood to complete a cross that acted as the bridge between the staircases. It was, perhaps, not as cinematic as his messages from the past (which have included a real coffin, and a real guillotine), but it more than adequately served as a timely reminder of our constant need of the gospel, of Jesus and His mercy. Upon finishing his message, he asked everyone to take seven steps backwards in the already packed tent. At this point, my red capped friends and I moved to form a perimeter around the space left in front of the stage. Adrian invited people forward on the count of three, and they burst through our line. And they kept coming. The overwhelming response came in a glorious life defining moment. 300 people gave their lives to Jesus for the first time. Over 700 recommitted their lives to Him.
I feel that all those involved and all those that hear these figures should be well equipped to say that that, contrary to popular opinion, the gospel is relevant, necessary, indeed, absolutely vital today as much as any other time in history. Bearing in mind that the majority of the new commitments were not from churched kids, they were people who, perhaps grudgingly, had been taken to Newday by a friend who they knew ‘did church stuff’, been freaked out and/or amused by the meetings, but when the gospel is preached, God moves and people respond to Him. I had the honour of helping a young lad in his first steps in His new relationship with Jesus, and as I sat praying in a pig shed in Norwich, I thought “Why on earth don’t we get to do this more often?”. The answer is obvious, of course, but living out the answer is difficult.
There is a lot of buzz from being together with a lot of people who believe the same thing as you, a safety to be exuberant in praise and prayer, but my worry is that once September comes, it’s raining, Maths homework isn’t done and the bus is leaving, the passion for the gospel and for God himself will have fizzled out, because we mistook the buzz of the event for Him. Consequently, it’s my fervent prayer that everyone has learned something that will stick with them, and that Jesus has impacted them with something that lasts. I despise acted, plastic religion as much as Richard Dawkins- and ironically God himself (see minor prophets)-do, but I crave honesty and real relationship with Jesus, because that is the only way that anything planted at events like Newday are going to bear fruit.
Something else I’m sure impassioned atheists would despise is the offering that was given on the final morning. Some would call this ‘organised religion stealing from the pockets of unsuspecting teenagers’. You would be surprised if I didn’t disagree with this, and happily I don’t have to disappoint. A basic understanding of the woman who gave pennies at the temple and Jesus’ reaction will teach that it’s not about amount, it’s about heart attitude. Cliches like ‘it’s better to give than receive’ have been born around this, such that the truth is met with a shrug. There wasn’t much shrugging going on that morning though; again the simple trust in God, and a faith unblemished by cynicism allowed teenagers to happily give to the work that NewFrontiers is doing all over the world, to fund aid projects in inner cities in Britain, start churches in villages in Africa and everything in between. I have become fonder of the movement more and more lately; in the past I’ve been a little frustrated with its seeming lack of desire for ecumenical relationship (for those less wordy, that means connecting with other kinds of churches), but Mike Pilavachi and Matt Redman’s presence has proven progress in this area, and I don’t deny the possibility of my own ignorance in the past...still the point remains that my heart is dedicated to the vision of spirit-led, Bible based, healthy, effective churches all over the earth, and I, along with the rest of those present in the big top, was happy to give financially to support the mission, raising over £70,000.
As we have already seen, the fuel for mission is not money, but Jesus, who is more unswervingly passionate about it than we ever could be. With this in mind, Stu Gibbs spoke about baptism, primarily addressing those who had become Christians the night before, which took us up to the final evening. Nobody preached a conventional sermon, but some familiar leaders from the teaching during the week, and David and Phillipa Stroud, led us in what was undoubtedly the biggest and most dynamic prayer meeting I have ever been involved in. From our own unsaved friends, to our groups, to our leaders, our churches, to the government, to the nations of the world; we prayed for hours about many important issues with confidence that He is our God, and we are His people. Possibly the biggest thing I have relearned this week is the importance of prayer in and for every sphere of life. I am going through a bit of a dry season and have been finding it difficult to focus on prayer, but a reinvigorated sense of purpose and closeness has helped drastically. It’s an example of the stuff that needs to be built into us and we need to be disciplined about if we’re going to be useful and effective for the gospel, and not just make a loud noise for a week in a field of smelly teenagers.
Perhaps of equal importance of all that has been said above is the Swingball tournament that went on on our campsite. Alas, I was knocked out in the first round by a fifteen year-old, but it was a closely fought thing all the way through, although I have a very sore hand now.
Something I have alluded to already is the simple trust that the younger ones especially have. It’s something that I have had to consider and learn from in the past few days, as I have mused over a particular seminar that I went to. It was called ‘Jesus and Death’ (a jollier title you shall seldom hear!), and was centred around eschatology (end times), and therefore heaven, hell, the book of revelation. A very wise man once said to me that it was ironic that it was called Revalation because it is nigh on opaque, and, unnervingly, I left agreeing with this more than I had done previously. The guy who spoke, Phil Moore, is an excellent theologian and evangelist, and in the Q&A session afterwards, he was assisted by Andrew Wilson, who I have already showered accolades over. However, whilst the doctrine was sound and presented in a relatable way, the mere nature of Revelation (in that it can be interpreted in various ways) meant that left the lads I was in charge of and me myself asking more questions than were answered. On the one hand, I think it’s vitally important to have a correct concept of heaven (Colossians 3), otherwise the future hope of eternity with God is weak, and if that is weak, then one of the motivations for the gospel and one of the central themes of the gospel that we preach is weak. This won’t do because the gospel isn’t weak. However, I also concede that something of an unsatisfying silence is what scripture greets us with for some questions about heaven. Since one of the things that it does say is that we shouldn’t add anything onto what is written, it’s unhelpful and dangerous to humanly conceive answers to those questions. This leaves us in an uncomfortable place of limbo (which, is meant as a figure of speech with an ironic nod to the previous sentence, not a theological concept!). I was unsure how to proceed from here, and it weighed on me especially when I got home, and has contributed to my difficulty in prayer. I have concluded that what we need is a return to the story where Jesus talks about childlike faith. Not childish, as I’ve said before, but just simple, innocent trust. My inquisitive mind thirsts for answers that I may never know, but I have found a place where I’m at peace that God is good and has promised things for me before and after death. I don’t think it’s intellectual suicide to leave it at the few things that scripture has taught us on this subject. No, I think that it’s following a very important lesson that Jesus taught.
So, here’s a challenge to myself and all that read this to focus on what’s above, to be in the world but not of it, to be confident on the reality of our future hope, but also to not try and outsmart God by knowing as much as Him about it. The crux of the whole story is that we are far, far below Him in every way, what point would there be in a Saviour sacrificing Himself if we could know how everything in the universe works without His help.
Others may disagree with this, and I am happy to change my mind if fruitful discussion ensues, but we need to beware of obsession with Revelation, or complete disregard of it because it’s too scary or confusing. Let’s be real and honest, not plastic and manufacture things ourselves.
So, lots of things learned from that week, a highlight for summer for sure.
Enjoy the videos below, and I'll probably have plenty to say in a month or so when I'm back in Brum.
Love you all people.
