After the success of last year’s February event, it is with great excitement that we are now under two weeks away from once again heading away as a St Mungo’s Youth family for our annual Weekend Away, an event that was fully booked before the Early Bird offer closed in October! This year we are going back to the 90s with activities themed as we reflect on what Hebrews 11 and 12 teach us on what we can learn from the past and how that can inspire our future!
As we did in 2022, we are going to be combining our own residential weekend with a national Youth Event, Limitless One. Limitless One sees events happen in eight locations around the UK, on the same night, at the same time showing that the Christian family is not limited to our own wee bubbles but instead showing that something much bigger and wider is happening in this generation around the UK. At the event, there will be a silent disco, followed by worship from the Limitless Band, along with a talk from youth worker Jack McGinnigal. At last year’s event we saw 7 of our young people give their lives to the Lord and we are praying expectantly for more powerful and incredible God moves during this event.
As mentioned above, it is not just the Limitless One event we will be attending. We are going to combine attending this event with our very own residential weekend, like last year staying at the warm setting of the Bible Centre in Inchinnan where we will have our own meetings on the Friday Night and Saturday and Sunday mornings, as well as plenty of time to hang out and enjoy spending time as a Mungo's youth family, something I know our youth love to do! Our speakers at the weekend are Peter Short, Jonny Slatter and Emma De Wet and we’ll be led in worship by Fiona Crow, Eilidh Skinner, Hannah Caves and Dave Crow at various points throughout the weekend.
Throughout the weekend we have many 90s themed activities happening including Stars In Their Eyes, Play Your Cards Right and Gladiators style challenges making it a proper nostalgic trip (for the leaders at least and there will be plenty of other fun and games throughout the weekend to be had!
In total we have 67 young people (including five young leaders) attending our weekend supported by a strong team of 17 volunteers from the youth team.
Some quick prayer points for the whole church to be praying for would be:
· For our 67 young people attending, that God would be preparing their hearts and minds ready to receive from Him at the weekend and they would all be healthy and energised as they come into the weekend
· That our young people meet Jesus, either for the first time or in a fresh way over the course of the weekend
· That all our young people feel a real unity being away together as a St Mungo’s Youth family and that life-long friendships would blossom for every young person there.
· That there is joy and excitement abounding throughout every activity, meeting and free time planned
· For energy, excitement and expectation for our fantastic team of leaders who are serving over the weekend
· For Mark, Emma and the catering team as they keep us all fed and energised throughout the weekend and that everything will run extremely smoothly in our Ready Steady Cook Kitchen
· For Peter, Jonny and Emma as they prepare their talks and for those involved in worship, that God will inspire them with the right words/songs throughout the weekend
· Finally, for all the little logistical things as we finalise the finite details of parts of the weekend away