The Revive Conference

  • Michelle Botha
  • Aug 27, 2010
  • Series: The Informer

The prospect of waking up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning to attend a full day youth and children’s work conference did not thrill me and judging by the crowd of bleary-eyed people who arrived to register at GWC last Saturday I was not alone. But I’m sure I’m also not alone in admitting that the Revive youth and children’s ministry conference was time well spent as all who attended were challenged, inspired and encouraged to continue to serve God in their various churches and ministries.

This was the first year that Revive was run and it brought together both youth and children’s ministries from a number of churches in the Western Cape.

The day began with a talk by Rev. Martin Morrison from Christ Church MidRand entitled “What is the Gospel”. This was a brilliant summary of what the Gospel is and why we need to be committed to sharing it with everyone no matter how young or old. Following this was a workshop which gave us a chance to split into the age groups that we teach and work on preparing a bible passage specifically with the aim of evangelism whether in the form of a small group bible study or a full scale youth meeting. There were a number of seminars offered of which we were able to choose two to attend.

 

I chose to attend Jason Palacio’s seminar entitled, “Culture and Evangelism in the digital age” where he stressed the importance of using technology to our benefit while remembering it’s dangers. He also shared practical ways in which we can use technologies such as Facebook, Mxit and Twitter as tools for evangelism especially in terms of youth ministry.

I also attended a seminar run by Alistair Anderton about evangelistic illustrations and how to simplify and make the gospel accessible to young people especially non-Christians who have come along to a meeting with a friend.

Lunch saw us all descending on Muizenberg in search of nourishment and due to a series of unfortunate events (you may want to ask Julie Mentor about a “close shave” with a train) I did not hear what I’m sure was a very informative interview with Martin Morrison on the importance of youth and children’s work.

One of the most interesting sections of the day was an opportunity for us to pose questions to a experts, including our very own Jenni Galloway and Scott Tubman among others. Everything from how to deal with rowdy behaviour to maintaining good relationships with parents and the rest of the church family as a whole was covered.

Despite my reservations this was a very informative, helpful and necessary day in terms of individual growth but also in terms of sharing ideas and learning from other people with similar ministry interests and objectives.

I also was reminded that we at St. James are very blessed with great full time staff and resources, luxuries which many other churches have to get by without.