…and then God pitched up. [as He does]

so last nite’s youth evening at Fuel ‘Rise Up’ youth week happened in a big way… the leaders had been totally open to changing their whole program around to accommodate the ideas and suggestions of a youth speaker who had been recommended by a friend of theirs but who they had only met on Saturday…

we had two other groups of around 40 each visiting for the first time and so maybe not the best time to be experimenting [or maybe the best?] as they didn’t have any kind of connection with me or anything…

and we took a chance on inviting people to take a risk on God and trust Him to do what for a lot of them might seem like the impossible or at the very least the really, really, really difficult…

we invited response from a group that til then had not been overly responsive in response moments and in such a way that if they didn’t respond the evening would fall a little flat…

in short, we stepped out of the boat [which is a great thing to do when responding to the call of Jesus to do so as we felt He had, but not a good thing to do just for the sake of it]…

…and then God pitched up. [as He does]

possibly the only thing wrong with the whole nite was any moment of suspecting He might not. God is faithful.

i used the analogy of a car with a puncture – that no matter how much work you put into the rest of the car, it will still not drive as it should – yes, it might limp along but until you fix the puncture the car will not drive well. so last nite was all about fixing the puncture.

we had a bunch of cards and pens under the chairs and at the front of the meeting room and invited people to write down the thing or things they wanted God to deal with in their lives [in two categories – things they had done, and things that had been done – or said – to them]

we did that while worship was happening and to some surprise [in my doubting heart anyways] they started writing and coming to the front and dropping them in the box… during worship i had a sense God wanted to challenge the adults [mostly parents and people from the church] at the back of the meeting to deal with their crap and model to the kids a good thing of being humble and admitting they are broken and wounded and in need of help, and they did.

so i got 90 cards and after worship i read out maybe thirty or forty of them to give the group the idea of the kinds of things that were being struggled with in the group [give us a sense of body, of church, when one struggles we all struggle] and there was a huge range of stuff, some really hectic and painfully sad to even read – when i looked at the group as we had for two days you wouldn’t have been able to guess that a tenth of that stuff was happening out there – everyone looks happy and together and like they’re coping and so on… but the cards were evidence of brokenness and pain and abuse and desperate crying out to God.

and then i invited people to stand up and open their hands as a sign of invitation to God and we invited the Holy Spirit to come minister to people and then for people to stand alongside their friends and parents and leaders and put their hand on what God was doing in them – no counselling or specific prayers or advice or scripture quoting – simply invitation to the Holy Spirit to come in and minister – and He did and it was good.

tbV suggested that i invite some of the parents/older folk at the back of the church to come forward and to get the youth to pray for them and we did and they did and it was incredibly powerful as well. God is bigGER!

what a powerful amazing evening. what a faithful God we serve who just loves His people so much and wants to bring healing and forgiveness and restoration. how exciting to be tag teaming with my beautiful wife once more and seeing her hear from God and give suggestion and being able to hear from God and lead things and pray specifically into a few peoples lives. what an incredible stoke to know that there were over thirty people [some with groups they had gathered] praying for that meeting from all over the world – from Japan and Australia to South Africa and Americaland and Canada and beyond… a bunch of friends [and some strangers, even, who just heard of the need] who responded to the call to pray and were faithful in it.

God is good. And when we get it right, which does happen every now and then, His church is good too.

thank you Jesus! all glory be to God!