Our Events: Plugged In
On the 25th June, we joined in a great new youth event run by our family of churches, Relational Mission. Even in the best of times, we can struggle to feel connected to the wider church family, unless we are in a big event like Newday. However, in these current times, we can feel disconnected from our own church family. But given the current situation and youth being online, we have a rare opportunity to come together with young people from across the country. This community was what shone through during the Plugged-In event; everyone was so kind and welcoming. The peculiarity of everyone being online was overshadowed by a shared love for Jesus.
The evening began by splitting off into smaller groups. This delightful feature really helped to soothe the initial awkwardness of it all. As we candidly discussed what we would like to invent, we got to know each other; we got to experience that wider church community that is genuinely delighted that we could see one another.
When we returned to the main meeting, we played a game of Reverse Charades, where we all acted something out and someone else had to guess. The ensuing hilarity was incredible, as everyone so willingly made a fool of themselves. It certainly demonstrated the unique level of comfort there was in the group; though we may have only met that evening, it did not feel as though we were performing for a bunch of strangers, rather to a bunch of new friends.
Soon a return to normalcy as we began to worship together. It was a heart warming to be able to sing to God with brothers and sisters across the country. Whilst the pleasure of worshiping together in person has been taken from us for the time being, we are blessed to be still be able to do so online. We were led by our very own Sam Beardon, who with great skill was able to make the online worship feel natural. While it could very easily have felt as if we were just singing on our own in front of a meeting full of people, it felt more like we were invited into a family coming before our Father.
Following our worship, we went into a time of prayer. Very often such occurrences can feel very irking; it can feel odd to pray while we are actually together, so it should have been strange to do so with a bunch of new faces over the internet. However, the strangeness of this was mitigated as we all prayed privately about various things that were written on a presentation. We thanked God for who he is with the help of a slide with many of the things God says about Himself: We asked God to reveal Himself to our friends: We asked God to help our world in this current time.
The word of God was brought to us by our Lead Elder, Martin Segal. He spoke to us about faithfulness in a time of distraction; how we as Christians can often forget our first love and subtly pursue other things that won’t fulfil us. Coming to the end of the sermon we were Martin invited us to respond, it was exciting to see that many had been influenced by what Martin had to say. We may be tempted to think that the Spirit of God can only move in the evening at Newday, or He needs certain lighting and a smoke machine. However, while Sam led us in a response and invited us to realign our hearts to God, it became obvious that the Spirit of God is not limited that His love and holiness can touch our hearts wherever we are.
About the author
Joel is the youth ID intern from Cambridge. He enjoys rock climbing, reading and maths.
