Maybe you haven't heard...
Christina Baillie
Project Develoment Lead
Maybe you haven’t heard the good news.
Over the weekend I was chatting with a few Christians, one my age and one in her 80’s, and they hadn’t heard. So I just wanted to check in to make sure you had?
The good news is that over the past year we’ve seen young people respond to God in an incredible way. Young people are making commitments of faith at a surprising rate. They are stepping up boldly to live out their faith in a way that feels significant.
Let me say this isn’t just a Youth For Christ NI thing, though we’ve seen it! There are stories from youth workers, volunteer leaders and other organisations across the country. I’m also a diplomat by nature so you have to know that this isn’t absolutely everyone’s experience, but it feels like there is something important happening and we want to pay attention.
For those of us working to serve and share the gospel with young people, I wondered what you’ve noticed in this season. I would say we haven’t done anything special or different. There hasn’t been an expensive campaign or better confetti cannons. So amidst a special moment, it humbles us and helps us remember that this is a move of God.
The reason for sharing this is to encourage you.
God is working.
Young people are responding.
There is hope.
You might not know their names, they may not be at your church on a Sunday. You might know them as they are in your classroom, sit at your dinner table, pass by you in church or be connected in the glorious Northern Irish way that we have links between one another.
But whether you can picture their faces, they need your prayers. Please pray for the multitudes of young people responding to Jesus. Pray for the Christian adults in their lives and the churches where they can belong. Pray for us in Youth For Christ as we build long term relationships with young people through drop in and other programmes to engage with unreached young people.
Why not make Paul’s prayer your own today and pray this today over young people who have responded to God:
Philippians 1:3-6, 9-11
“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ… And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
