November - Youth Weekend

For the last few months we've been planning to hold a youth weekend in the church where we would put on a praise night for the youth on the Saturday night and then run the two Sunday services the next day. It finally happened last weekend.

On the Saturday night we held the first "Connect"in the old sanctuary - splitting it in two for a coffee bar and a worship area. Pete C led worship with Connor, Jonny, and Kerrilee playing in the band and I spoke on 1 Timothy 4:12 - letting noone despise us for our youth. We showed our lack of faith by only setting out about 40 chairs, only for a coach from Ballymoney to show up followed by a car-park full of cars! We ended up with over a hundred people turning up!  It was an amazing night and hopefully will lead to a few more.

The Sunday morning service at church started off with Suz doing an amazing job at leading communion and then Pete C and Nicky leading a really relaxed and minimal worship time with just Pete on keys. Joel then got up and preached it! He spoke on "missed potential" and how the global church seems to be missing the mark when it comes to how to 'do' christianity. The service was ended with a call to prayer in the back room for anyone who wanted to make a fresh commitment to following God.

The Sunday evening service had Pete C preaching on love. Comparing the love God shows us to the love that we tend to fail to show the world. Even with his proper panic session beforehand he was amazing and a natural! Kerrilee and her band, Jonny H (drums), Nathan H (bass), Adam M (acoustic), and Michael M (lead) led the worship afterwards. They were incredible and need to be used more often!

All in all the weekend was amazing and showed the potential within the youth in the church to arrange, organise and staff a weekend of worship and teaching to the glory of God. Hopefully we set an example, and it wont be the last. 

 

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October - Ganaway

In October there was the weekend away at Ganaway. Nothing was really planned, just time to chill, have a bit of craic , play pool and eat free chinese. Pete C led worship on the Friday night and Pastor Brian led a communion service on the Sunday morning. 

 

On the Saturday morning most people had a blast on the ropes to varying degrees of success. then in the afternoon some did archery and the rest went on the climbing wall. There's plenty of photos on the facebook page (you need to become a member to see them though).

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September - IceBowl and Pizza Hut

In September we had the ultimate Church youth group night out by heading to the mighty Ice Bowl (Speed skaters only on the ice") and then to pizza hut for food.

Jeanette had some dodgy vouchers from the internet to get us money off but they wouldn't accept them so some Del-Boy did a bit of negotiating and got us all 25% off anyway! 

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A long time coming...

Seems to be that every post here starts with "sorry for the delay in posts, but..." so I'll not bother. 

Since the last post we've had a few things happen;

 - an old school Sunday school trip style night out at the mighty Ice Bowl and Pizza Hut.

 - a weekend away to Ganaway for a bit of craic.

 - a new Facebook group set up to let us get in contact with everyone at once. 

 - and a youth weekend in the church with the youth taking the two Sunday services. 

I'll throw up a few posts with photos for each one later.

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Coffee night this Sat

As announced on Sunday at church - there's a coffee night this Saturday night being held in Eat etc. - the new coffee shop on the old movies and mochas site. 

We don't have the place booked to ourselves, but the owner has told me that the last few Saturdays there's been noone there after about 7.30 - so it should be pretty much just us. There wont be anyone playing - they couldn't get the license in time, but have applied for it so that we can have an open mic in the next few months if we want. 

We'll hopefully be able to get a chat about the residential - see what you all want to do and tak about cost etc!

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Also - don't forget Ryans's coffee morning in his house on Sat morning to raise money for going to Kenya.  

July Event?

Apologies for the lack of posts here lately, and the lack of any events in July!

We had a meeting on Monday night and have came up with a program for the next six months or so - these will be taken to the church for approval on some of them then we can start announcing them here!

First up is an open mic night on Sat Aug 16th. Venue is still to be confirmed, although currently chatting with the owner of an amazing place that would be perfect for it - hopefully get that sorted soon - if it works out it would be really good!

Anyone interested in doing something at the open mic, be it acoustic covers, originals, spoken word, or even interpretive dance (think Kerilee has already claimed that one!) let me know at some stage.

Take it easy, hopefully have more updates soon.

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18-30s event - Glenmachan

On 21st June there will be an event held in the church for 18-30s. Guest speaker will be Jay Marotta from Newtownards Church of God, although Ive no idea what the topic will be!

We're trying to get invites out to all local churchs to send people up so bring anybody who you can convince to come!

I came on holiday a week ago and all the above was true when I left - if Jeanette has changed her plans then my apologies - go with what she says!

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