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Two weeks ago, City Youth headed off for a weekend in chilly Katoomba and had a blast! It was a great weekend of fun and friendship, spicy noodles and soccer, karaoke and kicking back to chill. And, of course, time spent diving deep into the Bible.

Simon Jones, one of our student ministers, gave four talks from the book of Ephesians to help us consider God’s plan for Jesus, for us, for his church, and for the world. We saw that history revolves around Jesus (Eph 1:9-10), yet because of his love, God has poured out his blessings on us (1:3-13), made us alive with Jesus to walk his way (2:1-10), brought us together as the church to show his wisdom and power in the spiritual realms (3:7-13), and called us to live as children of light in a dark world (5:1-18).

In discussion groups we got to dive deep into questions of God’s sovereign control, how the gospel bridges our differences, and why God is so impressed by his achievement of the church.  

Beyond the teaching, it was a great weekend for deepening friendships. There was lots of Fifa, splendour, table tennis, juggling soccer-balls and throwing vortexes, singing, dancing, chatting, relaxing, chilling, hanging, and the like.

Some standout moments from our youth include:

  • One person encouraging everyone from the front to be ‘a united community in response to God’s love for us’.
  • Another saying they are closer to Jesus and are clear that they’re a Christian as a result of time on camp.
  • The amount of Chupa Chups given out to celebrate kindness and service.
  • One person saying how amazed they were by the church, God’s display of his wisdom and victory.
  • Some of our older youth saying they really want to be examples for those who are younger.

Coming out of the weekend, we’re grateful for so much:

  • We’re so grateful for those outside the CY team who organised the camp and came along to help;
  • We’re so grateful for the financial generosity of our church family, because of which thirty youth were able to go away, including five friends of our youth;
  • We’re so grateful for the prayerful generosity of our church family, in response to which God was at work, deepening friendships, protecting us from sickness and other obstacles to attending, sustaining our leaders, and mostly helping our youth to see Jesus in the pages of the Bible.
  • We’re so grateful for our youth who came, engaged, enjoyed and cared for each other.

Please give thanks for City Youth Camp this year. Please continue to pray as we begin Term 3 that our youth would continue to grow in their faith in Jesus and their friendship with each other.