Journeys, Retreats and Big Decisions

Last week we had the privilege of having the Year 7 students from Nicholas Breakspear come to Verso Church for their very first retreat day with us. I told them that a retreat is a place where you can come away from your normal activities to pause and fill up your tank with good things - it’s like a rest stop on your journey to help you to keep going.

The theme of the day was Christian Basics and so through 4 workshops we gave them the opportunity to explore different Christian topics in different ways. Our workshops included a reflective space called the space mat and the Who is Jesus? session where the students got to consider questions like ‘Did Jesus really exist?’ and ‘Was He the Son of God?’. We also had the Alpha Youth taster session where lots of big questions were discussed like ‘What makes you happy?’ and ‘If God was real what would you ask Him?’ We were able to invite the young people to an Alpha Youth course and quite a few of them signed up, which is very exciting!

The final session was the Light Revolution session with Paul from Verso, which involved a slime tank and a game called Messy Waiter. The groups had to work as a team to deliver slime to the customer at the restaurant and then once they were all cleaned up this led to a discussion about our gifts and how we can use them to build others up and how we all have a part to play in our churches and in the world. It's called Light Revolution from the name of the YouTube channel Paul has set up where fun games and activities help stir conversations about faith.

At the end of the day Father Fidelis, who works at the school, gave a great talk that encouraged the young people to make a decision to follow Jesus. I’m hoping that having this retreat and a pause from the norm will have given them space to ponder this decision and some of the big questions about life and faith before they jump back into their adventurous journeys. I’m sure that as the students reflect on the day they will all have something that they can take away with them, as well as the GNFE bibles that were gifted to them.