Visit to Kerith Community Church

Last Friday I took my youth group to visit another church in Bracknell. It was a really good experience, despite that three out of the seven teens ending up crying (girls!). We managed to go on the night they had a rave and quite a few were overwhelmed by the whole experience. There were a lot of people there, there were flashing lights, and loud music. Not all of them appreciated that atmosphere.

LIFE is the weekly youth event at Kerith

The folk at Kerith were really welcoming and looked after us well. I took various things away from heading there:

Passion
They were really passionate about what they were doing. Marie (my co-youth leader) and I got a guided tour and everyone seemed to enthuse passion. They loved serving God and they loved what they were doing. There was a huge number of volunteers and they all seemed to be passionate about the teens.

Messiness
Although the whole set up was extremely professional they were willing to get down and dirty. They didn't want it to be a normal white middle class quiet youth event. They were willing to take risks even if it meant they had to have bouncers at the door.

Youth involvement
The youth had a huge involvement in the set up and running of the events. The whole PA crew were teenagers. I thought that was brilliant.

Depth and breadth
Sometimes with large youth-groups you feel that they can be shallow and superficial. There was definitely a sense in some of the teens that they really wanted to live for Jesus and also were quite open about it. The youth has seen a lot of growth in the last 18 months but I don't think it was at the expense of depth as well.

I found it a really encouraging experience and I really hoped that my teens learnt from what they saw as well. We don't want to replicate their youth events but we really want to see some of those things happen.

Quick Questions

1. How can we encourage other churches?
2. What experiences have you had from visiting other churches?