Hi everyone, I’m Jenifer, a year-out volunteer with Cambridge and District Youth for Christ. As part of my placement, I also serve at The Church Experiment, helping to run youth groups and events.
We recently hosted a worship evening where 17 young people came together at the church experiment tent. It was an evening of praise, people, and pizzas. The theme of the night was “unfiltered,” with the aim to provide a space for young people to come just as they are before God, to learn what worship truly means, and to think through the different things we might be worshipping and how that shapes our lives.
Yes, we started with games and pizzas, which was very engaging and fun! We then went into a time of discussion to understand what worship truly means: someone we love, something we give our time to, the kind of music we listen to, family, or God?
Next, we discussed how worshipping someone or something impacts us. We realized we become like the people we worship—just like we become great at a sport we spend time on. Oh, how true that is! So then, is Jesus worthy of worship? Is He worth rearranging our schedules, our mundane activities, our hobbies, and our relationships?
Some of us were thinking, and some of us said, “hmm, maybe…” And then we got other interesting answers: yes, because He is God, He died for me, He is there for me, He gave Himself for me, and He didn’t withhold any good thing from me—He gave it all. If He is the only one who gave all of Himself for me, He is worth all of me and all that I have.
And if we worshipped Jesus and made Him first, what happens? We become more like Him, we pray more, we are more at peace, – we are calm, just like He is. How wonderful! We then spent a couple of minutes thinking about how we might learn or unlearn one thing in the coming week that might help us worship Jesus.
We finished with a time of worshipping God in our own ways. We had different stations set up: a prayer station with a cross that could hold our prayer points, a painting station, glow sticks and bubbles, and stones that could be released into a bucket of water. Some of us just listened to the worship songs being played in the background.
It was a time of God being present with His young church. In simple ways, young people connected with God and built healthy conversations that might lead them to put Jesus first.