I attended this event today,called Out of the Desert, with Rochester Diocese which was aimed at young people from the Church of England who had recently been ordained. The whole aim of the afternoon was to show young people how they could be involved in God’s mission now, as well as get them thinking about the future and how they might serve God using their gifts.

I was fortunate enough to be able to chat with a few young people and youth leaders whom it was clear had never even thought that they could use their dancing, acting or sporting gifts in mission for God. Almost totally, those I spoke with thought that they needed to be good at speaking, or teaching, or be a natural leader. It seemed fairly exciting to them to realise that God could actually use the stuff they enjoyed doing. So, in a sense, I guess we could say that some people came ‘out of the desert’ into an oasis of ideas of how their lives might pan out in the future.

I find it amazing to think that still some of our young people and youth leaders have such a blinkered view of what mission can be all about. It’s like there is this belief that everyone has to go to Africa or aome other place that they would surely hate! Why does it come as a surprise to people that working for God can be fun as well as hard work? I believe passionately that when people realise it can be doing stuff that we really love doing, skating, surfing, playing footie, dancing, DJ-ing etc etc etc, that more Christian young people would realise the relevancy of God to their everyday life.

We, as the church, need to do more to get this out to our young people. We need to stop giving the impression that preaching, teaching, worship leading and home group leadership are the only real ministries of value! Maybe that’s a generalisation, but I stick by the comment.

Anyway … back to the event. It was held in the crypt of Rochester Cathedral, andthere must have been about 50/60 young people there. I just love this part of the cathedral, it is very atmospheric and just right for youth events. Emma Sargent, the assistant DYO, had also set up a Labyrinth type experience in part of the crypt, which I have tried to show below.

I love the labyrinth, and if you ave a chance a grat use of time is to visit and experience the online version. To do it properly, give yourself around an hour – you will not be disappointed.