I spoke to Sarah today – in fact I have spoken to Sarah every day, but today she mentioned that she is worshipping with 11 000 young people at Soul Survivor!
11000!!! Anyone that knows me well is aware that lively whoopy worship is just not my thing, but even an old cynic like me can be amazed at what the experience of worshipping with 11000 enthusiastic Christian young people must be like.
Rant Start (23:15)
This is not a dig, but I do have a real question – what happens to these 11000 when they get home? How can we support them, their youth leaders and their church leaders, in their mission to transform their communities?
If there are 11000 fired up Christian young people about to leave a showground in Shepton Mallet in a little over 24 hours time from now … how much longer do we have to wait for the transformation of this country?
Why don’t things and events like this have a bigger impact on our country? My fear is the enthusiasm and dreams of the young get zapped up in parental pressures for exams, adults voicing concern over plans, and simple bloody mindedness of the older generation who want to keep the church as it is because it is comfortable for them and ‘we have always done it this way and it works’.
To the church, to us, it is time to say …WAKE UP! The church is, we as Christians,are dying on its/our feet. I heard in church on Sunday that we should not worry about the press reports of a declining church because of things like Soul Survivor and strong youth groups. I think that misses the point. It is because of things like Soul Survivor that we should be very worried. There are 11000 young people with desires, dreams, visions, time and energy – and yet we are still in decline!!!
We are shrinking and the answer is here right in front of us:
Invest in these 11000.
Listen to these 11000.
Let these 11000 experiment.
Let these 11000 never hear ‘It won’t work because we tried that in 1965/75/85/95.’
Give authority to these 11000.
Take a risk with these 11000.
Give ‘church’ to these 11000.
Let us and our styles become less, and they and their styles become greater.
Rant over 23:30
Night!
The Shiny Headed Prophet 
Good rant – important questions!
Good questions, good old rant – only thing is, those 11,000 go home and become 10 or 3 or 1 – we need 11,000 mentors to go with them. We have such a focus now on reaching the lost (because if we don’t by the middle of the century less than 1% of people will be part of church in the UK) – that we are neglecting to cherish the people we already have – hence the 500,000 under 15’s who left the church during the decade of evangelism – be great to get together with some like minded people (possibly 11,000 leaders, youth workers etc) and do something about it. I believe we can, we just aren’t.