Yesterday (Sunday) after church I joined Wycombe YFC at a conference it was holding for the leaders of local Christian Unions.

I was amazed!About 30 young people were there, all of them were leaders of ‘soon to be’ leaders of Christian Unions of schools within Wycombe. Each of them had taken a whole day out, starting at 830 am and finishing at 8pm, to share, pray, learn and hear from God what he wanted to share with them.

I was there to talk about mission and to see how we, as YFC, could work with them in their schools. We spoke about mission as lifestyle, we discussed taking time to wait and see what God is doing and then joining in with him, we looked at different interests, music tastes, the distinctiveness of Wycombe and so on.

The maturity, desire and willingness of these young people was amazing. An army of 30 leaders with a passion for mission, but confused with how to go about it because no one had ever shown them, they had not seen it happen, they had no real experience of mission themselves.

Exciting things are happening despite the lack of examples. The setting up of Rock Gigs to invite friends too, the staging of pizza lunches in schools, the desire to pray for friends and ask what to pray for – amazing ideas developed by these young people wrestling with ‘what does the love of Jesus mean to these people I share my school with?’

For me this was a a first. This was a unique Integrate mission consultation and today I have been trying to put their ideas into a mission plan for their area. It’s exciting – and I think it is exciting because it has come straight form the young people, and not just because it was such a novel experience.

30 keen and passionate young people – Wycombe had better get ready for some changes!