Ever wondered what goes on at a Diocesan Youth camp (which we call 'Ichthus')?  Here's a wonderful report from Directors David and Zoe Browne...

Do you know a place where teenagers from Bundaberg to Southport to Pittsworth can meet together and enjoy the freedom they have in Christ? Where teenagers struggling with their identity, spirituality, and morality can share their fears in a vibrant Christian community? Where young women and men with disabilities can sit down and have lunch with star athletes and delight in all they have in common and the great leveller that is Jesus? I do. It’s called Senior Ichthus and it’s changing lives in our church family!

Senior Ichthus is a camp for students in Grades 10-12. This year’s camp took place at the Glendalough Outdoor Education centre on the Sunshine Coast. 33 campers and a support team of 21 came together on 29 June - 4 July for a week focused on the book of ‘Galatians’ and the rich theme of ‘Freedom’ that it conveys. While it’s impossible to share everything God did at Senior Ichthus this year, here are some quick snapshots from the five days of camp.

Day 1: Excited campers arrived bringing emotions of excitement, uncertainty and everything in between. As day gave way to night, out came pool noodles and spotlights for a ‘Jailbreak’ wide game. Evening prayer introduced the major themes for the week, leaving our campers keen for Day 2.

Day 2: This will always be remembered as ‘Messy Games’ day. After an awesome talk, quiet time, and Bible study session, campers prepared themselves for a ‘Prison break’, meeting a number of challenges to gain their freedom. Challenges included Slime Apple Bob, Rotting Fruit Ninja, Messy Trivia and Obstacle Course, Chewing Gum Sculptures and Shaving Cream Snowman Building. There was one final skirmish as campers dodged colour powder bombs. Never enough excitement for one day, an awesome trivia night followed, complete with a magic show, crazy dancing and a performance by Ichthus’ very own Burundi choir.

Day 3: As campers began to settle into the swing of camp we got truly stuck into Galatians and enjoying the fact that ‘for freedom, Christ has set us free!” The whole team pushed themselves on a high ropes course at Noosa North Shore. A relaxing evening was spent around a campfire singing songs and telling stories. Every evening concluded with ‘Dorm wrap’, a chance to discuss questions about God and life choices among friends.

Day 4: On Thursday, campers were challenged to take a look at their own life journey. After the morning, the team got to put faith into action with a service activity at Honeybee Farm, a respite centre for people with disabilities. Groups divided to paint a chicken coop, bake biscuits for guests, plant trees, and clear lantana. Honeybee’s manager Phil later remarked that: “Seeing such happy, enthusiastic and helpful young people really restored my faith in humanity”, and the campers shared what they had learned on the trip home. Challenge Night encouraged campers to wrestle with the baggage in their lives and how the negativity we hold onto clouds the freedom we share in Christ. As campers shared stories, and chose to forgive past wrongs, spirits were lifted and lives were changed.

Day 5: ‘What next?”  By now, campers were spending time reflecting on how to apply all they had learned about God, themselves and the world around them. A trip to Peregian Beach gave time to relax, swim, play beach football and unwind. We danced the night away at a ‘Shipwrecked’ themed party, complete with an overflowing photo booth and some bizarre nautical dance moves.  The final morning of Ichthus on Saturday included a campfire Eucharist to farewell graduating campers and pray for their journeys ahead.

Senior Ichthus 2015 was another huge success. Building on a legacy of people who have invested time and energy into past camps and drawing from the creativity and enthusiasm of people currently involved with this ministry, Ichthus has a very bright future. Many thanks must go to parents and church families who supported their campers to come along to Ichthus this year as well as the many church communities who sent along their best and brightest leaders to serve on the camp. We are so thankful to our generous and liberating God for His guidance and inspiration throughout the week and are so delighted that so many campers remarked that camp had brought them closer to God than ever before.

If you might like to get involved in the Ichthus ministries, Junior Ichthus will take place from 27 September – 2 October, and Primary Ichthus from 14-16 January 2016. The Ichthus camping ministry is a vibrant part of our Diocese and will no doubt continue to grow the Kingdom of God among young people into the future.

A BRAVE way to kick off some new Young Adult ministry!

Well, you'll never guess who turned up to our brand new Young Adult Retreat at Coolum on the weekend.

The Holy Spirit.

Some quick background: the Emmaus ministry has been giving youth (and more recently, young adults in particular) around Southern Qld a structured way to come together, learn more about faith and vocation, and have lots of fellowship and fun.  Not long after the last Emmaus weekend in March 2014, the organising committee came to a mutual realisation that they had largely aged out of the appropriate demographic, and it was time to revisit and, if necessary, reshape a format for achieving our larger aims for young adult Anglicans.

This was a sometimes emotional process of managing change, which took a lot of time and care. As a result, we found ourselves making a decision to go ahead with a new weekend retreat format only a few weeks out from the campsite booking we had made twelve months earlier.  Should we postpone or just push on with it and see what happened?

We pushed on.  Over the course of just a few weeks, we blitzed social media and parishes with advertising material for the weekend we called BRAVE (see earlier posts below), but many difficulties emerged.  All kinds of people wrote to apologise that they just couldn't make it with such short notice, which was fair enough.  Some registered but then had to pull out for one reason or another.  In the meantime, Lisa Ng and I had to pull together music, IT/AV, a spiritual director, elective topics and leaders, and all the admin around that.

Well, we got there - just. In the end, fourteen young adults aged between 18-25 or thereabouts joined us.  We know for a fact that we have quite a few active people across the Diocese in the 25-35 bracket, and calling on them could have increased our numbers substantially, but we had made a deliberate strategic decision to limit the age-range, so as to really focus on a group of people at a similar life stage.

They were still a diverse group, and not all Anglicans.  What really pleased me was that we had attracted a few people who were completely new to all of our ministries - that's what we want to see! There was also a reasonable gender balance (not always the case) and a fair spread of experiences and backgrounds.

As to the weekend itself, we began on Friday night with regos, dinner (meals at Luther Heights were superb throughout), a welcome to country from the Rev Cathy Laufer, an intro from me and GTKY games from Lisa, followed by Evening Prayer led by Jeremy Couch, AYCF minister at St Mark's Buderim, who introduced the theme of vocation (personal and collective) which would be the basis of his input over the course of the retreat.

 Our main musician, Nicholas Ng from Logan parish, was unexpectedly taken ill during the day, so we had to work around that, but the evergreen Tom 'DJ' Davis (now worshipping at the provisional parish of Springfield) had all the answers.

This first night almost immediately calmed a lot of my own anxieties as I realised that everyone seemed to have a positive outlook and we were all keen to make the most of our time together.

Saturday was huge: many of us began with an early morning walk along the beach, or just took in the magnificent views down the coast.  After Morning Prayer, led by Jeremy Couch (Buderim parish) and breakfast, it was time for our first batch of Electives.

Our Elective topics, leaders and times had all been altered over the course of the planning process, but thankfully all was now in readiness. First up was Mr Andrew Butterworth (Buderim) offering a seminar on Financial decision-making which was well-informed and well-attended.  The other elective was a panel on "Why Be Anglican?" led by Rev Cathy (holding a Hooker-style 3-legged stool), Rev. Michael Farragher from St Lucia, and myself.  I think we all enjoyed exploring the strengths and weaknesses of our denomination, and the Rev. Michael has since referred to it as a 'road to Damascus' moment in terms of his understanding of how committed young Anglicans are seeing our Church right now.

Following morning tea, we moved into a time of "Open Space Technology".  Explaining the OST format would take too long here, but essentially it means participants are able to set the agenda in terms of proposing a topic for which they feel passion and responsibility, and convening and recording a discussion on that topic. This format was selected as it seemed likely to appeal to Young Adults, and it certainly seemed to work in practice, with very positive feedback.

After lunch, we had another round of electives, and this time we welcomed David and Zoe Browne to lead a discussion on Relationships which we knew would be popular, and I went to a wonderful session from Scott and Sarah Windred on sharing the Gospel. I found this a really moving experience as stories were shared around the group, and we considered how we had come to be followers of Christ in the first place, and what might be next for us.

After this, we had another round of OST before free time saw some head back to the beach while David Hale and I headed off for a light spot of geocaching.  Following dinner, the Brownes facilitated an awesome night of wacky trivia in table teams, before a late night Evening Prayer and then a much-needed sleep.  I was very taken by Jeremy's introduction to the idea of "collective vocation" today, as well as the individual model, as the sense was growing among the group that there was a camaraderie here that could become the  launching pad for much more.

Sunday morning came with yet more fantastic weather.  As we cleaned out the dorms, it was very hard to believe that we would soon be heading home.  After the morning Office and another beautiful hot breakfast (a special mention here of the venue's Nespresso machine which took a pounding over the course of the weekend!), it was a crunch time for the group, as we introduced some ideas about where Young Adult ministry could go over the next twelve months.  The response was most enthusiastic, and so we are now looking at three connected arms of ministry: an annual retreat (like this one); quarterly diocesan youth services; and monthly gatherings in regional spots for the benefit of young adults wanting a group to which they can belong.  We proposed that the core 'text' for these monthly group catch-ups could be the program known as A Big Year, which we think is very easy to use (especially when downloaded as a phone app).  The founder of the program, Steve Drinkall, had offered to come to Coolum to speak to the group, but we assured him there was no need to travel so far.  He has instead offered to speak at one of our quarterly youth services, which is wonderful.

After a final OST session and lunch, it was time for our Q&A Panel.  The point has been made by the Sticky Faith team among others, that a reason given frequently for young adults departing the Church is that they felt their questions were either ignored, not answered, or that they would get in trouble merely asking them.  Over the course of the weekend, we had gathered anonymous 'questions on notice' from the group which were then put to the panel: the Rev Simon Keith (Noosa), the Rev Jeremy Greaves (Buderim), Imogen Sweeney and Cassie Boltmann.  Some were more controversial than others, but everyone appreciated the panel members' honest and sometimes revealing responses to how they saw a particular issue. An important learning from this was that committed Christians can and do disagree on particular aspects of the faith, and this does not necessarily mean that one is 'wrong' and one is 'right'.  The mutual respect shown by everyone throughout this session was appreciated by all.   

All too soon, it was time for the final Eucharist (presided over by the Rev Cathy Laufer, who preached on the Transfiguration, which I always think is particularly meaningful on "mountain-top" camps like this one), then thank yous and goodbyes.  Huge thanks from me here to all our guests named above, to whom I am most grateful, and especially to Jeremy Couch for stepping in and preparing so many stimulating and challenging talks; Nicholas Ng and our other musicians and singers for sharing your talents so generously and wonderfully; and Camps Coordinator Lisa Ng, who shared every up, down, fear and ultimate joy of what we were able to put together in this BRAVE weekend experience. We simply must thank God for every small mercy shown to us in this project, and for producing a Spirit-filled experience which was so much more than the sum of its parts, and which has enthused and motivated so many of us so strongly.

If you have a comment or question about the Young Adult Retreat this year or next, please contribute below or contact us at info@aycf.org.au!

BRAVE Young Adult Retreat / Ignite Conference and Expo

Start the year with an excellent, relaxing weekend of learning and socialising at the beach with a diverse group of young Anglicans and their friends.  Use the time to think through where you're at now, how you could use your time this year, and how to find balance in the key areas of your life.  Challenging elective topics from visiting experts will be balanced with lots of time for reflection and discussion. Be Brave and register quickly - registrations close Sunday 16 February!  www.aycf.org.au/young-adult-retreat

IGNITE Conference and Expo Registrations Filling Fast!

Saturday 7 March, Mueller College, Rothwell

Come and be INSPIRED

Don't miss this chance to meet and hear from David Wakerley from HillSong in Sydney. David will unpack what INNOVATE can look like. More locally, Josh Laack, Caleb Hearne and Naomi Cahill are some of our local young leaders who will inspire you with their INNOVATIVE ideas.

Come and be TRAINED

72 training electives! Where else can you get such a broad range of ministry topics on offer presented by some of the country's best trainers. Choose 3 topics from any of these categories: Family Growth, Ministry with 0-5s, Gospel in Culture, Schools' Ministry, Social Justice, Technology in Ministry, Empowering Children. Bring your team and glean as much as you can!

Come and be RESOURCED

With more than 30 resource booths already booked this is your one-stop shopping location to start your year. Plenty of time to browse and talk in person with resource providers.

Come and be SURPRISED

Will you be the recipient of our $1000 Ministry Grant?  Will you receive an Excellence in Ministry Award?  Will you get one of the free resources given away on the day?  Will the coffee van coffee be better than your Nescafé Gold?

Come and be ENTERTAINED

Dan Warlow is leading our Pre-Show Program and is launching his first CD at the conference. Enjoy your lunch near the outdoor stage to be entertained by Domino the Jester (Wayne van Wijk), Joh Knijnenburg, GROT the puppet (Fiona Cran) and some Wide-Eyed Stories (Catriona Pine). Look out for the Agents of Truth and Ringo the Clown wandering around the venue.

😄 FREE for Junior Leaders enrolled at school
😄 FREE for country delegates
😄 FREE for Senior Pastors
😄 Travel Subsidies available for remote travellers
😄 'FIRED UP" - a separate program for RI teachers with a discount rate for previous attendees of the RENEW Conference
😄 $1000 to give away on the day
😄 'twenty4' retreat for leaders of leaders in ministry with children & families

REGISTER TODAY

www.igniteexpo.org.au