What happens when you hand off the planning and delivery of a Sunday evening service to the youth group? Linu George, an intern at St George’s Southall, shares how young people across the Southall Group ran a service together.
As a youth leader, it’s always exciting to see young people light up when their passions are allowed to shine. A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to witness the young people from across Southall plan and lead a Sunday evening service around the theme of ‘Generation of Diversity’.
Leading up to the service, our Friday night youth meetings were filled with the buzz of ideas of what they wanted their service to look like – popcorn as the congregation came in and a dance to kick-start the service, were just a few of the ideas! We used our Friday nights to vote on important details such as the bible passage for the sermon and used the rest of the time to practice until they felt confident.
At the end of our voting sessions, we confirmed the order of service:
- Devotional song in Hindi to welcome the congregation
- Dance
- Worship
- Quiz
- Prayer
- Introduction of the theme
- Bible Reading followed by the sermon
- Notices
- Poem
The dance was a result of someone sharing her dream of what she wanted to do when she grew up: start a non-profit where people who can’t afford dance classes can come and explore dance. To see a glimpse of her dream come out in church while she showcased her God-given talent was greatly satisfying.
Our favourite Friday night stories are when someone comes out of their shell and gets comfortable with the group – after all, we have youth from five churches who became good friends through Friday Nights. So when we saw our youth encouraging each other, speaking life to dispel each other’s insecurities and look for the hidden talents within each other, it was a real joy to observe.
1 Timothy 4:12 says:
“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”
The biggest lesson I think our youth learned that night was to not let their age hold them back.
One of the young women, confirmed earlier this year, confidently said yes when asked if she wanted to share a message with the congregation that night. With preparation support from our youth workers, she delivered a completely original, Bible-based three-point sermon, whilst making it look easy.
As youth leaders, we supported our young people by covering them with prayer – both on the day and the days leading up to our youth service. On the night, we supported them by encouraging and cheering them as they flourished and served the congregation. At the end of the service, we had surprised them with cake to celebrate them and the work that they did for the creative service.
The growth of our youth and the outcome of the creative Sunday service has been a testament to the investment by our youth worker, Nikkita Robert. She has equipped us as youth leaders to see our young people experience God and help them grow to be world changers for Jesus.
Linu George is volunteering with the Diocese of London and interns with St George’s Church in Southall whilst completing the New Wine Discipleship Year at St Paul’s Ealing. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Media.