Ten years ago we held our first Teens and Tweens Day, as a way for our children and young people to build their connections with God and the church. This ministry is aimed at those aged 8 -18+ (Tweens are aged 8 – 12) and their families. Young people get the chance to engage in fun and relevant interactive worship, and meet and make friends, and parents also get to network.
Sabbath 27th April was our celebration of 10 years of Teens and Tweens Days. Young people came with their parents and Teens leaders from north, south and east, some travelling for 2 hours or more, to Cheltenham where it all started. Even several Twentysomethings are still coming along regularly, and they definitely wanted to celebrate the ten years since they first came as teens.
The theme for the day was ‘Celebrating the Journey’, as the last 10 years of Teens and Tweens Days has been part of a journey for many along their Christian pathway.
Throughout the day the praise songs were selected from favourites over the years, and led by a group of up to 8 musicians, some of whom were accompanying us from the very first Teens and Tweens day.
In session 1 we looked at what a journey is, what you need for it and who has helped you in your journey so far. The tweens group acted out the story of Abraham helping Lot on his life journey and made a large poster to say thankyou to all those who have helped them on their journey so far.
In session 2 we saw a couple of videos of Teens and Tweens days over the last 10 years which brought back memories for many who have been coming since the start. Prayer time gave people the opportunity to give thanks for what these days have done for everyone including: becoming a caring family for those in a moment of crisis; a sense of awe at worshipping with families whose parents you grew up with; baptisms that have happened in part due to and on one of these days. Pastor Isaac Liburd showed that he really gets what Teens and Tweens days are all about by having everyone out of their seats more than they were in them. We had team quizzes, acted out skits, and had an illustration all holding onto a long rope – this had a small part at one end which was wrapped with tape to represent our current life, while the rest was all of eternity to help us put life’s journey into perspective.
After lunch and a bracing walk in the very fresh air of the Cotswold countryside (complete with mud!), we looked at how we can help others on their Christian journey, looking at Daniel encouraging his friends to take a stand against eating the king's food, and looking further forward at how we can help our children and even grandchildren as in the examples of Eunice and Lois and Timothy.
After prayer from the local Pastor Spase Gligarov, soup and rolls were good to send them on their way.
Positive feedback such as the following comments assure us that this is still a very much needed ministry: A senior pastor a few years back “This is the best thing to happen to Seventh-day Adventist young people of this current generation”; more recently another pastor said something to the effect of “Young people can find church boring. Church can be boring even for pastors” and suggested that these days are great for everybody- young people and pastors; One Twentysomething who now runs youth days at her church said, “It’s because of these days you have run that we run youth days now”. And a parent giving thanks: “When I looked around a church at one of these days I thought, ‘so many of these parents I spent time with at church youth events when we were young, and now we’re all bringing our children to these days’ It’s awesome”.
Over the years several people from other churches caught the vision and have run these days (even some online during covid) and we want to give special thanks to them: Middleditches and Barratt-Peacocks at Loughborough, Bentons at Stoke on Trent Lighthouse, Redferns and Manners-Jones at St Albans, Laura Fuller at Leamington Spa, Clees at Barnsley.
We would also encourage others to have a go – if you would like more information or ideas on how to do this then please get in touch with Mike and Vicky Beamish (mikejbeamish@outlook.com or 07925 858297)
