SU Scotland has a long history of welcoming young people to experience the thrills and spills of a week-long Easter or summer residential activity holiday, commonly known as, and hereafter referred to as “camp”.

I’m sure that many of us will have at one time or another enjoyed the SU Scotland camp experience? The young people who attend our camps come from all walks of life; some with a solid grounding in their knowledge and experience of God and many for whom, sadly, the name of Christ has only been heard as a swear word in their home or at school.

It is the latter group of children, including those who might be described as socially disadvantaged, that SU Scotland is currently prioritising to reach with the Good News of Jesus in new and creative ways.

A language that all young people understand

One such way is through a medium and language that all young people understand; games and sport. We have seen a significant rise in bookings for SU Scotland’s specialist camps providing opportunities for young people to spend a whole week honing the skills of something they are passionate about.

When I decided to offer a football camp for upper primary and lower secondary school children last summer, I had been inspired by the impact that a young parish assistant in my area, Alan Myles (now working at Alltnacriche), had been having in attracting youngsters to his church through football and thought that it was something that SU Scotland could replicate at a residential camp.

Football-crazy

Bookings came in thick and fast and we were blessed with a team of football-crazy leaders and coaches. We use an SU resource called ‘Champions Challenge’ to introduce the youngsters to the Bible and Jesus, with themes such as ‘Jesus the Selector’, ‘Jesus the Physio’ and ‘Jesus the Substitute’. Football camp is a roaring success and we look forward to offering another two camps this summer at Lendrick Muir.

Through games and sport, we see that God has given us our environment and physical bodies to experience his creation. By encouraging young people to engage with the Bible both during and after their residential experience, there is a profound impact on young people being spiritually fit, just as they will be more physically fit.

Sport opens up the gospel

I wonder if it’s the case that games and sport in particular are such a big part of everyday life for young people that concepts like being part of a team, following the rules of the game, valuing your fellow team members are useful hooks and parallels to understanding Gospel principles.

It has certainly been my experience that team games and challenges very often lend themselves to opening up the stories of Jesus, whom young people can readily identify with in the role of God’s player-manager who came to select his own team of disciples and followers from very ordinary people such as themselves.

(This blog featured in the Spring 2012 edition of the Scottish Bible Society’s Alive & Active magazine)

Pray Any Way has its basis in the idea that children should be encouraged from a very early age to speak to their heavenly Father, and also that families should be encouraged to pray together; older praying for younger but also younger praying for older.

If children are really fellow-disciples with adults then they can pray for us – as well as vice versa. One of the highlights of both years for me personally has been being prayed for by children. This year children who volunteered to pray for adults drew out a word written on a slip of paper from a tub. They took that to an adult and then prayed that word for them. The little boy who came to pray for me had the word ‘friend’ and he prayed that I would know Jesus as a friend. His prayer included the lines: ‘we have friends, even best friends, but Jesus is the top of them all’.

The fast-moving afternoon involved some fun games at the start, a re-telling of the story of Moses and the burning bush, potato prayers of praise to the great God who revealed himself to Moses (if you were holding the potato when the music stopped it was your turn to pray), and worship. Prayer ‘stations’ allowed all ages to express their prayers and praises creatively, with a quiet moment to think about what God was asking us to pray for others, as well as a more lively parachute prayer option.

There was also opportunity to ask for prayer as a family group. Along with Anne and Suzanne, our prayer partners from Lydia Fellowship, I had the huge privilege of praying a blessing on whole families during this time. It was moving to see children and parents expressing their longing that God be at the centre of their life and decisions.

All the different activities tied back to the story in Exodus 3 and 4, because as a planning group we are committed to the Bible as the basis for our prayers.

The goody bags the children received at the end, along with a helium-filled balloon, will hopefully help to build on the experience, especially the Try Praying children’s booklet that they were encouraged to use and then to give to a friend. We heard later that two of the children, without any prompting from their parents, sent off the balloons into the sky with the message ‘Jesus loves you – believe in him’, praying that whoever found them would know Jesus!

We’d love to see spin- off events over Scotland. We are already talking to folks in Aberdeen. Do you want to speak to us about bringing Pray Any Way to your area?

These familiar verses, talking of course about Jesus, are a brilliant way to pray for children and young people as they go to school. When you pray for the pupils at your local school, here are four key topics to be praying for:

1. We want pupils to gain maximum advantage from the education system we have here in Scotland, growing in knowledge and understanding, fulfilling their potential. We also want them to grow physically, protected from sickness and harm.

2. We long for Christian children in particular to be strong at school; not weak, following the crowd, but with an inner strength that sustains them through times of doubt and difficulty.

3. We also want them to be wise, able to discern the difference between truth and lies, making good decisions and right choices.

4. And of course, most of all, we long for the grace of God to be upon them. What does that mean exactly? It means that they might be aware of his goodness, his love, his favour, his blessing. What a prayer!

Seeing that prayer answered is thrilling. Maybe a young person you know is flourishing at school, or growing as a Christian. Praise God! Or perhaps someone comes to mind who isn’t, and needs your prayers.

• “Deadly mudslide strikes western Colombia”
• “Nigeria Islamist raid ‘kills 63′”
• “Kenya: Grenade attack on church in Garissa kills two”
• “Honduras arrests 176 police in corruption purge”
• “Ex-general wins Guatemala run-off”
• “Bangkok flood evacuation widens”
• “Pakistan bomber kills ex-official”
• “Egypt bus crash kills Hungarian tourists”

Well that’s just a fairly random handful, but what strikes me about it is that there is Scripture Union work in every one of those countries. That means at least two things. First, potentially SU has some ministry involvement in those situations. Second, it also means that the SU family may well be directly affected.

Now the number of SU links with the world news is not surprising given that SU is working in more than 120 countries. (There are more movements than that but some countries have more than one, Australia being the prime example with eight. If you’ve got my eye for spotting irrelevant facts, you’ll notice that only one of the eight starts with a letter from the first half of the alphabet!)

But on these dark, grey November days it’s easy to forget that there are people who share your SU commitment and involvement but are living it out in very different contexts.

This week (November 6-12) is the SU International Week of Prayer. As well as encouraging SU people around the world to pray for each other, the aim is to raise awareness of SU as a worldwide movement. But a dangerous thing about prayer is that God can use it to arouse our interest in new things. So as well as praying about the requests for this week of prayer, why not find out a bit more about those countries and the SU work there? The SU Britain and Ireland website will help.

But back to the headlines. What are the SU links? Here are a few snippets!

• Colombia – exciting and growing work with children in poorest areas
• Nigeria – two movements (north and south) with huge number of members but affected by current violence
• Kenya – large work in schools
• Honduras – again, good work in schools and camps but social unrest affects everyone
• Guatemala – recently the son of their schools worker was shot dead on the street
• Thailand – 40^th anniversary celebrations postponed because of floods
• Pakistan – lots of children’s work but security is a big issue
• Egypt – small work linked with Bible Society but also youth work training for churches by SU visitors
• Hungary – thriving work with children, English language camps and Bible focused publishing.

So, next time you watch the news or look at a news website, why not turn it into an opportunity to pray for SU?

The more I meet with colleagues and others outside the organization who are working in deprived urban areas of Scotland, the more I realise that it is difficult to make such comparisons. The poverty in Scottish towns and cities, whilst very different from what is encountered in countries like India, is still very severe and has a huge impact on tens of thousands of lives. Since starting the job, I have heard many stories of family breakdown, generations of unemployment, the affects of drug and alcohol abuse and the debilitating effect these have on families.

One of the phrases I heard a lot in my work in India was ‘the poverty trap,’ referring to how individuals and families would stay in the same situation from one generation to the next, trapped by a lack of education and the resulting inability to get work. Here in Scotland, it seems families are similarly trapped by poverty, with a lack of hope in one generation being passed onto the next, resulting in repeated instances of family breakdown and addiction. This was highlighted to me in quite an extreme way last winter when, through my work with Glasgow City Mission, I met a young man who was homeless. As I talked with him, I discovered that he had just come out of jail, a place he was very familiar with as he had first been arrested on his 16^th birthday and had been in and out of jail many times since. This was all connected with a broken family and being introduced to drugs when he was just 11. I couldn’t help thinking what would happen to his children.

And here, I believe, lies the tremendous opportunity. For, as we “spend ourselves on behalf of the poor”, I am strongly convinced that we can bring a foundation and stability to life which can help prevent stories similar to the one I have just shared – especially where we are able to build relationships with children in deprived communities at primary and early secondary age. The Bible talks about the gospel being good news to the poor, and when we have the privilege of working with those who come from a place of poverty or being disadvantaged, it is amazing to see the difference that Christ brings as young people realize their value in God’s sight. They come to understand that God is there for them, and that he is on their side. As they learn to trust him, they discover how they can get the strength to make the most of life and overcome the hurdles it may throw at them.

Find out more about SU Scotland’s Urban work, and our current Urban Appeal.

Growing Servant Leaders

Training up young leaders is an important ministry in the church; as young people begin the transition into adulthood, we must equip them for their role in tomorrow’s generation.

If they are to step up as leaders, they need to be trained and mentored, and they need the opportunity to put what they’ve learnt into practice; to take on challenges and responsibilities in an environment where it’s ok to give it a go, even if it doesn’t always go as planned.

The scariest thing I could think of…

“One of the things that I thought I would never be able to do was to lead an evening meeting and give a talk at camp. That was the scariest thing I could think of doing.  However, after a week at LeadUP, I felt confident enough to challenge myself to do it.” Faye

And she did!

Faye was one of over 100 people aged 16-21 who took part in SU Scotland’s COmMISSION programme last year.

What’s COmMISSION?

COmMISISON is our Scottish mission programme which develops leadership potential, deepens faith, and provides short-term mission opportunities right here in Scotland! It’s aimed at anyone in S5 or older, and provides a week or weekend of training and spiritual development, followed by a week or more of Scottish mission (opportunities are also available for international mission too!), and then to finish, all participants get together for a weekend to review the experience, share what’s been learnt, and determine future opportunities.

We’ve just launched the COmMISSION programme for 2012, and would love to encourage anyone interested in developing leadership skills to consider taking part. If you’re a church leader or youth leader, this is a great opportunity that will have a profound impact on your young people.

A life of service

Many of our COmMISSION-ers find the training on this course helps them to find areas they can serve in their church, in their school and in their community – it really is equipping for a life of service

“Looking back over the week of LeadUP I can honestly say God taught me completely different things from the week than I thought I would learn, but it was these things that helped me grown in confidence as the summer went on, and the skills I learnt I continue to use in everyday life as I try to serve God as much as I can.” Kelly