Combined Youth Conference 2006
Text: Joycelyn Ho
Photos: Unknown
The 2nd Combined Youth Conference was held over a 2-day period on the 23rd and 24th of June 2006 at Calvary Pandan Youth Centre.
For this year's Youth Conference, we have about 60 youths coming from many different churches from different parts of Singapore, even all the way from the East. It is indeed an encouragement to see that many are willing to sacrifice their sleep and wake up early to attend the Youth Conference, to seek God's face and study His Word. Some even forfeited their time to study for their exams held the week after the Conference. However, we know that if we honour God, He will honour us. After the Youth Conference, many, if not all, testified to the blessed time we had during those 2 days. The messages really challenged us to live our lives for Christ, especially when we are still young and full of vigour and strength. We were reminded that our youth is precious and it comes by only once, hence, we must live it for our Lord and Saviour. In this generation and time, there are many attacks against Christianity, Christ and God's Word, how can we as children of the living God sit by and not stand up to defend our faith? God has given us His grace, we can see the challenge ahead of us, but will we avail ourselves to be faithful and endure to the end? Whatever our age may be, God has called us to defend our faith! Let us go forth with courage and unquestioning faith, trusting that the Lord will provide and take care of us.
Not only was it a wonderful time of studying God's Word and hearing the voice of God speaking to us through His faithful servants, we had a great and very warm time of fellowship too. Though many of us are from different churches and fellowship groups, we have this common bond in Christ. Though we had only known each other for 2 days, we managed to gel together and share with each other openly. At the end of the 2 days, it seemed as if we had known each other for a long time already. Indeed, this is truly Christian fellowship where we worship God together, study God's Word together, pray together, share with each other our Christian struggles and build each other up in the faith. We felt a sense of unity amongst us and it encourages our hearts to know that we are not alone in this battle and that there are many other like-minded Christian brethren out there who are in similar situations as us who can help us and lift us up when we are weary. O the bliss of Christian fellowship. Have you tasted it? If you have not, we encourage you to join a fellowship group in your church, or the Fundamental Christian Ministry (FCM) in your tertiary institution. These are places where you can meet with people of the same faith, be blessed and be a source of blessing as well.
Group discussion times were very fruitful and beneficial as we shared with each other and had spiritual discourse. We count it a blessing to be able to hear others' experiences and many found the discussions thought provoking, open, frank and edifying. The things that were said were not model answers but genuine thoughts that we had. We were sincere and honest with each other. The study of God's Word is indeed most enjoyable and enlightening. Questions that were raised during discussion times were answered during the forum by our panellists (the three speakers). During the forum, we also had a mix of questions not related to the theme.
The video show was about the progress of missions work in Africa. Bro Nelson (a Kenyan student in FEBC) gave us a short introduction before the video and also answered some questions that we had after watching the video show. Many of us learnt precious lessons and we were made aware of the circumstances and difficulties faced by the missionaries in Kenya. Watching the video caused some of us to reflect on how we have been serving God. We are ashamed of our lack of love for God, His work and His people and this godly sorrow compels us to want to serve God more zealously and sincerely to the best of our abilities.
The time of ice breakers at the start of the Youth Conference had some of us breaking out in cold sweat as we had to remember the names of everyone that we met just 5 minutes earlier. Nevertheless, it worked and we managed to know every single person in the Youth Conference by name. We played Captain's ball and as always it was a time of laughter, enjoyment, getting to know one another better, working together as a team, and more laughter. We thank God for granting us safety during games' time.
We regret that many cannot join us for this blessed event due to their school commitment or other reasons. For those who had the opportunity to attend the youth conference but did not, why not? You have missed out on many spiritual blessings which the world can never give. But not to worry, we have the messages recorded, so if you would like to hear them, you may download them here. However, hearing the messages on the computer or CD player is never quite the same as actually sitting on the pew listening to God's Word being faithfully preached with conviction. And of course, the warmth of fellowship is un-recordable. So, we sincerely urge all of you to attend next year's 3rd Combined Youth Conference. We look forward to it with great excitement. You will not regret it for it is something we believe the Lord is pleased with and He has poured down His blessings upon us. See you next year!
Published in Truth BPC Weekly, Vol 1 No 28, dated 9 July 2006
