NORTH BY NORTH-WEST

I’m writing this whilst sitting at the back of a Religious Education lesson in a Welsh-speaking school in Pwllheli in North Wales. Our Ignite Cymru schools evangelism team are up here working for a week with Rachel Milner. She’s a Christian youth worker in the area, and she was part of our schools team a couple of years ago.
At the moment, John the team leader has been introducing the lesson about the Bible, he used a clip from The Simpsons, and he’s been speaking Welsh! It’s exciting for me to see the team in action, and especially to see them working in the Welsh language.
I drove here this morning from Nantwich in the North-West of England, where I was lecturing in the Elim Bible College yesterday. Last week saw the commencement of my unit on ‘Communication in a Youth Setting’, and yesterday I set a challenge to each of the 16 students on the Serious4Youth Ministry course. Each of them had 5 minutes to stand up in front of the rest and share how a piece of media had connected with them at a heart level.
As last year, it was thrilling to hear young people passionately communicate how God had spoken to them through a song, or film, or a book. The aims of the exercise were many: it was an opportunity for me to see them on their feet and to hear how effective they were as communicators, it was a chance for them to share in a safe environment and to gain confidence, and it was a reminder to us all that God communicates in many ways and wants us to help young people connect with Him.
Mae Duw yn dda! - God is good!