Faith in the Community: Holiday with teenagers was full of surprises
By Heather Powney, diocesan children, families and youth officer
I love working with young people because they so often surprise you. There’s never a dull moment! I’m always amazed by the hidden depths of young people. We can learn so much from them and how they see the world.
I’ve just spent five days on a summer residential camp with dozens of 11 to 18-year-olds from church youth groups from around Portsmouth. As always, it was a joy to spend time with them, and there were plenty of surprises.
It was the latest residential holiday organised by High Tide – which is the monthly youth service where these teenagers from churches of different denominations meet for games, food and worship. It has been going since 2018.
We’ve taken these young people away for a residential five times in the past four years and many of them now known each other really well – their bonds are obvious.
This year we were at the YMCA centre at Fairthorne Manor near Botley, where they enjoyed abseiling, a climbing wall, paddle boarding, a waterslide and toasting marshmallows in a firepit. We also studied the Biblical story of Joseph – and his amazing technicolour coat – and enjoyed worship and prayer together.
Because of our theme, we also had an amazing technicolour silent disco, and a Joseph-themed scavenger hunt and escape room. And we also did our regular night-time Hunted game in the dark with glow-sticks and torches.
Some of our young people were singing or playing musical instruments. Several of them prayed for each other. And all of them got involved in discussions about what faith meant to them.
It’s often on these kind of residential holidays that teenagers can work out for themselves – is the Christian faith something they want to embrace? And if so, what difference can it make to their lives?
That’s often where the surprises come. Someone who seems disinterested asks a really pertinent question. Or someone who doesn’t admit to having much faith suddenly offers us a really relevant insight.
If you have teenagers and you’d love them to get involved in church, why not start a conversation? Talk to them about what they do and don’t believe, and see if a local church can help. Young people may surprise you with what they actually think.
And you can find out more about what we do on www.portsmouth.anglican.org/hightide.