Youth keeps KYCKing on

Last weekend the youth groups of Oak Flats and Jamberoo went away together for an encouraging and exciting weekend.

On Friday we travelled up to Katoomba to KYCK – a youth conference run by Katoomba Christian Convention (KCC).

The conference has around 2000 youth and leaders attending and it is always encouraging to see so many people gathering together to hear God’s word.

It definitely caters well for youth, with everything from Mario-cart, to co-ordinated dance moves, but overall the conference works hard to keep God’s word at its centre.

The three speakers gave excellent expositions from the book of 1 Peter. They spoke of the privilege it is to be chosen by God to be his special people, and so we are called to be different from the world around us, especially in the school environment.

God has worked in us to make us different so we are now “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession” (1 Peter 2:9).

Our new identity is found in what Jesus has done for us – his atoning sacrifice.

The Saturday night talk was the climax focusing on 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”

One speaker described it like this:

“Who we are is not what you have done, or what others have done to you, it is what God has made you to be.”

This is what enables us to endure in a world where we are different and experience suffering.

What a wonderful hope for these youth and leaders to hear!

When we weren’t up at the conference centre, we were staying at a small cottage in Katoomba, sitting round a log fire, playing games and enjoying all the food Magda and Andy Peters cooked for us.

There was a great expression of unity shown amongst all the youth and the leaders in the way we shared together and lived out life as God’s special people.

Simon Chaplin