Uganda, faith and young people

I’m back in Uganda  now, with a new CRED team from the Littlehampton and Worthing area who have come to spend a week working with the Acholi children.

Today, the team all went along to a church run by a Korean missionary lady, Joy Kim. Joy, and a Uganda Pastor Amos run the church and it is a wonderful place of celebration, worship, good Biblical teaching and unconditional love.

This evening, in debrief time, one of the questions the team considered was ‘what did you feel about church today?’ There was a lot of conversation, and discussion, and some of the feedback was very interesting and insightful with regard to a UK teenager’s perspective on church.

For several of the team, today was the first time they had ever been into a church, apart from weddings and funerals. Asked if any of them would go again if they could go back to Joy’s church, they all gave a strong ‘yes’ vote.

One of the team commented on how they loved the fact that they didn’t feel as though they were being judged, but instead they could just be themselves. They reflected that if they were to go to a church at home, the opposite would be true – they’d have to conform to other peoples views on how to behave, and would feel very judged.

Another said she liked the way that Joy and Amos’s church felt like it was full of hope, and looking forward; whereas the churches back home feel as though they are always looking back at how things were, and what has happened in the past, and not investing in the next generation and trying to make them feel welcome and engaged with faith.

Something else that came up was about the energy felt in the place, which we interpreted as the presence of the Spirit. Several of them said that they felt like they had had some sort of spiritual experience in the church, and that it had all felt a lot more than just words and songs.

The conversations have continued as the evening has gone on, and a lot of journaling has taken place, as individuals reflect on all they have seen and done today.

For me all this leads to a couple of thoughts:

1.     What can I / we learn from the reflections of the young people about UK church, and how we engage, or not, with the young people in our neighbourhoods

2.     How important it is for CRED, as a Christian-based organization, to keep exposing our young people to the work of our Christian partners, and to ensure that there is space for dialoguing about, and exploring the faith aspect of the trips that we take them on. How many other ‘overseas expedition providers’ (as we are known in the secular world) give this faith-based angle to their participants: it is something we need to nurture and be proud of.

If this is day 1, then who knows how these faith-based thoughts will progress as the week goes by, but my prayer is that they will progress, and that as leaders we will be able to discuss and engage with the young people to help them on their journey of faith at whatever stage they are at.