Encounter at SCF

6th May 2007 @ 7:00pm
The Plaza Centre - Southend on Sea

Andy Robinson
from a NewFrontiers Church in Horsham

Discusses "Real Freedom - Being able to do what you like, but choosing to do what is right!"

Dwell
A fantastic worship band, fresh from Spring Harvest, will be leading worship

Peter, We wanted to let you know that Encounter is on the road again and will be in Southend-On-Sea in Essex on Sunday 6th May 2007.

Southend Christian Fellowship are hosting Encounter at the Plaza Centre, 600 Southchurch Road, Southend-On-Sea, Essex, SS12PT

This is, as always, a great way to meet with God through worship and hear the word of God. It is also a great opportunity to bring friends as opportunity for Salvation is constant part of the Encounter programme.

Tickets for this event a free, so please bring all your friends, or your entire youth group !

Andy Robinson is a full-time youth pastor for a Kings Church in Horsham, which is part of NewFrontiers. He is also the Managing Director of the Silver Ring Thing UK. Andy is a Southend boy and was in fact a former member of Southend Christian Fellowship youth for almost 10 years. Andy has been involved in youth work for over 20 years and is passionate about training and empowering young people to race towards their potential in God. “I want to see young people not only reach their potential, but to be given opportunity to become leaders while they are still young.” You many well have seen Andy on TV in his role with Silver Ring Thing as he has appeared, with his team on Channel 4, GOD TV, Premier Radio, BBC Radio, as well as being in the The Independent, The Guardian and many other papers in recent weeks and months.

Dwell are a Christian band who are God inspired and love taking their music to into Christian and secular environments alike. They are not only very gifted musicians, but are also anointed worship leaders. Dwell are part of the Weald Community Church in Sussex.

Dwell have have just come back from serving with the youth at Spring Harvest and in 2006 were on main stage at Greenbelt leading worship for the Sunday morning meeting. It is a great privilege to have them with us at encounter again

Cluny Square Residents Give their thanks to Extremers

We have just received this from Del Thomas:

“I went to the Cluny Residents meeting on Monday as I promised….      

To start off with we were offered a huge appreciation for all we had done. John Barber mentioned the work we had done behind the shops which he said was monumental and an incredibly good effort even if it didn’t last long.  Then one of the of the residents pointed out what an incredible job we had done at St Edmunds Hall in clearing the soil at the back and how polite and hard working we all were. Anne Brooks then spoke after this and explained how we also went to resident's homes and also cleared out her greenhouse and truly appreciative she was of that job and seconded the fact we were all so polite. John then said we had worked incredibly hard and how he thought that the fun day we put on was extremely well organized.  He commented on how many residents came out and joined in, and how impressed he was with the impact we had on the area for those two days.

God bless
Del”

Well done guys!

 

Prayer for young people of our town

We met last night and were led in prayer by the Youth of the town. Steve Dalley had 7 pointers for prayer which I would love to encourage you to pray for! They are:

1. Unity amongst the youth groups across the town.
2. Continued favour with the council
3. Relationship building with non-Christian youth groups and organisations
4. Specific locations, Cluny Square Bournes green (Newington Rd), and the Kursaal Estate.
5. What is on God's heart for Southend Youth to so next?
6. Pray for local schools. God's blessing and protection
7. For God to use the youth to LOVE.............. southend!

If you were with us thank you for joining with us to see the youth make a difference in our town. If not please continue to pray from where you are.

 

Transformations Prayer Nights

How extreme: Free HUGS

So there is this phenomenon of free HUGS that is sweeping the world. I believe that many Free HUGS were given out over the extreme:UNITED week. Here is a video of the founder based in the USA that inspired the movement. But do remember to keep safe and only give out hugs in groups and never on your own - and of course only if the person wants a hug :0)



Video submitted by Del T, add your comments about this below.

Prayer for Town led by Young People

We are excited that the youth of our town will be leading the next transformations prayer meeting on Friday 20th April at 8pm at Westcliff Baptist Church.

 

Please come and be encouraged by what the Lord is doing through the youth of this town and encourage them with our prayers in all their activities.

 

God bless

 

Mark and Gill Johnson The Well

More Photos: Tilt your head and have a look

Photos as submitted by Del Thomas, what do you think? Have you got any better, let us have 'em then! Add your stories about these photos in the comments below.

Day 4: Thursday: Last day for this week

Well today was our last day of Extreme and it was another action packed day. We started off today in worship and Steve Dalley spoke to us about being a community and how important it is that we carry on being 'extreme' in our normal day to day lives. We then went out to our afternoon programme. There was no fun day team so instead the team had to work very hard up at Cluny Square (more on this in the seperate post, below!).

It was also the last days of the holiday clubs at Belle Vue and Southchurch Park. We have met a lot of people this week and hopefully we will have touched or maybe re-touched a lot of lives this week. The evening was finished with a club night at SCF. DJ Squeeky Clean played along with Resolute, a break dancing group. There were some old style tunes such as Jesus Freak and Jumpin' in the House of God and the night really impacted people especially Mike Mc clean!! All the delegates each recieved a certificate with a personal message on it. An example of which would be Andy Hart's (who has had his arm in a sling after getting in a fight with chip oil and losing!!), whose said `has single handedly helped out this week.'

It has been a good week, if you have any comments, videos or photos then email them to this website via the email address to the top right or post you comments to each post.

Some snaps emailed by Roz Butterworth. Add your Comments!

Day 4: An incident at Cluny Square

Thursday was clean up day for the Cluny Team. We went to St Lukes Community Centre and helped do some gardening and cleaning windows there and we also cleared an alley behind the row of shops on Cluny Square and also went into a couple of residents houses to do a couple of jobs which they requested. Below is a story of what happened with a couple of the local lads:

"In order to save time, we had split into two teams to start at 2 different ends of the alley and then we would meet in the middle. Now some of the boys (a PCSO later told me they were very well known to them and always caused trouble) who caused trouble yesterday came along and started egging the group of us at the other end to me. They then came down to me and i thought they were going to throw eggs at me. They stopped and asked me what i was doing so i explained i was clearing up the rubbish to make the alley look nice. They turned round and said why? So i replied `I am doing it as a favour to the community as an example of love.' One of the boys then turned round and said to me `I will show you a example of man love if you come back to my house' to which i laughed and said it is not quite the same thing, I explained we were talking about God's love. He said `well thats odd isnt it?' To which I said `Yes and what's odder is we all paid £20 to do this'. This really threw them and the conversation carried on as to why we would pay to pick up rubbish. We talked about the fun day etc. Anyway the boys went off and didn't egg us anymore which i thought was very cool. About half hour later they came back and actually started to help us. It was only for about 15 minutes but they were picking up litter etc. which just blew me away. It just goes to show what can happen if you challenge people's mindsets."

The PCSOs spoke to me today and they said how very impressed with the job we had done behind the flats and how clear the alley looked. Also local cmmunity leaders such as John Barber also commented on how great the job was. Finally check out www.ferndale.org.uk/news to find out more reaction from the Reverend Steven Dray.

Day 3: Wednesday: Kids clubs galore

Its wednesday and we are now three quarters through the week. Today was the last day at Cluny Square and although we had trouble with our water initially it all went off well and the children enjoyed it. Also we had a holiday club at both Southchurch Park URC and Belle Vue Baptist and both of them went really well as well. It was a great day had by all.

There must be more stories and picturs to tell and show. Email us your photos and videos to the address above. Post those stories on the comments below. Go on you know you want to!

First photo submitted: James in Bev's Sunglasses!

So what do you think? Have you got any more worthy snaps? Then send them in, I am sure there are more out there. Add your comments on this post below.

Day 2: Pig pens, Dr Who and fun days

Today was Tuesday and we all met for worship. Jezza was telling us how fantastic we all are and reminding us about Dr Who as well!?

We then put on an indoor fun day which went very very well at Belle Vue Baptist Church, on Southchurch Road. One of the guys said that he couldn't see how we could have improved on it at all, and that it was spot on. He has organised lots of Christian events so well done to the guys who organised this event!

Members of the public were asking for free hugs today as well which was cool (and surprising!). Over at Christchurch in Southchurch we ran a Holiday Club and that went really well. The Rev. Martin Harris came along to lend his creative skills. Dino led a posse down to Hamstel as well and they created a lovely pig pen (they claim it is a compost heap but we have our doubts!).

What do you think it was? And how did you think the day went? Are you any wiser on the whole Dr Who thing? Add your commenst below.

Day 1: The delegates go down to the park

Monday 2nd April was the start of the week proper. We started in the morning with a talk from Mark Churchward of SCF reminding us how we are all chosen by God. The t-shirts have been customised as always (with rips, felts and sparkles) and some people took last night's sermon to the extreme!

We had a fun day at Southchurch Park today which was great. All the old fave's were there as well as some new ones. There was a bible verse trail, the police came down and gave demonstrations and we also had some performers come and teach some children their skills. There were about 300 people who came through the gates and all of them had a brilliant time helped by good weather.

We also ran a kids club at Belle Vue Baptist.

Got any comments on the day? Were you a punter at any of the events? Or were you helping? Add your stories to the 'comments' section of this post.

No April fools: A view of the opening night, 1st April 2007

The opening night of extreme:United launched the week in a great way. We had a great time at Christchurch in Southchurch worshipping God and barracking Dino!! Tim told us all about the free hug society in Sheffield who wait around outside a shopping centre Saturday giving out free hugs. He told us that this week we are giving out free hugs to Southend.

Are you on extreme:United this week, why not give us your reports and comments on what you have been up to. Or if you are a supporter leave words of encouragment or written prayers of support by clicking on the comments section of each post to add your thoughts.

ROSALIND BUTTERWORTH of Christ Church, writes:

This Easter, Love Southend Youth is organising it's fourth outreach event and you are warmly invited to get involved. Entitled 'Extreme:United', this year's first event will include kids
clubs, fun days and of course, work parties. Each morning will kick off with giving glory to God and hearing what he has to say to us.

 

Each afternoon from 1 til 5 the teams will be setting up for and then running whatever job theirs is; be it football, litter picking, or even just praying with non-Christians. Then, after a dinner kindly provided by a local church, the delegates will get to hang out til about 9.30,
relaxing at churches running cafes, showing films or simply getting out the pool tables. YOU are offered the chance to join in on the blessing. The event will last for four days next week, and will have a launch night at Christchurch this Sunday evening (that's tomorrow!) from 6.30 til 8.

 

Even if you have just one afternoon free then you will be enthusiastically welcomed onto a team. If you are praying for the event, a team or an individual, then you are invited to come and join the delegates tomorrow night, at the morning worship sessions at Southchurch Park URC from 10am or even at the evening chill out sessions. Please note that you cannot be too wise, too childlike, too holy, too busy or too important to get involved - anyone from 11 to 111 is encouraged to be a part of God's anointing on Southend! If you would like more information or forms for Extreme:United then please contact Jacky Rossi at rossis4@hotmail.com, or just simply turn up tomorrow.