27 April 2008
Coram Deo V
Posted by Rob under: Church life; Worship .
Yesterday evening was the fifth edition of Coram Deo, a twice-yearly inter-church youth event for the Le Havre region. Joseph came with me too. There were slightly fewer people there than at the last one in November, though we were aware this would be the case due to the youth from one or two churches being unable to come because of other priorities. Even so, there were probably about 80 or so young people there. It was held in a little AOG church in Le Havre where the average age of the congregation is probably pushing 60 - the pastor, when telling his people about the event that would be taking place in their church, asked them to pray but wisely advised them “Whatever you do, don’t come!”
The theme last night was “Sons and daughters of the King”, and the aim was to bring young people to a fresh (or perhaps even first-time) revelation of their identity as children of God. There were two worship “sets” - one very loud and mainly upbeat one, and one very low-key, acoustic one - and a short word, and then a less structured time of prayer and worship towards the end. One of the goals was to encourage an atmosphere of intimacy where God could speak deeply into people’s hearts and they could freely express themselves to him.
Having been there most of yesterday preparing, then all evening for the event itself, afterwards we then had to pack everything away and put the church pack into its normal state so that none of the unsuspecting congregants would have any idea what had happened there on Saturday night when they walked in this morning. Then we had to take various bits of borrowed kit back to our church and set it up again. So it was rather a late night.
