Youth Of The Nation V

We had another fantastic youth conference in Wanganui a few weeks back. Youth ministries from Palmerston North, Marton, Hamilton, Porirua, Wainuiomata, Hawera, Levin, Napier, New Plymouth and every denomination you can name almost converged on Wanganui for Youth Of The Nation V.
YOTN V was held at Wanganui's Central Baptist Church from Wednesday 16th - Saturday 19th July 2008. This event is put on by the Wanganui Christian Youth Workers, a collective of youth workers from different denominations with the common goal of encouraging and empowering their young people to pursue Jesus Christ with a zeal that will impact their generation. It is exciting to see ministers from different church and denominational backgrounds come together and put on event, each bring different perspectives and flavours as they minister.

YOTNV brought to region a line up of great speakers. Ps Ben Houston accompanied by worship director Dean Ussher of Hillsong Northern Beaches were our international guests this year. Ps Ben communicated the amazing life that we live when we honour God with our lives. Joining him this year were Dave Wells, lecturer at BCNZ and director of Zeal Youth Centre in Auckland. Dave presented the scriptures as the whole story of Christ, very insightful. Ps Sam Bayly (The Meadows Church, Paraparaumu) spoke about decision's we make as young people and presented the gospel simply with fantastic results.

Left to Right: Dave Wiggins, Dean Ussher, Ps Braden Matson, Ps Sam Bayly,
Ps Ben Hoyle, Dave Wells, Ps Daniel Paikea & Ps Ben Houston

Among the other speakers were Ps Braden Matson (New Generation NZ Director), Ps Daniel Paikea (Teen Challenge NZ Director), Beki Hayward (Soul Survivor NZ, Wellington), Dave Wiggins (Clean Comedy Comedian, Auckland), Ps Ben Hoyle (YOTN Director), Ps Iliesa Tamaniyaga, Ps Andrew Stanbrook-Mason, Lorne Campbell, Ps Rob Thompson & Ps Neville Bartley (Speaker at YOTN IV).

YOTN V was a great success. 64 known commitments to Christ, electives on 12 various areas of equiping young people to live fruitful lives & a great time had by all.

Other guests included Tauranga rockers Outta Exile, Gisbourne rappers Zero-T and Palmerston North DJ Tom Watts. Something for everyone, with the highlight for many being Dave Wiggins' stand up comedy performance.

Dave Wiggins

YOTN Worship Leader Caleb Kingi with Dean Ussher

There's a stack more info and photos on the website www.yotn.net.nz
Information will be released on next years dates for YOTN6 very soon.

Posted by Ben Hoyle

Fresh It Up Camp

Over Queen's Birthday weekend, the West Coast Region got together for their annual Easter Camp
(due to camp site being booked it was moved to Queen's Birthday for this year). The youth ministries from New Plymouth, Levin, Palmerston North & Wanganui converged on sunny Inglewood in Taranaki at Vertical Horizons Camp. The West Coast camps have been running for 9 years and have all had different flavours. Over the years speakers have included, Luka Robertson, Natalie Joyce, John Cameron, Paul Saunders, John Cairns & Andy Kubala.
2008 was an amazing time. Guest speakers Craig & Nadia Clark ministered in season with where we were at and the results were fantastic. 17 first time commitments on the first night was such great launching pad. The weekend got stronger and stronger as we felt the Anointing build. It was great to see the local youth pastors and leadership working together so strongly with what Craig & Nadia were leading us into. Many received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, healings were testified of, and many experienced a moving and manifest encounter with Jesus. It was just so wonderful experiencing God in such favour.
Ps Paul White from Levin challenged everyone to remember the events of the weekend, quoting Jacob building an alter in Genesis 28.
It was a hugely successful weekend and a huge thank-you must go out to Ps Julia Kuriger and her crew from New Plymouth for hosting the event so well. The food was out-standing (best camp food ever). I personally cannot wait for next years Camp.

Posted by Ben Hoyle

Working With Other Denominations: Part Two

The easiest answer is to do away with doctrines and just get on with it, but it’s not realistic. After all, doctrine is what gives us our identity as a Pentecostal, Anglican, Catholic, Brethren, and so on.

I have spoken with people, who genuinely believe that this is the right way to achieve unity. That we throw our doctrine and identity out the window and just become “disciples of Christ” together. I don’t know if you’ve heard this theory yourselves, but I really don’t think that will ever work. Because every believer receives different revelations on the word of God, and in reality not every opinion is wrong. There can be different perspectives on different practices. So naturally we begin to gather with others who share our convictions or perspectives. This is an important key to unity.

You see, I believe that unity starts with you identifying with one church and denomination, becoming planted in its house, vision and mandate. Once you have a home and you have established what your belief system is, you know who you are in Christ. I meet at an A/G church because I agree with the belief system of the movement, otherwise if I didn’t I’d go to another denomination where I felt I could identify with the belief system and go on to fulfil the call of God on my life. You see doctrine and belief systems are very important. They define us in Christ. We know who we are, and when we hear something that opposes or challenges that, we won’t be fazed by it.

So how do we establish relationship & unity with others who don’t share our belief system? The answer, in my experience, is Education. There is a big difference from accepting another person’s beliefs and understanding them. In the last part, I stated that most churches automatically put up divisions with churches that they don’t agree with. You can tell these sorts of walls are in place when you here statements like “we’ll come only if that youth group isn’t going to be there.” They are worried that the belief systems of the other group’s young people will begin to be accepted and then practiced by their very own youth. And this can happen.

If I have a heart for unity with the body of Christ, and one of my young people comes to me and says, “I visited one of my friends churches the other night and I witnessed something I’ve never seen before and honestly I don’t think its right.” I should find out exactly what it is and check to see if it is a doctrinal belief of that church. If it is and in most cases it will (sometimes not and that’s a whole other lesson), it’s my job to educate that young person on that doctrine so that the following is established:

1. A realisation that not every church is like ours.
2. An understanding of where their church stands on that belief (this may require research on your behalf. Talk with someone you know at that church if you feel you can)
3. An understanding of where our church stands on that belief (it may not be practised at all or practised differently and that should be explained – scriptures are the best evidence)

In this process, I feel it is important to not “put down” the other church, remembering that they are part of the body. Avoid statements like “That church are ignorant” or “They are wrong”, instead use statement style answers “They believe this because they have interpreted it this way”. Not negative or positive reinforced statements.

Remember your goal is to educate not judge. The person you are sharing with should leave feeling as though they could go into that environment again and not feel worried, because they understand what is going on, but also because their own belief system is not challenged. They are certain in what they believe.

I deal with youth workers in our city every week. Some of the guys (that means gals too) belong to churches that I have a completely different standpoint over doctrine. But, because I know who I am in Christ, that my belief system is stable, I can enter into relationship with them and build unity with them. I love the body of Christ. It’s so awesome meeting with people from different walks of life, and knowing that they are living for Christ also.

I hope what I’ve shared has got you thinking. If you want to call me about anything that I’ve stated on unity, feel free to call me. I have really only scraped the surface of this and there are other situations that arise in working with other denominations. I just pray that you desire to love the body of Christ even if you don’t agree on how your faith is lived to the stop.

Posted by Ben Hoyle

Working With Other Denominations: Part One

In our city, we have been privileged to inherit a unity among the churches that is really amazing. Many folk from outside visit our place and end up asking a bunch of questions about how it has been achieved. I've also had leaders of national ministries come to me and tell me about the problems of running inter-denominational ministries, where some youth groups will only turn up if another youth group doesn't, or if a certain practice isn't exercised.

The reality that we have to face is that, the main problem we have with other denominations or movements is Doctrine. Doctrine defines our identity in Christ. There are churches that believe in speaking in tongues, and there are those who feel it is heretical. There are churches that believe in certain forms of baptism, that others have different interpretations of. There are so many different standpoints on giving and tithing across the church. So if we identify with certain practices that others despise or practice differently, we will tend to distance ourselves from those groups, after all they are not "in line" with our belief system.

The problem I see is, that as bible believing Christians, we read in John 17, as Christ is praying for the disciples and then goes on to pray for all believers, that He desires us to be united.
Verse 23 : "I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

We all know the verse, "Where there is Unity, God commands a blessing", and quite often we put it in the context of our local church. You know?, that the pastors and leaders work together in one vision and God will bless the vision and so on. But, here in verse 23, Jesus is praying to the Father about ALL believers being ONE.

You see the devil has done such an outstanding job of dividing the church over the centuries to the point that we are more at war with each other than with the principalities and powers. This is it, isn't it. Our doctrines are what divide us. The funny thing is, that any church that agrees "Jesus is Lord" are Christians and therefore part of the body of Christ. Jesus desires those people to be united.

This is the hard part though. We have established that it is Christ’s desire for the church to be united. We have also established that it is our doctrines that divide us. So the question is: How do we achieve unity?

To Be Continued…
Posted by Ben Hoyle