By Anne MacDonald
Forty-one 16 -18-year-olds, from all over Scotland, enjoyed the Free Church Teens’ Conference held at Lendrick Muir.
As a team of leaders, we were so encouraged by these young people, their desire to learn and grow in their faith, the way they included each other and the way they interacted with the leaders.
Our main speaker was Keith Knowlton who gave three talks on ‘Living for Jesus’. We focussed on Mark chapter 7 for all three talks as Keith helped us understand the dangers of pharisaic thinking, the devastating extent and effect of the sin in our own hearts and then showed us afresh the wonder of what Christ has done, and is doing, for us. He helped us to think through how God’s law is a terrible saviour but a wonderful guide and how in Christ we are free not only to obey but to delight in His law. After each talk, we spilt into discussion groups with leaders to think through how we could apply what we had learnt to our lives.
Rev Tom Penman kindly returned to lead our seminar on ‘Why sex matters?’, giving us much needed biblical wisdom on sex, gender and identity, a topic that is so messy and confusing in our culture and yet is so intrinsic to our understanding of who God designed us to be and His love for us. The teens really valued Tom’s honesty in sharing his own story and his willingness to stay behind after the seminar to answer any questions.
On Saturday afternoon, we had an epic wide game, as well as time for beach volleyball or just hanging out, and on Saturday evening, everyone got glammed up for a classic ceilidh. We were thoroughly spoiled by our fabulous team of cooks who provided delicious food all weekend!
Reflecting on the weekend, I have an overwhelming sense of gratitude for God’s immense kindness in blessing us with such an uplifting time together, for many answered prayers, and for this glimpse into what He is doing in this next generation.
- We were at maximum capacity for the venue this year, which was really encouraging, but sadly some teens didn’t get in because we were fully booked much earlier than expected. Next year, we plan to be at a larger venue so we hopefully won’t need to disappoint any teens who would like to come!
