Chilterns Christian Fellowship, Princess Risborough  
September 29 – October 11, 2007
 

The trip was absolutely incredible. The church has such favour with the local school and they are able to go in regularly and work with the youth. Dan Smith (the youth pastor) has such a passion and love for the youth there. It is really quite remarkable to think that all of this came about from what happened seven years ago.

Seven years ago is when Geoff and Jane Blease arrived to pastor at the church. The youth in this area do not have a lot to do so on the weekends so they would all go drinking and partying in a big field. Geoff and Jane have such a heart for the youth and they started praying and asking God how they could love the youth in Princes Risborough. They started going out every week to the field where the youth would hang out. They took a mobile home so the kids would have a place to go, a place to get warm. They started giving away free food and their response when asked why they were doing this was simply “It’s because we love you”. Such simple words and yet so powerful at the same time. God used Geoff and Jane to start to reach out to the youth. God then began to open up many doors and give them local contacts in the town allowing them to reach out and impact many lives. 
 

One of these contacts was a teacher in the local high school, Princes Risborough High. In 2006 with the help of this teacher they were able to partner with the school to invite thebandwithnoname to come and perform for the youth and introduce them to God and Christianity. It was so successful that they were invited back in 2007. The church paid for the band to come once again and we saw about 30 salvations. As a side note, Jane has actually been invited by the schools to come and run parenting classes for parents of troubled youth. The church also has been asked by the school to come and run an Alpha course (a course explaining the basics of Christianity) as an extra curricular activity for the students.
 

As a part of our mission we would go with the band into the school and help them run their presentation (ie. Run games, do lighting, help with powerpoint etc.) At the end of the lesson we would have a question and answer time in which the kids were free to ask us anything they wanted. We would actually ask them to ask us the hardest questions they could think off. Some of the questions were about the band and their music but some of the other questions were very provoking, such as “If God is so loving, why does he send people to Hell?” and “Why does God let bad things happen?”. The Holy Spirit completely gave us the answers and I think that the youth were really provoked to think about some of the important life questions that they had not thought about yet.
 

We even had a teacher who started questioning what she believed and why she believed it. She went home after one session and called up her mother and started asking questions about what she was brought up as and what church she used to go to etc. It was absolutely incredible. We were also able to go to a River meeting that Geoff and Jane run all over their surrounding area. A river meeting is where they just ask Holy Spirit to come and go with the flow.  We prayed and prophesied over people and even got to speak for about 10 minutes each on what was on our hearts. It was really powerful and we saw people get in touch with the love of their Heavenly Daddy, some who had never felt Him before. One lady just kept on weeping and weeping as she experienced His love and grace.
 

We were also asked to speak to the youth at CCF. Jon spoke once about The Father’s Love and I spoke about ‘Orphan to Sonship’. They were both powerful services with God showing up and touching the youth each time. Both nights went later than planned and the parents actually ended up waiting for their kids while they finished doing business with God. 
 

Overall, the entire trip was awesome. It is so amazing and inspiring to see what God can do with people who love Him and love their community. I think being in the schools and working with the youth day in and day out was awesome. You got to relate to the youth on their level and hang out with them while being able to release God’s life and grace into their lives. They really looked up to us and enjoyed hanging out with us. Every day after school we would go back to the coffee shop that the church runs and have a two hour slot where the youth could come and go. We would sit and talk to them and get into some really good conversations about life, about God, about morals, ethics and values. It was really amazing.
 

The trip was absolutely amazing and life changing. It would be great to see what connections TACF has with the local schools (through teachers, principals, counselors etc. who attend our various congregations) and see how we can start impacting the schools for Jesus. Who knows, it might start with giving away hot dogs and loving on the youth.

Ricky Arnott and Jonathan Schunker