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In the blink of an eye, our first Urban Summer mission is over. I prayed lots of things leading up to and during the week, but there was one thing I had been praying over and over again on a personal level. It went something like this:

“God, when we get to the end of Urban Summer, I don’t want to be glad it’s over.”

The potential was always there for it to be an amazing week, but there was also the potential to wear people out through endless amounts of projects, meetings and activities. Fortunately, God answered this prayer, and while I’m tired (still) the week has been a powerful one on so many levels that I don’t want to lose the momentum we have gained.

As a reminder, Urban Summer is an initiative of the Deeper (youth) department of the Baptist Union of Victoria aimed to mobilise young people into practical expressions of mission in their local community. Serving the community in ways that make a real difference and share a little of the love of God in the process.

The MBC gang were involved in a number of things:

• Helping out at Eastern Emergency Relief (a welfare organisation)
• Doing home maintenance for neighbours in the surrounding estates
• Going into the local high school to help with gardening, painting and maintenance
• Running a kids drawing program
• Running a kids games/craft program

At the same time, teams of people went into shopping centres, parks, pools and the like handing out invitations to be part of the Urban Cafe happening each night of Urban Summer.

The cafe consisted of some kid friendly stuff early on in the night, with activities for the older crowd kicking in a bit later. Soccer, Box Wars, Karaoke, a costume party and a movie night were the themes for the various nights. Dispersed through the evenings were live music and testimonies from our team, and a prayer room running constantly in the background.

The days were long. We started at 9am and finished around midnight. But describing what actually happened though is difficult without you being their to experience the atmosphere. However, I’ll give it a go….

As a youth pastor, I was over the moon to see some of my young people not only step up to lead such a great week, but to gently push some of the younger ones out of their comfort zones to engage with strangers in conversation, to share their stories and to serve God in ways they hadn’t before. A few times I simply stood at the back of the room and watched as young people seemed to almost glow as they prayed for each other and for those they were interacting with.

Some of the relationships/friendships that were formed during the week with ’strangers’ have led to faith being discovered for the first time, faith from childhood being renewed and a place to belong for some that have been on the fringe. I’ve had a couple of requests for baptism from some whose faith took a leap forward from being involved and it wouldn’t surprise me if a few more asked in the next few weeks. We’ve been interviewed by two papers and a bunch will be recording a radio interview this afternoon - there’s an Urban Summer buzz in the air!

All of this makes me one happy guy. My prayer is that it all continues!

The danger for us now is to think of Urban Summer as ‘over’. Of course, the week of service projects and programs is, but the relationships continue and the call from God to serve others always remains. This will be our next challenge, particularly when school starts up again and the reality of normal life kicks in.

But for now at least, I am thankful for the way God worked both in and through our people and for those that have been drawn a little closer to faith.

Now the plans for Urban Winter begin…