The main work of the Committee this year has by necessity been once again in the area of Youth. The introduction of the Youth Assembly was an exciting new venture which resulted in the planning and developing of the Youth Assembly programme as a high priority. However the Committee also continues to consider the increasingly important need of evangelism as a priority in the church in the hope of addressing some of the pressing issues which face the church in her response to Christ's command to "Go and make disciples." It is hoped that the report will encourage debate on this issue as the committee believe it is important to hear the voice of the church that we might better respond to the challenge before us.

YOUTH

CAMPS

A restructuring of camps has taken place this year. Replacing the Easter and Pioneer camps will be Presbytery based camps for young people aged 8-14 years. The camps will have a mixture of fun activities and subject related events and teaching. A team of three leaders Rev Ian Robertson, Miss Shelagh Coulter, and Mr Richard Bisset will lead the camps in partnership with youth leaders from within each presbytery. It is important that leaders attend the camp with their young people to build relationships with the young people away from their local setting and discuss ideas, successes and problems with other leaders.

Each Presbytery is responsible for choosing and booking the venue, setting the cost, and advertising the camps. The Committee has been encouraged by the response from each Presbytery with camps taking place at the following venues:

The Presbytery of the East, 18-20 August 2000 at Wiston Lodge.

The Presbytery of the West, 8-10 September 2000 at Carronvale House, Larbert.

The Presbytery of the North, 15-17 September 2000 at the Windmill Centre, Arbroath.

The Presbytery of the North, 22-24 September 2000 at Kilravock Christian Centre

The theme for 2000 is "Worship". Using multi-media presentation, Shelagh Coulter will be looking at the "How, Why and What of Worship". The aim is not to create dissatisfaction with the worship of the home church but to endeavour to stimulate thinking about worship. Part of the weekend will be spent preparing a worship service which will be celebrated on the Sunday. It is hoped that any musicians will bring along their instruments. A summary of the activities and the participants will be made available to ministers in the hope that any undiscovered talents could be nurtured in the local church. Bible Notes will be given to those attending the camps and these will be followed up throughout the year.

YOUTH ASSEMBLY

Our first Youth Assembly for young people aged sixteen to twenty five was held from 31st March to 2nd April at Carronvale House, Larbert with twenty six young people attending. The Moderator of the General Assembly, Rev A D Scrimgeour, opened the Youth Assembly on the Friday evening. Rev A M Ford, Miss Shelagh Coulter and Mr Richard Bisset led morning worship on Saturday and Sunday. Tom Greig of Millerston United Free Church and the band 'Tap Root,' led our praise on Friday and Saturday then Tom and a few young people from other UF congregations led our praise on Sunday.

In order to explore and comment on issues of Church work at national level certain matters under discussion within General Assembly Committees were explored. These topics were chosen by the planning group which consisted of the Convener and Vice Convener of the Committee and eight young people who were nominated by their Ministers. The topics covered were:

Evangelism and Youth – The Difference between Church and Culture.

Overseas and Inter Church Affairs – SCIFU (Scottish Church Initiative for Union).

Ethics and Current Affairs – Biotechnology, Cloning, GM Foods.

In addition to the main business sessions, Jason Lane led two sessions on the theme of "Discipleship". Jason lives in Oxford and leads the European Mission Team of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. As a result of his work with young people throughout Europe, Jason was able to speak on discipleship from a broad perspective and experience.

A minute of the Youth Assembly follows this report. A representative of the Youth Assembly will speak at the Ladies' Day on the Wednesday of General Assembly and another during the Report of the Committee on Evangelism and Youth.

MELTING POT

In 1998 the United Free Church entered into a proposed three year partnership with the Scottish Congregational Church and the Methodist Church to hold a joint youth conference under the title of Melting Pot. The first of these took place in October 1998 but the 1999 event was cancelled due to lack of interest. The planning group decided not to continue with Melting Pot and it was agreed that after all expenses had been covered the balance of the financial contributions from the various denominations would be returned.

COMMUNICATION

Youth Leaders Magazine – "stUFf"

"stUFf" is a magazine aimed at encouraging and resourcing our youth leaders. At present the Committee plans to produce the magazine three times a year to provide leaders with ideas for key seasons. February/March for Easter, July/August for youth organisations restarting after the summer break, and November for Christmas. The Committee hope the magazine will be of interest to our youth leaders and that they will willingly contribute to its content. We are grateful to Mrs Elaine Tait for her work as Editor and to Mr Graham Tait for his help in producing the magazine.

"Orbit"

The Committee is reviewing the format of "Orbit" and the age range it targets. With Herald Press no longer producing "Stedfast" and the new "Stedfast" being produced with a more modern appearance it was felt that "Orbit" could also be updated in its presentation. We are again indebted to Mrs Netta Begg for setting the "Orbit" competition and to Mrs Elizabeth McKay for marking the entries. After 10 years as Editor of "Orbit", Mrs Begg feels that it is now time to step down as Editor. The Committee appreciates the valuable contribution Mrs Begg has made to the work of our Sunday Schools in encouraging our young people to grow in their Bible knowledge through participation in the "Orbit" competition. We will seek to appoint an able successor to continue the good work. Mrs E McKay has also found she is unable to continue with her work as marker and we are grateful for her valued assistance over the last 3 years.

EASTER SCHEME

The 1999 appeal was for the for the work of Childline. This organisation exists to help children and young people who suffer from physical or sexual abuse, bullying, parents divorcing, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and running away from home. The Easter Scheme raised the sum of £3,788. Easter Scheme 2000 is for the Christian Aid Jambo Kenya 'Skills for Life' appeal.

YOUTH NIGHT

The 1999 Youth Night was presented by Rodd & Marco who were supported by the band Nexus and evangelist John McKinnon who spoke on the subject of "Choices". The event was attended by around seventy young people and youth leaders. Once again the small number of young people attending the Youth Night led the Committee to review the effectiveness of these events. It would help if information regarding the Youth Night was passed on to youth leaders and young people and if leaders were prepared to being their young people to the Youth Night. We appreciate distance may be a problem and time may be tight for those who work. To help with this the Youth Night will begin slightly later than in previous years. Presbyteries could investigate the possibility of running buses or arranging transport for groups.

The programme for Youth Night 2000 has been arranged in partnership with Youth for Christ who will also be involved in the Youth Programme for ACT 2000. The Committee desires to increase contact with our young people and to provide events which will bring our young people together in meaningful ways. This year with the Youth Assembly, Youth Night and ACT 2000 we were presented with an opportunity to build bridges. It is the hope of the Committee that we can continue to encourage our young people in this way.

EVANGELISM

LEADERS' FORUM

In 1999, due to flight delays the Rev Joel Edwards, General Director of the Evangelical Alliance, was unable to speak at the morning session of the Leaders Forum. We are indebted to Rev Mike Marsden, our Training Development Officer, for stepping into the gap and sharing with us a paper by Rob Warner called "Shaping Tomorrow's Church". This was a fitting lead in to Joel's address in the afternoon on the subject of "Unity". The speaker at the 2000 Forum will be Rev Tom Houston who will be the speaker at the ACT 2000 Convention at Stirling in August. It is encouraging to see the number of those in church leadership attending the Forum and the Committee hopes that this year's forum will develop the vision for ACT 2000 and inspire leaders to encourage their people to be part of this event.

DAY OF PRAYER

The Day of Prayer is to be held on Sunday 10 September 2000. With many of our organisations restarting from the end of August throughout September the theme of "Commissioning and Commitment" was chosen. We hope it will provide an opportunity for all our congregations to prayerfully recommit themselves to Christ and his work in their local situation. Once again a package of ideas and material will be provided to encourage various formats for prayer.

In recent years the Day of Prayer has moved to various dates throughout the Christian Year. The Committee view the restarting of organisations as an important time in the life of our congregations and intend to remain with the theme of commissioning for the following year proposing Sunday 9 September as the Day of Prayer in 2001.

In 1999 congregations were twinned in the hope that they would pray for one another. The Committee would encourage all congregations to participate in this ministry and to continue to share information and prayer for one another throughout the year.

WILLOW CREEK UK SUMMIT

The Committee was encouraged by the response to the Willow Creek UK Summit at the NEC Birmingham from 16-20 November 1999. Fifteen people from the United Free Church attended the conference. In addition to two representatives from the Committee, five representatives from the Business and Administration Committee, and the Training Development Officer, seven others responded to the Evangelism and Youth Committee's offer to subsidise places at the conference.

The mission of Willow Creek Community Church is to turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Their vision is to be a biblically functioning community of believers so that Christ's redemptive purposes can be accomplished in the world. To enable the church to fulfil its mission forty percent of their resources go towards evangelism. It is perhaps indicative of our own policy towards evangelism in the use of our resources and content of our business that in the United Kingdom throughout the nineties, which was marked as the decade of evangelism, rather than growing the church continued to decline in numbers.

The Willow Creek Association is a growing network of like minded churches with the same desire of turning irreligious people into devoted followers of Christ. The Summit dealt with evangelism and discipleship and it is hoped that those who attended will reflect and wrestle with the principles highlighted at the conference and seek to apply them in their local situations. The Committee would encourage those in church leadership to attend any future Willow Creek seminars, details of which can be obtained from the Training Development Officer.

RESOURCES

The Committee has purchased various resources that are available to churches and organisations. These resources can be booked through Church Office. To ensure their availability we request that they be collected from and returned to the office on agreed dates. The resources are:

A briefcase size Overhead Projector and Screen.

Two combined TV and Video sets, one with a 14 inch screen and one with a 20 inch screen.

A Video Projector.

A Data / Video Projector and Laptop computer.

The Laptop computer will be available for camps, conferences, and major church events. It will not be available for organisation use unless agreed by the Secretary

THE COMMITTEE'S ROLE IN EVANGELISM

The Committee has been considering our future work and how we may best serve our congregations in the area of evangelism. We recognise the difficulty all our congregations face in their work of evangelism. It is one area many people are reticent to explore, believing that they have neither the gift nor the ability for evangelism. It is clear that on one level we need to address the spiritual heart of our people and on another level provide resources that equip them to be involved in evangelism. The Committee has therefore identified three areas for future work. These areas are not to be taken individually but rather as being inter-related.

1. To seek to stimulate the spiritual life of our congregations: Michael Green gives various definitions of evangelism one of which is the word "overflow." Green says, "It gives the right nuance, of someone who is so full of joy about Jesus Christ that it overflows as surely as a bath that is filled to overflowing with water. It is a natural thing. It is a very obvious thing. Accordingly, it has that quality which so much evangelism lacks, spontaneity." While people can learn how to communicate the gospel in relevant ways evangelism is not primarily a programme or a special technique they learn, it is something which flows out of Christians in a natural way when they are filled with joy about Jesus. Effective evangelism. will not happen in our churches until the spiritual life of our congregations is such that we become a people so full of joy about Jesus Christ that it overflows in the power of the Holy Spirit. It has been said that evangelism is talking about Jesus, by people who have been with Jesus, and who are filled with the Spirit of Jesus. We have to understand that evangelism is not a separate part of the Church's life but is indeed the natural spontaneous overflow of a healthy congregation. The Committee continues to view the ethos and spirit of "The Church Alive and Growing" as an ongoing concern within the Church and considers the work of the Training Development Officer and Elder Trainers to be of crucial importance in the work of reviving the spiritual life of our congregations.

2. To develop the understanding of the gap between church and culture today: The Church has a message for the world but in communicating its message the church must understand both the message and the world. If our evangelism is to connect with and be relevant to the people of today the church has to face the challenge of a rapidly changing culture. Some of the areas we would seek to address are mentioned briefly below.

Traditions that were a blessing years ago are not necessarily those that will bring blessing today. While there is much that is good and ought to be celebrated in the life of the church, so much of what we do and how we do it communicates to today's world that God is the God of yesterday and not the living God of today.

We live in a computerised TV age with its rapidly changing visual images, snappy presentations and the opportunity for participation through debates, talk shows and phone-ins. As we seek to fulfil Christ's commission to "go and make disciples", the church while holding to the unchanging message of the gospel has to wrestle with these issues by doing everything possible to ensure that our music, language, content and presentation is relevant to people today.

In a spiritual supermarket where many different brands of spirituality are on offer and where in areas of spirituality, ethics, morality and lifestyle, mediums such as television, cinema and music have a greater impact on the thinking and action of people than the Christian message, Christians have to be equipped to live out and communicate their faith to those around them.

Changing patterns of living with greater mobility, adaptability and flexibility mean that younger generations are more likely to change their homes, communities, and careers on a more regular basis. In the workplace people are given responsibility and are expected to use their gifts and skills. Much of the existing leadership within churches is based on the older members who have been in the same church for many years and with younger people moving more frequently the opportunities for leadership may not be so accessible. The church is a living resource of "giftedness". Our lifestyle, worship and communication of the gospel ought to reflect this. The Church as a living community of faith has to be a place where people are equipped and supported in living out their faith in today's world.

3. To provide suitable ideas and resources to help equip the Church's life and mission: In partnership with the Training Development Officer the Committee will aim to provide conferences for those who have a heart for evangelism as well as seeking to resource the church in our work of reaching the lost for Christ. In addition to this we will seek to identify gifted individuals within our congregations to establish a trained Mission Team that could work with individual congregations or a group of congregations. It is hoped this team would be trained and equipped to lead various courses appropriate to needs within various congregations. We hope to produce a resource pack with ideas for churches to choose from with the purpose that they would try those ideas most suited to their situation.

Having identified these three areas, it is the Committee's intention to pursue practical ways of bringing them to fulfilment. Much depends on the willingness of all of us as Christ's disciples to be a church that seeks to follow Christ's commission to "Go and make disciples" which in the modern day language of Willow Creek's purpose statement is "To turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ."

"Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved. But how can they call to him for help if they have not believed? And how can they believe if they have not heard the message? And how can they hear the message if it is not proclaimed? And how can the message be proclaimed if the messengers are not sent out? As the Scripture says, 'How wonderful is the coming of the messengers who bring good news!'" (Romans 10:13-15)

In the name of the Committee,

GARY J A BARCLAY, Convener

IAN ROBERTSON, Vice-Convener

GRAEME GARDNER, Vice-Convener

JOHN O. FULTON, Secretary