The MAD weekend was a massive success and was especially enjoyed by the youth of First Lisburn. The weekend consisted of talks, seminars, worship sessions, dramas, dancing, activities, and general all-round fun!

A massive Thank You goes out to Sheila and Graham for driving our buses and for giving up their whole weekend for us! We couldn't have done it without you.

-----

The talks this year were given by Michael Wylie, who spoke to us about the BIG picture.

On Friday night, he explained to us that if we were to watch series 2 of a box-set without seeing series 1, we probably wouldn't understand what was going on. Sometimes it's a bit like that with the Old and New Testament. We read the New Testament but don't fully understand why things happened the way they happened until we read all the promises God made in the Old Testament! Jesus fulfils all the promises God made to us!

On Saturday, he spoke about looking for God in all the wrong places. He told us a story of how he lost his car keys one day - he was out working in the garden, digging up hedges, cutting the grass, and planting shrubs. When he looked for his keys, he couldn't find them! He searched everywhere but to no avail.

Then he listened to the advice of his friends - some told him to look for his keys where he was digging in case they fell in and he buried them. Others told him to look in his bin in case he threw them out with rubbish. Some even told him to look in his pockets!

After re-digging up his garden, and getting covered in rubbish, 3 weeks later, he found them in his toolbox!

Sometimes we listen to our friends advise about where to find God, rather than seeking and turning to prayer or to the Bible ourselves.

On Sunday, he told us that when he was 14, he got grounded. He wasn't very happy about this so he moved to another family. But he didn't like this new family because they had a different music taste, so he moved again. This time, he moved to a family with lots of kids and sometimes the dad forgot his name - he didn't like that. Finally he moved to a family without any kids, and got loads of attention. The whole story was a lie.

Of course it was a lie, because no matter who your family are, you stick with them, whether they ground you or not, or whether they like the same music as you or not.

He related this back to another kind of family - our church family! Just because we don't like every aspect of our own churches doesn't mean that we have to pack up and go. We should do our best to get involved and say "Hey, what can I do to help?". As soon as you get involved with the church, you'll start to feel like part of the family and can grow in faith together!

-----

The worship was led by Alistair Bennett and Band, who played various songs including some of our favourites! We sang Days of Elijah, Shine Jesus Shine, God of this City, Open The Eyes Of My Heart, How Great is our God, and many more great songs!

-----

On Saturday morning we had a choice of seminars to attend. I myself attended "How to read your Bible" with a lot of the First Lisburn crowd! Other seminars included

"How to pray"
"How to share about God"

"How to stay on track"

"How to overcome" and

"How to serve"

The boys and girls then went to separate talks entitled "10 top tips for boys" and "10 top tips for girls" for growing in their faith, and for other things too!

After this, we all went Hip-Hop dancing! Although not as hip as we would have liked, it was still very enjoyable to learn a few moves. There are a few pictures of this on the Photo Gallery!

Next on the list were the afternoon activities - softball, orienteering, touch-rugby, a beauty parlour, and a chill-out zone. Unfortunately the rain stopped the softball from happening - but not the touch rugby, which resulted in me having to drive four very cold and wet boys back to the church to get into some dry clothes! No sense at all in these ones!

Thankfully we made it back in time to enjoy the infamous "FunZone", where playing on the gigantic inflatables are probably the best part of the weekend for most of the youth! There was also Giant Jenga and table tennis for those who wanted something a bit less strenuous.

-----

On Sunday we went straight to Portstewart Strand where we had our own little service. Katie gave a short talk and we sang three of our fave worship songs - Days of Elijah, Lion of Judah, and Prince of Peace!

We then travelled back to the university where we were just in time for their own morning service. We then had lunch and of course headed to Portstewart Promenade and had our traditional ice-cream stop at Morrelli's before heading home for a long, well deserved rest.

To the leaders - A big thank you to Amy, and to the three that came up on Saturday night to help out - Crofty, Keith and Debs, Finally thank you especially to Katie, who led us, and who dealt so well with keeping us all organised and for not losing anyone!

To the drivers - Thank you again Graham and Sheila, you were a massive blessing and we hope that you both enjoyed the weekend and got something out of it for yourselves!

To the youth - Thank you boys and girls for being so well behaved, punctual, and for not causing TOO many problems when leaders were trying to sleep (... boys!!)

It was a pleasure having you all!

Ian :)