Summer Madness – Australia

Has your church signed up for Summer Madness yet? Over 32 Uniting churches and 200 young people in Queensland have signed up to come to Summer Madness in January 11th-14^th in 2008. Held at Alex park on the Sunshine Coast, this will be the biggest discipleship focused youth camp in the Uniting Church in years. We are on track top break the 300 mark. Summer madness is hosted by YACMU and is run by a collective of UC Youth Workers in Queensland 

The origins of the Summer Madness Festival are in Ireland.

Go and check out their website and see the potential for this event in Australia:

www.summermadness.co.uk

Summer Madness is only 4 months way and it’s time to really crank up the promotion in your church and amongst your young people. Here are some steps you can take to get your whole group there:

1. Promote the event at every gathering and ask young people individually to commit to coming

2. Organise a couple of fundraising activities to offset the cost of the event. Once people have been involved in fundraising to make something happen they are more likely to commit to the event.

3. Send a letter home to parents explaining the benefits of the event from a parent perspective and from a youth ministry perspective. Even if the parents are not from the church you need to be upfront about why the youth are going to the event. Generally the parents will be supportive

4. Place the posters up around the church

5. Give every young person a registration form to fill in

6. Plan a way for your youth to get involved in the event. Your group could run a skill elective or twin with a church from another part of Queensland and host them before the event.

Remember Summer Madness is a great way to kick start your youth ministry for the year and give it some real focus. If the event is used well you will be able to give the youth something to look forward to over the Christmas holidays.

Have you ever noticed the drop off between the number of young people in the group at the end of the year and the youth who show up at the start of the new year. Summer Madness builds those young people into the new year’s youth ministry.