By a long-time member of the Jubilee Church Wirral family

As I write this, we are on the way to  Newday.

A good friend of mine asked me  if I was exhausted at the prospect of it. A little bit, I answered. But also excited.

Excited because it’s the first Newday I’ve been to since 2018. That’s four years ago.

Excited because it’s the first one my 14-year-old daughter is attending as a full delegate rather than a child.

Excited because we’re taking 25 young people from Jubilee, some of whom don’t know God at all yet.

They will be sharing the Norfolk Showground with around 7000 other young people for almost an entire week. They’re going to have an incredible time: they always do. What’s even more important is that God will be there too and they will return having had the best possible introduction into being a Christian that they could hope for.

Will they all come back as Bible-reading, card-carrying converts? Possibly not. But you never know – this is God we’re talking about, after all.

Will it change some of their lives? Undoubtedly.

Will we know who has been affected by it and who hasn’t? No.

One of the great things about Newday and other outreach events is that they plant seeds. Seeds that take time to grow and blossom. Sometimes they’re fast-growing seeds, seeds that blossom almost immediately; if those kind of seeds are planted in all our young people we can expect to see a flurry of baptisms and, come September, a church full of spirit-filled young Christians.

We may not see that. But what we will know, beyond any doubt at all, is that God will have planted seeds in all their lives. They won’t be quite the same ever again and what they will have learned will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

One day, some of them will give their life to the Lord completely. Some might not, but one thing is certain: Newday will have had an effect.

It will have changed lives