Sydenham Baptist Church’s Children’s Youth and Young Adults Pastor, Georgia, took nearly 100 people to State Youth Games this year including competitors, leaders and cooks. She says the vibrant, supportive and openhearted culture is highly attractive to young people experiencing a Christian environment for the first time.

This year several Sydenham Baptist young people made commitments to Christ for the first time and three decided to be baptised. “There’s just nothing else like it! It’s our youth kids’ favourite event of the year. So many young people have become Christians through this event. People invite their friends along because it’s an easy space for people to plug into, and then we see them plugging into a life group every second week because they just want to be a part of the community they found at SYG.”

For SBC, the Games provides an opportunity for the entire church to get involved, sharing skills and talents across generations. Throughout the year, the church fundraises to make it more affordable for the youth by doing donut drives and sausage sizzles.

“It’s a massive weekend and it really involves everyone. We send live reports to our church and they pray for us while we’re away. Afterwards we share highlight videos and testimonies.”

A major reason why Georgia loves the event is that it engages the whole church. “It’s a real highlight for our entire church and they all get behind the event. This year, in addition to the youth, the volunteer team included approximately 20 adults – two ladies who cook all of our meals for us; parents who get up early for leadership meetings; people who drive kids around to events; and even a volunteer who drove a trailer all the way to Warragul for us.”

She said SYG was accessible to churches of all sizes. “It’s easy for small churches to piggy-back with a larger church who can provide food and tent setup, but still play under the name of their own church ministry. That’s what I did years ago with my previous church when we took only 10 people. The leaderboard is separated into small, medium and large churches and there are awards for each category. It’s such an encouragement for teens who go to a tiny church to attend an event with 2000 other young people who love God! They can sit around the fire together, meet people easily, and see a beautiful demonstration of Kingdom community.”

“One of my highlights was watching our young people start to grab hold of what makes the Kingdom community different – seeing them help out, show sportsmanship, cheer for other teams, sub in to fill competition gaps, or pray before games. It was also great watching our older generation get involved with the young people and leaders, falling in love with what we do and loving our young people. Before the event we briefed everyone on our values and that our job is to demonstrate the love of Jesus, including when people are at their worst and haven’t slept for days!”

Each person had lollipops in SBC team colours to hand out when they spotted others showing kindness, helpfulness and sportsmanship, which supported the team’s nurturing and encouraging community.

The Games are run annually by Churches of Christ at Lardner Park, Warragul, over the King’s Birthday weekend. This year the theme was “Release”, focusing on going into the world with God’s blessing and stepping out in faith to do God’s good works. It focused on Ephesians 2:8 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

Georgia is already looking forward to next year’s Games and has started discussions about joining with the with Matu Baptist Church which meets on the same property. “It’s great to use the Games to bridge relationships with other churches, and sport is a fantastic universal language.