Sunbathing in God’s Love
The fifteenth Celebrate Conference was held at Ilfracombe, in Devon, during Easter week. Attended by around 1500 people, half under the age of 25, Celebrate has become one of the key events in the English Catholic calendar. All families and young people stay in chalets looking over the cliffs that drop into the sea, and a neighbouring high school is commandeered by the conference for all the different events with special programmes run for all the different age groups. A team of young adult volunteers from Lancaster Diocese ran the stream for 10 and 11-year olds, eighty of them, from 9 in the morning till 9 at night, Monday to Friday. It was one of the most exhausting experiences, but for the team that led the week, it proved an overwhelming experience in so many ways.

Prior to the Conference, Ruth and Joe White put a lot of effort into training up a team of 10 volunteers. This was quite a challenge as the group was quite varied and none of the volunteers had ever been to a charismatic conference like Celebrate; few knew what to expect. But one of the best things about the conference, Emma Dargue writes, was the way in which the group of volunteers ‘mucked in together to achieve a brilliant week’. Hanna Craig explains, ‘Working with such a large group of children seemed quite daunting at first. Many of these children had been to the Celebrate conference every year of their lives and first impressions showed that many of them appeared to know alot more than we did. The next thought was – how do we teach these children the Gospel message that had been chosen for this year? In the end’, Hanna writes, ‘we need not have worried. The highlight was the look on the children’s faces when the rooms were unveiled to them. All those hours of emptying classrooms and covering the walls and floor with black plastic, getting covered in paint and stapling our own fingers had paid off’. Three classrooms and a hall had been transformed into Outer Space as we explored the familiar story of Exodus through a space theme: the escape from the Planet Rameses (Egypt), across the asteroid belt (of the Red Sea) and the trials of outer space (the Desert) to the Promised Planet. Each small group (or tribe) had their own space pod which they decorated over the course of the week. ‘This was a very enjoyable way of teaching this well-known story, both for the children and the youth leaders!’, wrote David Nutter whilst Hanna Craig commented, ‘The whole experience was enlightening in many ways: I learnt a lot from the children that I looked after and I hope that they in turn learned from me too. The best bit being when parents came in and told you how much their child is enjoying themselves and to thank you for all the work you’ve put in, it makes it all worthwhile’.

James Cowell described the week as one of the most amazing of his life: meeting many wonderful people, fantastic praise and worship and prayer times, describing how the experience has brought him ‘nearer to God, deeper into my faith, and given me such a desire to do and to know more’. This was a view echoed by others in the group. Lucy Miller wrote how she had never been a part of a charismatic conference before and how it proved to be ‘a great experience’. She writes, ‘I met a whole variety of people that have taught me to have a completely different outlook on my Catholic journey’. And for Paul, he found it a ‘life-changing experience’. He writes, ‘I found the work with young people very rewarding not just for them but for me too. I was very touched at the amount of faith they had and how strong they were in their faith: they were so eager to learn and deepen there relationship with Christ. The Masses and prayer services were fantasticly uplifting and the Holy Spirit really moved us all. One night I had an opportunity to go to a talk and a healing service. I was a bit sceptical but just opened myself up to the Lord when they said someone in here has epilepsy and might be concerned whilst here and asked them to stand. I took the courage to do so and being prayed over by so many people filled me with so much love and peace and when I went to the bar in the evening people were commenting on how I looked so alive. The whole experience at Celebrate was fantastic; some of the team had never done this work before and you would never have known – the Holy Spirit really took control’. This was an experience echoed by Rosie O’Donnell who wrote, ‘I went to Celebrate with a lot of reservations and uncertainty - I was unknowingly putting up a wall between myself and God. Yet somewhere in amongst the different styles of prayer and praise, in sharing experiences with other people and especially in working with the young people, I was helped to look past all that and focus only on God. I was able to drop my defences and say 'yes' to God. It has been the start of a change in my life as I now know what I need to do is to let God in and let the Holy Spirit work through me. I would recommend Celebrate to anyone and I mean anyone, regardless of reservations. It's one of those unique opportunities we get in this world to just be and to sunbathe in God's love'.