The Awakening Youth, which took place last March 7, 2020 with the participation of young people from different churches in Istanbul, held its first face-to-face meeting on Saturday, October 9, at the Derviş Eroğlu Cultural Center in Istanbul, adhering to the coronavirus measures.
The meeting, where Özgür Tunç managed the worship time, started with hymns and prayers. Then it was time to share.
Pastor Volkan Er and speaker İlknur Er from the Church of Signs and Wonders, (Belirtiler ve Harikalar) encouraged the participants under four headings, through the John 5:1-11 section, during the sharing time;
- The condition of mankind
- The destiny-altering approach, the coming of the Messiah
- Fellowship and communication with Christ
- Conflict between God’s Word and our own thoughts
İlknur Er said, “As a believer, Jesus is with us now. To whom do we turn first, instead of talking to Jesus? Talking to Christ, which is prayer, in what order? Do you silently wait for the Lord or do you immediately find a solution from the pool of your own plans that you find appropriate? If life continues as before after our salvation, there is a problem in this picture. When you decide to go with Jesus, the eyes, ears and heart must be in Jesus. The Word of God wants to communicate with us through the Holy Spirit. Do we follow Jesus faithfully and in communication with our cross on our back? Have we tasted how good it is? Do we taste the Lord himself? Or do we have a shallow communication on a shallow ground? Real communication requires real actions and a life of prayer.”
Pastor Volkan Er said, “What is worship? To draw near to God? As we worship our God every Sunday, are we trying to get closer to him? Worship is standing up and proclaiming the one who tells us to stand up. This is how our life turns into worship. We had no way of approaching God’s kingdom. This understanding should radically change our spiritual life, our prayer life. He came close to us before we even got close to him. Romans 5:8 says that he came to love us while we were in our sin, while we did not know him. This takes us to an important point in our spiritual lives.”
After the words of encouragement, four topics were considered during the conversation:
- Are there situations where you feel paralyzed as a believer these days?
- Do you realize that the coming of Christ among us is both universal and personal?
- Does the communication with Jesus Christ come first in your life as a believer today?
- Do life situations conflict with God’s Word? In such situations, do you make decisions based on those situations or based of God’s Word?
The meeting ended with catering service.
Awakening Youth meetings are for Christian youth and open to all Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant youth. (SAT-7 TÜRK/SMY)
