YOUTH BULLETIN ONLINE

April 18th, 2009 at 01:17pm Matt

Hello there… I thought I’d take this opportunity to give you an in-depth look at one of our new(ish) youth events; FAKE FRIDAY NIGHT PROJECT.  

A couple of years ago you may remember St Mikes Youth Ministry running a hugely successful project called Skate Café. Every Saturday the church hall car park was transformed into a skate park, which attracted large numbers of young people who came to show off their skills and hang out. Relationships were built and lives transformed.

Fast forward a couple of years to present day - skating is no longer as popular (only to those who are good at it like George!) So we began to ask the question; what are most young people in to now? What’s the new skating? After conducting some research amongst local young people we found out there were stacks of youth bands with nowhere to play their music… Therefore in June 2008 we decided to pilot a monthly gig night at the church hall… the FAKE FRIDAY NIGHT PROJECT was born!

Each month the church hall is transformed into a gig venue (4 live bands, a stage, lighting rigs, sound system, drums, amps and even a smoke machine), which attracts large numbers of young people who come to showcase their skills and hang out. We hope and pray that purposeful relationships are being built and lives transformed.

During the summer of 2008 we did some retroactive thinking and came up with a bunch of aims which capture the heart of FAKE FRIDAY NIGHT PROJECT.

….We want to provide free and safe space for local young bands and musicians to hang out, practice and showcase their skills…

…We want to provide a stage for young people to creatively express their prophetic voice through the arts, especially music…

…We want to raise money through selling tickets to create a ‘seed fund’ which can promote local young talent…

Our Seed fund currently stands at just over £800 (ticket sales from the previous 8 events). We’ll be spending this money in the next 6 weeks recording and releasing a Fake Friday Night Project compilation album showcasing the best tracks from local bands that have played the venue.

FAKE FRIDAY NIGHT PROJECT (FFNP) is not even a year old and we have seen over 800 young people attend the event and over 25 bands play live. We’ve developed a decent online following on myspace (www.myspace.com/fakefridaynightproject), an amazing partnership with The Gap detached youthwork project and purposeful relationships with local artists, musicians, designers and sound engineers. FFNP continues to grow and we have line ups booked for the next few months and plans in the pipeline for a FFNP secret garden party in the summer…. Rock on!     

It was just after 9pm, the third band of the evening had taken the stage. There were just over one hundred young people crammed into the church hall shoulder to shoulder eagerly anticipating the next song… The lead singer stepped forward to the microphone… “This one’s a cover”. The drums kicked in - guitars chugged a familiar distorted riff - “Woo Hoo”… Song 2 by Blur! The crowd of young people instantly responded jumping around and singing along – arms in the air and hearts abandoned! For a second I paused in the midst of the moment and reflected; what was going on around me was bigger than me, it was bigger than the sum of the parts, it was something more, something transcendent, something of God – a beautiful otherness.      

We believe God is at work at FFNP; in the shared experiences; in conversations; in relationships; in the freedom of expression. We hope and pray that we’d have eyes and ears to NOTICE God at work and have the opportunities to help young people NAME their experiences ‘God’.

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