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why do we do events?
Soul Survivor does all sorts of things. But quite fairly so, we're best known for putting on Christian events, the biggest of which happen each summer.
Last year, over 28,000 people came to one of these four events, at two different venues across the country. But we do other events too. We hold day conferences, retreats, tour dates and even send teams to serve in projects overseas. On this page you can find out why we do these events, what they tend to look like and how you can get involved in coming along to one of them!
who can come?
Soul Survivor events all have a strong Christian flavour throughout and most are aimed at young people.
You don’t have to be a Christian to come or a follower of any particular denomination. We meet together for times to worship God, learn from His word and pray for each other though you can take part as much or as little as you want in these activities... we won't get angry!
Our main summer events have loads of venues and other stuff going on, and of course, everyone is welcome, no matter whether they would class themselves Christians or not.
Some of our events do have a specific focus, so SoulNet is for youth leaders, Soul Sista for girls and Momentum for students and 20 somethings!
what is a soul survivor event like?
Our events are all a bit different, so a five day summer conference will look very different from a one night tour date or a day event. However, there are some key things we always do at our events, and it's these things that make a Soul Survivor event, Soul Survivory (that's not a proper word, but you get the point). These three things are:
1. worship:
It's about following Jesus throughout all of our lives and choices, but here we focus in a bit more and spend time specifically focusing on nothing but Him.
Singing, dancing, shouting listening, expressing our longing for - and praise of - our awesome God.
2. teaching:
Times to listen to the voices, hearts and experiences of others.
Getting into the bible and discerning God's words for us today. Finding out what it means to follow Jesus today, along with working out what being a Christian looks, sounds and smells like.
prayer:
We're desperate for God to meet with us, to change us and to change His world. We try and make as much space and time as possible for God to have His way in our meetings... we want to spend time seeking him, praying for each other, dealing with the things we've messed up and getting to know our Father a bit more.
summer conferences...
More specifically our summer conferences are held over five days with big main meetings that involve times of worshipping God, learning from the bible and space is given for us to pray for each other. But that's not all, there are loads of extra seminars every day, cafes to hang out in, gigs to listen to, venues to dance away in and all sorts of other stuff too, from football tournaments to creative workshops. Everyone camps and there's a real festival type vibe to the events!
read about a typical day just head over to the summer 2011 section...
retreats...
Our retreats are weekend events for youth leaders. The 2012 retreat is being held in Center Parcs at Sherwood Forest, with the idea being that youth leaders can get a bit of a break, with time to be refreshed and equipped for themselves!
check out more info about the 2012 SoulNet youth leaders retreat...
day events...
The day events are just that... they last a day and involve a few main sessions, usually some focussed seminars, and occasionally there's a few extras too, like a resource area and a cafe.
tour dates...
Every now and then a posse from Soul Survivor run around the country for a few days to hold a load of evening only celebrations. These simply consist of a meeting with time to worship God, listen to His word and space to pray for each other.
why do we run all these events?
On a really basic level Soul Survivor runs events because we're passionate about seeing people meet with - and be changed by - Jesus.
Although there are many ways to encounter God, we've found it really helpful to spend time focusing on him, telling him how great we think he is. This is what we call worship, and we can do it with our lifestyles, but we can also do it with our words, with songs and with music.
We've often found that as we focus on God he does incredible things... he meets us where we're at, and we are changed.
At our events we always give space for three things:
Times of sung worship
This seems to be the most natural way we can all tell God how great he is together.
Teaching on the bible:
Which we believe is God's word revealed to us
Times of prayer:
Where we ask God to empower and change us.
community and relationship...
We also recognise that being a Christian and following Jesus isn't something we do on our own.
We put on events to encourage one another in our walk with God and to develop relationship and community with each other.
For this reason our events often have loads of space just to hang out with each other and have a laugh!
the world beyond our events...
At their longest, Soul Survivor events are only five days. There's another 360 each year. We hope Soul Survivor events help us all to encounter God in our daily lives - that we are equipped to follow Jesus and be like him no matter what we face.
Although we love to run events and find that people seem to love to come along to them, the events are not an end in themselves, but a way of inspiring and equipping us all to live like Jesus in our amazing world.