Events - Whats Going On?

Planet X

In January 2002 I began an outreach project for young people in the middle school age range (that's school years 5-8, if you are used to primary and secondary). Our local school, Emmanuel Middle School, was very accommodating to the idea of letting us use the school premises for an evening gig once a month, aimed specifically at students at the school. Promoted through my assemblies in the school, we have run Planet X for a year now, and have attracted regular audiences of between 200 and 300 young people each month, virtually all of whom attend the school. This is a big deal, considering that there are only 400 pupils at the school! I have had excellent support from a team of adults from local Churches in running and staffing the event, who have shared in the vision and the overwhelming success of Planet X. A special mention also to the head, Graham Webb, who is himself a Christian and is an invaluable team member.

So what is Planet X? Well it started life in Bacup Lancashire, when I was a minister there. We ran it there in the local leisure hall with a team of teenagers in our youth fellowship, and it was attended mainly by school years 7-9 from local schools. We ran a short programme of games and Christian material followed by a disco, which was very successful for about 2 years. Our high point was one month when we organised a "foam party", which was completely brilliant!

Now I am in Dorset, I realised that the content of Planet X was ideal for the middle school age range, and we launched it again with a more intensively Christian programme than before. It's basically like a Saturday morning TV show, with me as presenter, big screen visuals, pop culture, games and songs. We sing worship songs (mainly stuff from my two most recent albums) plus versions of pop songs with the lyrics changed to express a Christian message (some of which appear on my SONGS page). Our latest Christmas show featured techno remixes of traditional Christmas carols, which went down a storm!! We also hired a snow machine, which enabled it to snow for us!

Also in the programme is the all important post box, into which audience members are invited to post jokes, letters, questions, problems and comments. We go through this each month and sift out the best stuff, which we then read out at the next show, attempting to answer the questions and give advice on the problems. This is a great springboard for bringing a Christian perspective to everyday issues that the kids are going through, and some of the things they write about are really deep issues about spirituality, faith, pastoral situations in their own lives etc. The three adult presenters try to tackle the big stuff, but for some stuff we get the audience to give their advice, by means of a wandering radio mike in the audience.

In addition to the post box we have a prayer box, into which the audience put prayer requests that they write on the night (the front of the hall by the stage is usually a huddle of activity throughout the show, as members of the audience write their letters and prayers). At the end of each show we get volunteers up on stage to read out the prayers, and we all share in them. The kids are very good at going completely mad in a song or game one minute, then all sitting down on the floor when I ask them to so that we can do some prayers or teaching (I know that sounds hard to believe, but it's true).

As far as the actual Christian message goes, there are opportunities to share Jesus' teachings during the letters section. But also we use the popular "What would Jesus do?" idea to prompt games where the audience has to try and identify what Jesus teaches about various aspects of spiritual and moral living, or what he would advise us to do in given situations - so increasing their knowledge of the Bible and what Christianity is all about. We do this with considerable help from a laptop and video projector, which runs visuals on screen throughout the show. A lot of work goes into the preparation of Powerpoint material each month, and Matt (who does the preparation) spends ages trawling the internet for pictures. When the World Cup was being played, we even had some video footage of England’s goals!

Revelation

We have started a new event during the the autumn of 2003, aimed at young people at upper school (that's school years 9-13). It's early days yet to report much on this, but we have used the same formula as with Planet X: we host an evening event in a school hall, with some Christian staff members on the adult team of helpers from local churches. In addition to multimedia material incorporating popular culture to bring a Christian message, we have been making use of local rock bands to play a set live at the gig, and also booking local DJs to do a set as part of the programme. As I write this (in December 2002), we have had two of these events, both of which attracted over 150 students from the school. Looking good for 2003, more details as we get further into it.

Page last updated16/01/2003 17:56