I’ve recently got back home from Contagious 2006: The Cross. Contagious is a Christian youth conference for 14 to 19 year olds – not so much a holiday as a Bible boot camp! I went to Contagious’s very first year back when I was fourteen, and have been back every year since then. This year and last year I went as a member of Taskforce, a “two year service opportunity” where those who are 18 or older can go as general dogsbodies / trainee leaders.
Since I’ve been going for seven years and have now worked my way through the whole thing as a punter and a Taskforcer, I feel a little like Harry Potter at the end of his seven years at Hogwarts. (Though hopefully I won’t now have to fight Voldemort. And thankfully Ian Fry wasn’t killed off at the end of year six!)
The possibility now is that I’ll go back as a leader next year, though the Core Team of leaders who run Contagious have yet to meet and decide all that kind of thing. But since I’ll have finished university in a year, I’ve no longer got that guarantee of long summer holidays in which to do things like Contagious. It feels a bit strange – the end of an era in a small way, though endings are almost always also the beginning of something new.
But no matter what the future holds (and what I’ll do after my degree is something I certainly need to give a lot of thought and prayer to!), this year’s Contagious was yet another year of cracking Bible teaching, Christ-centred challenge, new and renewed friendships and bags of fun.
The theme of the week was the Cross, which stands at the very heart and core of the Christian message. The Cross was the reason Jesus came to this world; the Cross is where we see most clearly God’s character, his holiness, love and justice, demonstrated.
On Tuesday, Jonty Alcock gave the first “Big Teach” on The Cross and God. One of the main points was that the Cross is firstly about God, rather than about us. Jesus did die for us, yes, but the reason he went to the Cross was firstly the love of the Father and the Son for each other, and God’s desire to show his glory, that is, to reveal his own character for all to see.
The second Big Teach, Pete Woodcock speaking from Colossians 2:13-15, was on The Cross and Satan. Satan is utterly defeated – what Jesus did on the Cross means that Satan no longer has the power of condemnation over those who have trusted Jesus for forgiveness. But there are three tactics Satan uses to make us feel condemned – by luring us into sin, by exposing us to suffering and by discouraging us through “superior” Christians who claim we need something more – some teaching or practice or experience – than Christ. But we can never be separated from God by Satan; we are secure in Christ and there is always hope and forgiveness.
On the third night Trevor Pearce spoke on The Cross and Self from Luke 9:46-62. The biggest obstacle to following God is our own selfishness, and we find ourselves in an increasingly self-centred culture. We heard the story of Jim Elliot and the other missionaries who were martyred trying to take the Gospel to the Auca tribe. Are our prayers as Christians “God meet my needs, as I decide them”, or do we pray like Jim Elliot “God, I pray thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee”?
Mike Smailes then tackled the topic The Cross and the World, preaching from 2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2. The Cross shows us the world’s need for Christ, it changes us to meet that need, and drives us to sacrifice everything for that need, through our love for the lost and fear for the lost if they do not come to know Christ.
Finally, Ian Fry preached from 1 Corinthians 13 on The Cross and Love, asking the question “how do we show God’s love?” We very easily slip into judging our standing before God by how busy we are – but Paul tells us that no matter what we do, it is nothing if we are not acting out of love, love of God that comes from our knowing the love of God to us, and that overflows in love for those around us. What’s more, love does, and should, involve our feelings; the absence of feelings doesn’t mean we shouldn’t obey God, but we should seek to grow a full and complete love of God that enjoys knowing and serving him.
There was far more going on than just the “Big Teach”s, though – small group Bible studies on Romans 1 to 5; seminars on some of the themes of the Bible that are tied up with the Cross, such as redemption, justification and sacrifice; workshops on what the Cross means for a wide variety of subjects, from other religions to dating; as well as heaps of fun and games and activities! You may here more about it soon…
