Message from the Director

A mixture of emotions was the order of the day in early February when we waved goodbye to four wonderful youth ministers who headed off to new frontiers across the country destined for Tasmania. As excited as we were, perhaps the more overwhelming emotion was that of nervousness as they embarked on this audacious mission.

Thankfully after a term of building relationships, connecting with faith communities and supporting a number of youth initiatives across the width and breadth of Tasmania we are excited to announce that this Friday will see the launch of 24:7 Glenorchy, a beautiful suburb of Hobart. We are very thankful to Fr Guy Riolo SDB (parish priest) and Sam Clear (Director of the Office of Youth Evangelisation) for their efforts in paving a way for us to establish the first 24:7 youth group in Tasmania.

Please join us in praying for the success of this endeavour as we continue to reach and equip young people to live for God, full on, full time, all the time.

We have more exciting news to come next week so stay tuned.

Faith on Fire

Last Saturday saw approximately 40 young leaders from across the network of 24:7 youth groups here in Perth, gathered for an afternoon of formation, leadership development and fellowship. We are so impressed by these young people who eagerly desire to embrace the vision to live for God, full on, full time, all the time. They were encouraged to pray like Jesus, love like Jesus and connect like Jesus in their every day lives as they seek to become living witnesses of being Missionary Disciples as encouraged by Pope Francis. Please pray for each of these young people.

Last week we had the privilege of running the following retreats:

St Peter's CPS Yr 3 : Reconciliation Retreat
Notre Dame CPS Yr 4 : Eucharist Retreat
Ursula Frayne Primary Yr 3 : Reconciliation Retreat

Mother Teresa Catholic College Yr 7 : Community Retreat

Last Sunday 24:7 Applecross saw an awesome start to Term 2, with a games night! We started with Twister, ping pong, other board games, soccer and basketball. Our MC's, Ayden and Christina, started the night up with an exciting game of Musical Jukebox, a new game to Applecross! People were split into teams, boys versus girls, and they had to sing a song with the word 'love' in it. The songs had to be original, otherwise the teams were OUT. It was heaps of fun singing and thinking on the spot. We also played Tug of War, where the brotherhood and sisterhood played 3 rounds to see who could pull the rope hardest! We then shared some delicious food as we had fellowship time with delicious pizza, cake and lollies! See you at the Youth Mass next Saturday: an awesome time to mingle, help out at Mass by altar serving, singing, or helping with collecting! There'll be a soccer game afterwards, so bring a plate of food to share!

Our next youth group will also be May 15th so see you then!

Last Sunday at 24:7 Balcatta youth group we were joined by 25 young people! We had a fun-filled night with games, delicious food and skits. We began our night on an energetic note, playing a very chaotic game of "Crossy Road: Musical Chairs". We then moved into our second game, "Square Chairs". Both of these games were a blast, and everyone got super involved! We then gathered around the dinner table to share a delicious meal of chips and sausage rolls. After dinner, we all got into groups and created skits about the conversion of some influential people in the Church. They were super hilarious to watch! The night concluded with some social time, with a competitive game of basketball and some interesting conversations. At our next youth group we will be learning about St Christopher. We would love to see you there!

Last week at 24:7 Ballajura we had a super fun games night to celebrate being back after a  one month break! We started off with a game of back to back, you find a partner and then you walk around in concentric circles until a leader calls 'Back to Back' and you have to find your partner and be the first to link arms and sit down. Next we played Octopus and then Wink murderer. We had fun being a detective trying to discover the murderer. Ultimate Ninja was the game that came next, it was a lot of fun striking a ninja pose and testing out our ninja moves. Finally to end the night we had a game called Shabang, similar to heads or tails but karate themed with more options to choose from and fun actions and noises to make. We look forward to seeing everyone again in 2 weeks!

What a fun night we had last Friday at 24:7 Cottesloe! We gathered together in the parish hall for the start of the night to play a game of commando. We had one seeker up the front trying to spot everyone else, who were hidden behind; tables, chairs, even a chalk board! We then moved to our second game of crossing the river Jordan. We split in to two teams and jumped up on some chairs, as we worked together trying to dodge obstacles, stay off the ground and make it to the other side of the room. It was amazing to see everyone chugging along as they powered across the room in their teams. After, we finished the games, we sat down and listened to Anthony as he broke open what we are going to look at this term. He shared about how life has many ups and downs and how we can go through seasons in our spiritual journey with God. He then talked about the season of Summer and how this is the times in our life that we can see God everywhere in our lives, whether this is our friendships, family, schools, even just in nature. These are times where we can lay foundations in our life and develop our relationship with God and enjoy his presence. Next youth group we are looking at the season of Autumn! We have an amazing night in store and are going to have a camp fire and roast marshmallows as well! We can't wait to see you there.

Last week at 24:7 Floreat we looked at the theme, “I have the high ground!” If you can’t guess from the title it was all about the many gifts of the Holy Spirit. We began with the gift of right judgement. We took a closer look at this idea through doing a whole room spectrum survey, where we gave statements/situations and our youth had to move to a part of the room that represented their opinion on the matter (whether strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree.) This was an awesome way to give us insight into individuals’ moral compasses. It also allowed us to explain that the gift of right judgement is the ability to tell right from wrong even when the situation puts things in a bit of a grey area. This coming week we are going to be looking at the gift of understanding. So of course we are going to be putting to the test our youth’s ability to work as a team and not only communicate, but to also ensure their team mates understanding. So come on down this Sunday for an awesome night of fun and competition.

Last week at 24:7 Greenwood we had our first youth group of the term, and what better way to start the term off than with a Games Night!! We began the night with fellowship time as everyone shared how their first week back to school went. This was followed by our first game of the night, What's the Time Mr. Wolf. After a few rounds of this we moved inside for people to then play board games or card games of their choice. We had a big game of Mafia happening whilst everyone who didn't want to play Mafia had a wide selection of games to choose from with Monopoly being a popular choice. We also had a brief introduction to our theme for the term from our Youth Minister, Jesse, who explained our term theme which is on the 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit. We can't wait to see you all next week as we begin to explore this theme in a bit more depth!

Last week at 24:7 Neddies, we started our term with the Name Game, giving us a chance to get to know any new people in our Youth Group. We brought back a classic as we enjoyed a faced paced game of Snakes and Ladders, before diving into our term theme: The 10 Commandments. We discussed the 2nd and 3rd Commandments then headed into dinner and fellowship, and ended our night with a fantastic game of Volleyball. Next week, we will be having a Master-Chef 2.0 night, making some delicious cookies for our Mothers and Mother-figures out there!

Last week at 24:7 Ossy park we started the night off with a great time of fellowship! We then jumping into a very competitive game of pulse with groups racing head to head. Our next game, that very much tested our self-control, required us to made our way around the circle trying to make each other laugh without laughing ourselves. We then had a talk which introduced us to our theme of the term, 'The Armor of God'. The night finished off with a game of soccer and volleyball! It was a great night and can’t wait to see you all again this week!

Another awesome night at 24:7 Rockingham! Our incredible young people had lots of fun SHAPING UP in a wacky game of Formations, and SHINING BRIGHT in a few intense rounds of Golden Child. Last week was our first look into this terms topic of "Disciples of the Present". We heard from Bella who introduced us to the theme and explained that disciples weren't just a thing of the past, but that they are all around us today. Bella also told us her story of how she found a new kind of peace when attending the 24:7 Rockingham Youth Group for the very first time. This fruit of the Spirit was a significant part of her own journey as a disciple of Christ. Next week, we will be hearing more stories from another one of our fellow disciples. They will be sharing about some of their own experiences and explaining how the fruit of gentleness played an important part in their journey. We have an amazing term ahead and we can't wait to hang out with all of you!!

We had a fantastic afternoon back face to face ay 24:7 Servite youth group! We have been doing online Youth Group this whole year so it was great to come back together. We started the afternoon with the game Spud! In the game one person has a ball and throws it up in the air and says a name and that person has to catch the ball and yell "SPUD", then everyone freezes, and the person who has the ball, walks three steps and throws the ball to hit another person. If they hit someone with the ball that person gets an "S" if they miss, the person who threw the ball gets an "S". This is repeated until someone spells the word "SPUD". Next up was a Kahoot! A trivia game to introduce our term topic, which is the 10 Commandments. After we played a game of Reverse Charades where there is one person up the front with a word behind them and the students have to act out what is written on the screen and the person up the front has to guess what the word/words are. Last, we played a game of Mafia! We finished the afternoon with a prayer, had free time and ate cookies! It was an amazing afternoon and can’t wait for more youth groups in person!

24:7 Tasmania have had another awesome week! We have been busy prompting and organising our first official Glenorchy parish youth group, which launches on this coming Friday (the 6th of May) with a fiesta of fun! We also had another Sandy Bay parish young adults group, in which we listened to a really thought-provoking talk about the importance of Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium, and their key role in upholding the truths of our faith. This was followed by a group discussion lead by Seb, where we were able to really dive in and engage with this topic! All in all it was an awesome week, and we look forward to the continuation of our ministry in future weeks.

24:7 Woodvale and 24:7 Whitfords held a very fun, very vibrant combined Pirate themed extravaganza event last week! We started the night off with announcing to all the young people that the night was filled with a bunch of mini carnival games to earn raffle tickets to win Pirate theme prizes. The games included classics such as: the skittle straw game, beanbag toss, broom spin jump, how many jelly beans in a jar and shoot the towers. After all the craziness of the mini games, we moved onto our first group game of the night, Triangle Cannonball. After being sorted into teams it was the same rules as dodgeball, BUT, if you get hit you have to join the other teams triangle. The triangle with the most people wins! After that commotion we then played a crowd favourite, Who Stole the Pirates Hat. Our new volunteer leader James did an excellent job, creating a wonderful super hyped energy and maintaining a very convincing pirate accent. The winning team found the pirates hat and won extra raffle tickets for their efforts. Our last game was Sneaky Pirates, where each member of a team was blindfolded guarding a bunch of treasure with a pool noodle. The goal of the game was to leave your base grab as much treasure as you can from another teams base, without getting hit by the noodle, and returning it back to yours. This game was the most exciting and hype part of the night where everyone was frantically running around trying to grab as much treasure as they can! We then ended the night with prayer and a collective Hail Mary, announcing the winners of the raffle and the leadership team tossing a whole heap of chocolate gold coins to all the young people.