Love Cornwall Youth Night

The end of September saw the Love Cornwall Mission hit the county and culminate in two days of events at the Royal Cornwall Showground. Kernowyouth sent reporter Phil Hadley along to the Youth Night to see what was going on. Here's his report...

Love Cornwall has been hailed a success by some of its local organisers who saw numerous people attend the On The Move barbeques across Cornwall and hundreds turn up to the Royal Cornwall Showground for the final events. Good crowds attended the barbeque on The Parade in Liskeard. At the Bodmin event, where a last minute change of venue was needed due to the fact permission was not secured from the Town Council, they ran out of rolls and had to get more from a local supermarket. But what impact did it make on the county’s young people?

The first many young people heard of the mission was when a Love Cornwall team came into their school. These were met with a mixed response. At one Liskeard primary school, where the team had a week of assemblies, the fact that they regularly overran and sometimes failed to pitch it at the age group they were talking to, left staff feeling little had been accomplished by the team's visit. At Wadebridge secondary school some of the students made professions of faith at a lunchtime event. At Bodmin College over 300 saw rap artist Joey G perform an excellent lunchtime concert to help raise the profile of "The Big Lunch" - the College's Christian club.

On the Friday night about 300 gathered at the Royal Cornwall Showground at Wadebridge. On arrival we were filed into one tent to collect our tickets and view the stalls from various organisations. Here the problems began because no one had connected the electricity, and you couldn’t see much in the gloom. The bookstall reported only £60 in sales for the evening. We were then marshalled into the main marquee. As I wandered around and spoke to people before the start youth groups in the east of the county were well represented, but began to thin out the further west you went. The MC for the evening was Rachel Gardner of the Romance Academy and one of the youthworkers in BBC2’s “No sex please – I’m a teenager!”

The first act on stage were urban worship collective GKReal. They were well received by the audience. “Jesus in me and Jesus in you” they belted out as their opening number. Then followed a funky version of “Lord I lift your name on high.” The audience were stomping along to “Clap your hands” before they finished their set with “Blessed Jesus”.

As the stage was prepared for the next act Rachel Gardner got the young people involved in a game – drinking cups of water and stacking the empty ones on your head! The enthusiastic group near the stage joined in, everyone else talked. I have to say, for a “TV celebrity” and a county wide event, I had expected a bit more than games my youth leader was using 30 years ago. The depth of pre-planning became apparent when a later game “Heads & Tails” was introduced with “The guy in Yfriday told me this one!”

Joey G's two songs went down a storm with the crowd. Perhaps it was because he had been into the secondary schools and was already building a Cornish fan base, or perhaps it was just because he was very good. Probably both! His first rap song was “Breakthru”. “God can take you to the next level,” he told the 250 youngsters. I estimated 60% of the audience were 11-15 year olds, 20% 16-20 year olds and the rest adults (youth leaders, car drivers and parents). Joey’s second song (he was only allowed two) was called “My Testimony” and told the story of his life and how he found Christ.

Then came another game before Rachel Martinez, introduced as a UK girl based in the USA took the stage. She tried to grab the audience’s attention by telling them her first two songs were about sex but from different perspectives. First came “A woman of high principles” where her attempts to encourage some salsa dancing just caused silliness and merriment in the audience. The second “Answer phones” had more of a garage type beat to it. By her fourth song, a slow ballad, the audience had switched off and were just chatting freely among themselves.

An interview with Remy from GKReal began to recapture their attention. Hailing from East London, he told the audience how he was just 15 when he became a Christian in Nigeria. A school friend had introduced him to Jesus, and he’d experienced peace and a real change in his life. The whole group then returned to the stage and led a time of worship. The Richie Mullins’ song “Our God is an awesome God,” was followed by “My Jesus, my Saviour” and “Amazing Grace”. An opportunity was made for those who wanted prayer or to receive Christ to go to the side of the marquee.

Finally came the headline act, Yfriday. Using the video intro from their Revolution Tour “Children of the Revolution” Ken Riley soon had the whole marquee rocking. The few Yfriday fans could be spotted singing every word, but it was obvious there would be a few more after this performance. Dez was having a great time on drums, and Gav and Danny on keyboards and bass were giving it all they’d got. By their third song “Wonderful” the audience were singing “I lift my hands up to you, I’ll wear my heart out to worship you.” Next came Ken’s testimony in song with “Start of the Summer” and this was followed by “Rain”. “It’s your rain falling down, washing my soul with purity.” Then came a Bible reading from Isaiah: “Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength; they will rise up on wings like eagles.” Soon the audience were singing “Our God reigns for ever!” The band, who had travelled from the north-east, finished with “Revolution” urging the young audience to be children of the revolution and agents of change for Jesus in their world.

It was now after 10pm and the audience had thinned slightly (some youth leaders were obviously tied to deadlines to get the youngsters home). However, the bulk of the audience roared for an encore. It was then Ken Riley’s lack of geography let him down, suggesting the audience could go to Dorchester to see the band on their UK Tour. Does he know how far that is from Truro or Wadebridge? Has he ever driven the A35? We'd need a day off school just to get there! (I did the journey this summer - it took 5 hours!) The adults laughed and said “Forget that one, then!” The song chosen for the encore was “Our Father”, a fitting and appropriate end to a superb set from Yfriday.

So that was Love Cornwall. How much the kingdom of God has grown, only eternity will reveal the full extent. However, one is left with the feeling of while some of it was good, it could have been better. The organisers certainly deserve credit in bringing a quality act like Yfriday into the county, but is “Heads & Tails” really where it’s at for the 21st century teenager in Cornwall? It was good to have a large neutral venue but joined up youth work is really needed if teenagers are going to fill it. Did the Love Cornwall Youth Night do anything that isn’t already happening in Cornwall with EPIC and Liquid and IKON? Or maybe we were just watching the birth of something that will really grow and take Cornwall by storm? In which case, let’s acknowledge all births are messy, and look for the growth in the months and years ahead.

Report and photos by Phil Hadley.
The organisers of Love Cornwall were asked for some feedback on how they thought the event went. As yet Kernowyouth has not received a reply to its email.

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