City Temple Cardiff

Nigel James says:
I have recently returned from the African country of Liberia, along with my colleague Gary Smith. We led the first ever Ignite Liberia conference.

Liberia is recovering from the lingering effects of a decades-long civil war, and the infrastructure of the country is still ramshackle - no mains water or electricity, no public transport (but with a depot full of buses sitting idle), poor health and healthcare - we didn't see anyone over the age of 50 and heard terrible stories about the infant mortality rate.

Women are still very much second-class citizens and the country relies massively on support from the United Nations. Most churches have little or no youth ministry, and young people generally have little hope or purpose in life.  We paid for the majority of conference costs, food and transport for delegates with money from Ignite in the UK and from the Band of Brothers at City Temple.

The conference was held for three days under the theme: Building a Generation for God, using the text:

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. 1 Tim. 4:12

There were teaching sessions where we taught the Ignite declaration as well as times of worship with pastors from Ignite churches challenging young people to discover God’s purpose for their life and to transform their generation.

The conference brought together 130 participants from Nimba, Bong, Lofa, Margibi, Monsterrado, Bomi, and Gbapulu counties. That’s nearly half of the 15 counties across the country. Attending the conference were also delegates from Ignite in Sierra Leone-which is in a similar process of rebuilding after a civil war.

The reasons for the conference were:

• To bring together all Ignite Liberia centres to interact, fellowship and learn from God’s word;
• To hear share how Ignite started and the vision of Ignite;
• To hear reports of what the Lord is doing in the seven counties, and challenge the volunteer leaders of Ignite Liberia to do more by sharing the Ignite declaration and reaching lost youth for Jesus Christ.
• To begin to spiritually rebuild the nation by starting with a new generation of young people.

To discover more about Ignite you can visit: www.igniteme.org
To discover more about Ignite Liberia you can visit: www.igniteme.org/liberia.php
To read a fuller report by Nigel James you can visit: www.nigeljames.typepad.co.uk