YOUTH CAMP and CONFERENCE: SoulFire@HOLYground DEC 17 - 21
The team at HOLYground is planning a youth camp / conference for committed Christian young people in Northland and further afield. We love the verse that speaks to us: “You are not your own. You were bought at a price. 1Cor 6:19- 20”. We long to challenge our young people to truly put Jesus at the CENTRE of their lives and to consider what that might look like for them in terms of their studies, job, vocational, relationship and lifestyle choices and the attitude of their heart to a lost world.... We long for them to desire to be the hands and feet of Jesus and to begin the work of healing our nation and world. Not all will be “hands-on”...but all are in the army and need to be armed and battle trained. They need to see that their skills when given to God can change the world in good ways. The business man is just as needed as the youth worker when Jesus is at the CENTRE!!
We are HUGELY honoured to be having Rev Dr John Smith to be our main speaker at camp. He is a world-class speaker who has “lived on the edge” and has gone at personal cost and risk to take the Gospel to places where most would fear to tread. He is a master story teller and he has lost none of his “connection” with young people over the decades. He is highly educated (having studied in his 50s for a doctorate in social anthropology) and yet has a common touch cultivated from a life-time of reaching out to children, young-people, outlaw motor-cycle gangs, university students, academics, business people, politicians, the poor and the marginalized... and the Church!
He is an author, a cultural anthropologist, a business speaker, a teacher and lecturer, a biker, a defender of the poor and marginalized, a gifted evangelist, an elder of the radical Discipleship Movement, and a prominent social communicator.
Dr John Smith is the founder and Executive Director of Concern Australia (www.concernaustralia.org.au) and the founding President of God’s Squad Christian Motorcycle Club of 35 years (www.gscmc.com).
Concern Australia is a well established Christian mission and welfare organization helping change lives by responding to physical, relational and spiritual needs of marginalized and disadvantaged people (especially youth) through love, justice, mercy and compassion.
He has spoken in Australia and around the world at music and arts festivals (Greenbelt in the UK, the European Christian Arts and Music Festival, the Australian Gospel Music Festival in Toowoomba, Black Stump Music Festival in Sydney), has shared the stage with former President Jimmy Carter and has addressed the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
He was arrested, sentenced to death and subsequently released (in part due to the involvement of the media) in the Philippines in the 1980’s for defending the rights of rural peasants.
John is Superintendent of St Martin’s Community Church in the inner city Melbourne suburb of Collingwood which seeks to meaningfully communicate and contextualize the message of the Gospel and a Christian worldview to the holistic needs of all, especially those who feel alienated or outside the influence of other churches.
John Smith has also written five books and has another in the final stages of editing. His first book “On the Side of the Angels” which sold over 80,000 copies at its first printing was extensively revised and republished in 2006. Another of his books “Advance Australia Where – A lack of meaning in a land of plenty” was awarded religious book of the year in 1989.
He has been married to Glena (also a passionate worker with the disadvantaged) for over 40 years. They have three adult children and 15 grandchildren.