Your faith is bigger than where you come from

For some, church is a small weatherboard chapel with ten people. For others, it’s a busy Sunday service in a city with fluorescent lights and hundreds of people worshipping together. 

But for the SU team at Victoria’s State Youth Games (SYG), all of that fades away as young people from across the state come together during the King’s Birthday weekend to camp, play sport, and discover that faith is so much bigger than where they come from. 

Calum Hay, SU’s SYG team leader, explains: 

“Our mission at SYG is to bring together smaller church communities to form a team and enjoy the fellowship that SYG provides. It can be pretty difficult to create a team if your youth group has three kids in it.” 

This year, 50 kids from as far as Barnsdale to Eagle Hawk on the other side of Victoria joined Team SU. Together, they participated in sports such as basketball, soccer, and even indoor games like Mario Kart tournaments. 

“We came fifth in the medium churches bracket and 18th altogether,” Calum shares. 

Even greater than witnessing new friendships unfold and seeing the team come together were the campfire conversations that followed evening Bible talks. 

“These were really good opportunities for the kids to work out how to follow Jesus and what that means for them individually and as a group.”

For many young people, the only Christian community they’ve ever known is within the walls of their church, and the opportunities to meet with and make friends with Christians their own age are limited.  

Thank you for helping to create opportunities for young people to discover that they don’t walk alone in their faith. They are part of a bigger community of believers – and that’s something worth celebrating!

To keep making opportunities like this happen, please visit su.org.au/donate