Satellites: Seven keys to putting God at the centre

Martin Saunders explains the seven core, theological values behind Satellites: a brand-new event for young people coming summer 2022.

We're going on a journey. Here's the vision.

As you might know if you’ve spent any time with us recently, Youthscape has just launched its new summer event for young people. It’s called Satellites – for reasons that we’ll come to in a minute – and it’s happening from the 10th-14th August 2021 at the East of England Arena, in Peterborough. Apart from the dates and the location however, we’re not yet in a position to tell you lots about what Satellites will physically look like. To some extent, we’re hoping that you’ve enjoyed events like the National Youth Ministry Weekend, and Now What?, enough to trust us with this too – and of course, lots of planning is underway. But while we haven’t put too much flesh on the bones of the event yet, we’ve done a lot of work on the bones. Essentially, we’ve been investing ourselves in the most important thing.

For the last two years, we’ve been thinking really hard about the vision of the event. And we’ve realised that the vision is bigger than an event. What we see – in churches and youth groups up and down the land – is young people who choose Christian faith as just another lifestyle choice; as another activity to consume alongside their sports clubs and their favourite genre of music. What we want to do is present faith as the centre-piece of their lives; the thing that makes sense of everything else. Our vision is to see Christian young people living with God at the centre of their lives. To set them in his orbit, not the other way around. Like satellites. That’s all very aspirational – but we know that we need a bit more than that. Like: how does that actually happen in practice? What do young people need to understand, in order to make sense of God in that way?

To take things a stage further then, we’ve developed a set of seven core values for Satellites. These are the things that we believe really matter, when we’re helping young people to understand what it means to live as ’satellites’. These values are both what we believe will help young people to live with God at the very centre of their lives, and become a framework for how we’ll seek to run the event. All of them come from our understanding of God and his mission, as revealed in the Bible. So while Scripture itself is not one of our stated values, it vitally underpins them all. Here they are:

1. Prayer

Connecting with God in new ways, to new depths. Cultivating prayer for lifelong and everyday faith.

The most fundamental key to developing life-long faith, is developing a personal relationship with God himself. We want to offer young people incredible opportunities to connect with God in ways and to depths that they never imagined, and enable them to build prayer into their everyday life for the long term.

2. Worship

Calling young people to a holistic life of devotion as they grow in knowledge of God’s infinite love.

We believe that God is worth our devotion. Not just in the songs that we sing, but in the way that we live our lives, individually and corporately. We will call young people to a better way of living, through which they are able to find their identity in the God who loves them so much.

3. Family

Inviting participation in God’s magnificent, global, gifted, flawed, history-spanning family: the Church.

We will extend the incredible invitation to become a part of God’s magnificent, global, history-spanning family. We will celebrate the breadth and the diversity of the Church, and we will not seek to ignore its flaws and failings. We are calling young people to a movement, and the movement is not called Satellites; it’s the Church of Jesus Christ.

4. Power

True transformation – becoming like Jesus – is only possible through the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Transformation is only truly possible through the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. As we seek to become more like Jesus, and take our place in rebuilding the world, we depend on that power to coarse through our veins. For that reason it is vital that we invite young people to receive God’s Spirit and experience him first hand. Even more than that, we want to unleash them to minister to their friends and churches back home.

5. Justice

Seeking Jesus’ redemptive Kingdom on Earth, we join a physical, spiritual battle against injustice both personal and systemic.

We believe passionately that Jesus died not just to save us from our personal sins, but to ultimately defeat the unjust systems and structures of sin which riddle our broken world. As his followers, we take our place in the physical and spiritual battle against the evils of injustice: it’s one of the key ways in which we see the world transformed and the Kingdom extended.

6. Evangelism

Good news is worth sharing. We want to help young people be able to talk naturally about life-changing faith with their friends.

Good news is worth sharing. Incredible news – like the fact that there really is a God who loves us, and invites us into eternity – can’t remain a secret. More than that though, we believe that Jesus commands his followers to share him with everyone they can, so we will prioritise training young people to naturally talk about their faith with their friends.

7. Creativity

Discovering how creativity can serve the renewing and repainting of the world, learning from the God who is “making all things new”.

We believe that every young person is made in the image of the creator God, who has made them with a unique set of gifts, talents and passions. We want to help young people to see how their creativity can be employed in the renewing and repainting of the world, as the God who is “making all things new” invites them to participate in his re-creation.

We'd love you to join us

We will do a lot of other things that are not in this list. We’ll strive to ensure that every person on site – from the oldest to the youngest – will get opportunities to rest, receive and meet with God during our event. We will prioritise the mental health of young people – at our event, and all year round. And we will always do everything we can to ensure that the safety of every young person is paramount. With these seven values however, we want to offer you an insight into what’s important to us – and perhaps a first taste of the flavour of our event.

If you share our passion for seeing God at the centre of young lives, and you find a sense of connection in these values, then maybe Satellites is for you and the young people you serve. We have just opened up the very first level of bookings for the event. You can currently grab a group leader ticket – for just a £25 deposit – which will enable you to set up a group once all bookings open on the 10th August.

If you want to come on the journey with us, please sign up now – it will help us to plan, and we’ll also involve you in the process of planning. If you’ve always wanted to be an early adopter – this could be your chance! We’re sorry to bore on about this. We’ll change the record soon – but right now we’re excited about what God might do through gathering young people again – and then releasing them into their communities for the other 360 days of the year. Join us!