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Day Two SACLA Youth Leadership Assembly

Thursday 8 July 2004

The first full day of SACLA youth began after breakfast with a plenary session begun with incredibly vigorous and energetic worship led by Vision X, our worship band for the week. The speaker was Sharlene Swartz a youth culture researcher, presently reading for her PhD at Cambridge University. Sharleen spoke on “The world that needs to be changed”.

Sharleen spoke from the text of Isaiah 58, beginning with a story of a prostitute and drug addict, who despite her desperation, refused to go to a church because of the judgement that she would find there. She challenged the young people not to judge people, but rather to show tolerance and kindness which can lead to repentance. She spoke against infighting in the church, saying we should rather fight the enemy than one another. Echoing Buhle Dlamini, who had spoken the previous evening at the first plenary, Sharlene encouraged us to defeat our fear, which could hold us back from standing up for Jesus.

After touching on respect, equality, love and justice, Sharlene made a strong plea for the delegates to reject materialism, no matter the huge pressures to achieve financially in the new South Africa. She warned that debt could keep one off the mission field as bonds, cellphone bills and the need for flashy clothes can make you reliant on a high paying job, preventing you from following the call of God. Of course sometimes the call of God is to make a lot of money, but then this should be given away for ministry or the poor.

After the plenary the groups split into the four tracks (school-based leaders; church-based leaders; tertiary-based leaders and futurewatch) to follow their specialised programmes. In response to a feeling that there was not enough interaction at the last SACLA in 2003, both the schools and tertiary tracks have made their programmes very interactive, with input from a speaker and then groupwork to discuss and deal with the issues. The Church ministry track has gone the route of having three of four speakers a day and then giving the young people the option as to which one to attend. Futurewatch involved the presentation of academic papers.

Discussions ranged from the way to popularise abstinance at tertiary institutions as a weapon against HIV, to the pro’s and con’s of affirmative action, to the difference between the worldviews, lifestyles and assumptions of the various generations since the Second World War .

The tracks resumed after a 1pm lunch and then broke for free time at 4pm. During this time delegates could relax, hike, play sport, do drama, speak at a speakers lounge or just listen to music with friends. One of the great strengths of SACLA youth is the relationships being built and the experiences shared within this racially and denominationally diverse group of participants.

The evening began after dinner with four electives offered on the topics of Sexuality/HIV/AIDS, self image, racism and family breakdown. These were all repeated, before the late night activities of the ever popular coffee bar and the movie “Beat the drum” began.