Living so close to the beach and enjoying a relaxed lifestyle, the Gold Coast youth would have to be the luckiest in Australia.  But that’s not to say we don’t take our spiritual Life seriously. We are proud of our Church and we Love our youth meeting.  We’re a dedicated group of about 30 and through God’s grace we make up a strong presence in the Church.  Most of us are University students, with a few working and some have even had babies making the group bigger and louder of course!  But most of all we’re friendly, down to earth people and enjoy spending time together, sharing the Love and Grace of GOD ,  under the spiritual guidance of our much loved father and legend, Abouna Yacoub El Antouny.       

So what do we do?  We meet up on Sunday night at 7:30pm (8:15 Egyptian time) for our weekly Youth Group meetings.  We like to start by praying, followed by singing hymns with our all time favourite being ‘How Lovely’.  On the Gold Coast we’re fortunate to have a large pool of guest speakers including Father David from Brisbane. We enjoy topics and Discussions about Church tradition and history, social issues and Bible studies.  Afterwards, we take some time out to mix and mingle and enjoy some fun pics, with cake also on offer if we’re celebrating a birthday!  All in all, Youth Group is a spiritually uplifting and entertaining forum for the Gold Coast youth to get together in Christ’s name. 

In fact, in the last six months, our energy and dedication has been stronger than ever.  Through the workings of the Holy Spirit we’ve established a group of committees to provide more activities for the youth, as well as getting the youth involved in serving the Church and wider community.  These committees are:

Sport & Recreation – Already we’ve seen the boy’s soccer team reach the semi-finals of the indoor competition at Griffith University.  The younger boys are also doing a fine job in representing the Church in the basketball competition which is in mid-season.  A tennis team will be up and running soon along with a mixed netball team which starts competition early next year.  And if that’s not enough we had our first breakfast function at Melba’s (Nov 18) with many more to come after Christmas, judging by how well my bacon and eggs were!

Church and Community Service – This involves a motivated team of youth who clean the church on a regular basis, bake the bread for the Sunday service, visit the sick and elderly and assist other charity organisations. 

Fundraising – The aim of this committee is to fundraise of course, helping to generate much needed funds for the Church.  We have recently bought a 22-seat bus costing approximately $35,000 and more donations are needed for renovations inside the Church.  Our first fundraising event was a BBQ Lunch on the 19th November. Thanks to everyone who got behind us! 

Choir and theatre – The Sunday school kids are already hard at work practising hymns for the Christmas play.  And a skit show will provide lots of entertainment on New Years Eve.  We’ll keep you posted for more info.

Publishing & Information Technology – An 8 page English & Arabic magazine consisting of church news, writings from our Church leaders and a fun page for kids will go the press in December/January. That is of course in addition to the church website that we launched during to the fundraising BBQ held on the 19th of November.

Well, that’s pretty much all folks!

If you are a new comer to the Gold Coast and would like more information about who we are, what we do or would like to join us at our Youth Group meetings please call our Co-ordinator, Emile Malek on 0411 300 180.  

All are welcome!

God Bless.