While two thousand students trekked to the Sydney Entertainment Centre on Friday night to make LOUD! as noisy as possible, the night was life-changing for nearly 50 young people. 

Youth came from over 35 youth groups across the Sydney Diocese for the evangelistic outreach event, as well as others who came as a result of scripture seminars held at several high schools over the past six months.

The night kicked off with the enthusiastic crowd rocking out to Christian bands Qurious and Revive. 

They were then challenged to live a drastically different life for Jesus by Steve Chong of Kirkplace Presbyterian. 

Forty six high school students accepted this challenge, many indicating that it was what Jesus had done for them that initiated their decision.

Follow Up

Connect09 along with Youthworks has established a follow up procedure to ensure that each student is taken care of in the beginning of their Christian life. 

"We have a follow up team of about forty people from Youthworks, who can get in touch with the kids," Andy Stevenson of Youthworks explained. 

Through contact cards, Youthworks plans to keep in touch with students, and also notify their youth groups of the decision. 

For many of the students that came as a result of scripture seminars, Youthworks will be active at placing them in touch with local youth groups.

Even more Loud?

The team hopes that they can host future events and bring more students to Christ. 

"We only had about four or five months notice with this one," Mr Stevenson said, "I think with a years notice we could have four or five times this number." 

Steve Watford, youth worker from St Pauls Menai, believes that future events will give the chance to improve upon the night and Connect09’s Andrew Nixon agrees.

“Over 80 youth groups came and teenagers brought their friends. That’s a great start.”