Hi BadSkiingMum and thank you and to others using this board, it is useful to have a supportive and reflective space to talk about these things and share our experiences.
So, firstly I want to say I feel very safe and secure in the Lord, I know He is not happy with what happened at Soul Survivor re: MP. Also in other churches where I encountered stuff that wasn’t good, like I mentioned above also there was some emotional bullying amoungst the youth at the church I went to (not being ‘in’ with the ‘in’ crowd mostly, and feeling rejected and inferior due to this). I had a lot of heart healing directly from Jesus and will always believe He is the safest pair of hands and worthy of worship as my redeemer, Lord and friend.
Most of my memories from Soul Survivor have faded, all but a couple of things. I was 14 when I went with a lovely Christian family from my church, the daughter of which was my best friend at the time.
The things that have stuck with me are, the big tent worship with Delirious which I found amazing, it was so joyful and incredible joining (what felt like) thousands of others, young people and their families lifting hands and voices in praise together.
I enjoyed camping with my friend and her family and the summer weather was absolutely beautiful.
But one thing has stuck with me that was not so great. My whole life really. There were various side tents going on during the day, hosting different talks and teachings as you would expect. I had visited loads on different days, all fine, but this one time I wandered into one as I heard a nice acoustic guitar playing and recognised it was the sister of someone I knew from church, she was an excellent musician and had a lovely (Alanis Morisette) style voice. Anyway she finished playing, I was just sat down in the crowd in this smallish tent, then something very odd happened. Someone (I don’t remember who) went up and started talking at the front. I don’t know how it got onto this topic but I guess they were speaking about issues facing teens and somehow got on to talking about sexuality and then sexual exploration. It wasn’t long before I felt incredibly embarrassed and deeply uncomfortable I can’t even describe it. As a 14yr old girl I felt exposed to stuff in this talk that was not at all suitable for me and there may well have been even younger people than me in the crowd. I felt so very embarrassed and ashamed. I have no idea who thought it was appropriate to address a crowd of youngsters about such sexualised content (self exploration, both as a solo act and mutually with another person)l I have no idea to this day how far the talk went, as I left as quickly as I could I felt so embarrassed and a bit shocked. If you have ever been so painfully embarrassed you felt sick, it was like that.