One of our most popular events is lumos,  a twice yearly residential weekend for young people, which offers an opportunity to discover more about themselves and their faith. It takes place in January and July, changing venue for each weekend.

lumos gathers young people aged 11-18 years from all over the diocese together to celebrate who they are as children of God, with a mix of music, drama, talks, discussions, games entertainment, reconciliation, prayer, sports, mass, video, film, workshops and much more, all focused on the particular theme of the weekend.

lumos first took place in 2005 and has been growing and developing ever since, with now over 100 young people attending. The sense of community and belonging which the weekends convey, gives a realisation that sharing our faith with others is nourishing and inspiring.

Many of the volunteer leaders at lumos from across the Diocese have been participants themselves in the past, giving a family feel to these weekends.

lumos endeavours to reach as many young people as possible, either as individuals or as part of a youth group. If you want to find out more about and maybe know some young people who would like to come along, please contact Neil on 01844 273337 or neil@nymo.org

The next of the lumos weekends, lumos:imitate, will be held at the Frontier Centre, Irthlingborough from 17th to 19th July 2009. The weekend will be looking in detail about who and what we imitate as young people, and how we can more closely imitate Christ in our lives. Besides the usual summer array of outdoor activities, we'll also be unpacking our theme in a variety of inputs, prayer and sacramental experiences and seminars. Our main Lumos page is hosted on our youth site at www.themicahspace.com/lumos, where you can download booking forms, code of conducts, consent forms, information about the weekend, fundraising help and leader booking forms.

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Neil writes about lumos: the word in January 2009
This January 100 young people and 30 adults gathered at The Kings Park Conference Centre, Northampton for the latest Lumos weekend. A fabulous time was had by all as we discovered more about our theme: the word. Looking at the Bible and how it can affect our lives, we were inspired by our guest speaker, Fr. Chris Angel, a priest from the Diocese of Leeds. Fr. Chris enthused us in our use of the bible, used humour to highlight the effect the word of God has had on other people and shared his own experiences to help us understand the word as a living influence in our lives.

With a mix of large and small group activities, including very popular scripture adverts session, where the young people created adverts for different pieces of scripture, using a mixture of their own creative talents, the gifts of our technical team and prayer.

We had a beautiful reconciliation service on Saturday afternoon, followed by  a quiet Mass in the evening. We all went to bed, tired but energised by our time spent with the Lord.

With plenty of singing, acting, creativity, laughing, discussions and games we had a packed and enjoyable weekend and we all look forward to the next weekend on  July 17th-19th 2009 Lumos: imitate. Hope to see you there!