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GXP has been initiated in response to Pope John Paul IIs call for a New Evangelisation. The title GXP stands for Gospel Experience. It is a peer to peer encounter designed for young people that happens in the context of a series of weekend retreats. The goal is to call young people into relationship, firstly into relationship with Jesus Christ, secondly into relationship with other young people who are seeking to follow Jesus and thirdly into relationship with the Church. Group discussions, talks, music, prayers, drama, talks, activities, adventure games, mealtimes, problem solving exercises, media productions, discussion, liturgies all focus around communicating the basic kerygmatic gospel message and creating community amongst those taking part.
Detailed Description
GXP Is a Series of Weekends – for Young People 14-22yrs
GXP is a Come and See encounter – It aims to bring young people into a living relationship with Christ and to mobilize them in outreach to their generation. It begins with a weekend, and hopefully leads to a radically changed life.
Discipleship – It can be used to help facilitate young people begin or grow in their relationship with the Lord. It is also designed to bring young people through the basics of discipleship and to provide an arena in which to coach them into taking responsibilities.
Progressive – There is a progressive element to the weekends. Firstly the content of each weekend progresses to deal with ongoing discipleship issues. Secondly it is progressive in that graduates of weekend one become eligible to go through weekend two.
Empowering – GXP aims to empower young people by opening up progressive levels of responsibility to those who complete the weekends and desire to move forward. Those who graduate from a weekend are then eligible to take an active role in running the next weekend.
Extended Community – GXP seeks to create a sense of extended community amongst people who may be geographically distant from one another. This approach can be very helpful in creating a support network for individuals or small groups that might otherwise be isolated.
Partnering with local groups – GXP is a tool that established youth groups and movements are welcome to use provided that such groups respect the integrity of the GXP program.
Resources – The teaching materials, exercises, schedule are all included in the pack, So once people (with leadership capacity) have been through the weekend and have the materials they should be able to run the weekends.
Catholic – While GXP is open to all young people it is a Catholic program and includes celebration of the Sacraments.
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