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Youth Work
Schools Work in Helena Romanes Humanities College
We had a youth alpha lunchtime club in the school. It was a lunchtime club where about 7 of our regular FDS church youth and 5 new students came along weekly. The new students 2 boys came out of a response from the October Walk Roding Mission in school and the local community events e.g. "The Great Escape."
It has been a worthwhile event to do in school, for students that have no other contact with the Christian Faith apart form at school, to meet in fellowship with Christians their own age, and learn about what it means to follow Jesus. For the Christian youth it was important for them to see how they can share their faith with their peers in school. Some of the youth from Stebbing youth group helped me lead the sessions. It was good for them to recap what they learnt before on Alpha.
In the first week of Feb we had the School Mission - Mon 5th-Fri 9th Feb.
"Collective"a Christian Girl Band worked in Helena Romanes school and with the FDS youth groups all week. At the end of the week they did a live multimedia concert in the school hall.
The girls came in for a planning meeting and were very well received by the staff and students who met them. Before the lunchtime meeting they went into a Yr 11 RE lesson and had a great time of sharing their faith with the students, who asked them some very direct questions. I found this RE lesson to be encouraging personally too, as I was able to share my experiences as a young Christian within a group, rather than as an individual Christian in the school.
For those young people who respond to the mission, we are putting together follow up sessions with teachers in school. We are running another Youth Alpha lunchtime course which will be launched after Easter. Those interested young people will be invited to meet together with me and the existing group at lunchtimes up to Easter
I have been told by a member of the Management Team, that we are hitting our existing targets 100% as a Trust, by the work in the school. Because of the exposure to our target audience, which are the young people living within the FDS Triangle area. Helena Romanes is the school where most of the young people in FDS go to school - it has between 1200-1500 pupils.
It is the biggest avenue for me to build better relationships with the youth I work with in churches, because they see me at lunch and around school on Mon and Tuesdays. I build links with staff and parents in school, I have learnt how to speak effectively to large audiences in assemblies, and in smaller groups in lessons. Working with teachers too on lessons has been very useful for me to learn new techniques for teaching groups and I have picked up lots of creative ideas. The Trust's work is made known to a wider audience too through the school community. As I am able to advertise the Trust's work on school notice-boards, in assemblies, on the plasma screen and in the school newsletter.
FDS Youth Groups in the Church Communities
We still have the regular FDS youth groups running:
Stebbing meet on a Fri night and Sun morning, (12 young people in total with a couple more joining) Felsted - 11-14s (5 young people) meet on a Sun morning and 14+ meet Sun nights (around 6 young people), Dunmow youth group meet every Tues night (10-12 young people).
At least once a term we have a joint event where all the FDS youth get together to build relationships between the groups, learn and worship together. This is through the events like trips to Delirious Concert, St Mark's College and the Youth Services (we call them Services for Youth now). The next one is on Sun 24th June in the evening at St Mary's Church, Gt Dunmow.
Highlights of the first year or so, have been to see the youth that I work with grow in their faith and in their friendships with one another. I know how important it was as a young Christian to feel I belonged to a group. Not just to come every week, to youth club, to learn some scripture, go to church etc. But to have peers there walking with me on my journey of faith in Christ Jesus. I really saw this happen recently - at the end of Dec, the Stebbing youth group moved on in their relationship as a group and with their individual faith journeys, by doing prayer ministry together at the Holy Spirit Day. The Holy Spirit touched their hearts, you could sense and see God working within them, it was a privilege to be there and witness it.
Challenges
I wouldn't say there are any low points in this job only challenges for me and everyone involved in the Trust. For my post it is about how can I achieve the objectives set by the Trust, managing my time effectively and equally amongst all the youth groups in the FDS churches and in the secondary school. The Trust are in the process of looking at the feedback from all the FDS churches about the Trust's vision statement and objectives, and will draw up a plan of action and new objectives for the coming year for my post.
I am aware that I am not always seen very much in the FDS churches, I do visit church congregations as often as possible usually once every 4-6 weeks. (My visit timetable is always put in the Cascade monthly newsletters, with my contact details.) About one Sunday a month I have time to be fed and spiritually built up myself in my own church community in Braintree. I am going to a weekly home group too, as I need more time than one Sunday a month in teaching and fellowship for myself.
Working together…
It is great that within each FDS church there are adult volunteers working with the youth. I would like to be able to co-ordinate and encourage these people and others to come and join us, in building up links between the FDS churches and youth leaders. We have started to meet regularly as youth leaders to learn from one another and I will be using some training material from Crusaders youth agency to help us improve our youth work practices. We have also just recently completed the Diocese Child Protection Training too.