We love being able to share stories of what God is doing amongst young people across Cambridgeshire. Here’s an encouragement from a local youth pastor that one of our team coaches:
At our Church, we run an after school drop in for young people in secondary school. It is a relaxed space where the young people can hang out, play games, and chat about life. We usually have around six young people come along each week. This has become a really enjoyable time.
Over the past year, as a team we have began to make a few small changes that have made a big difference. We moved to a different room and gave the group a new name, which completely transformed the atmosphere. The space now feels more welcoming and it has opened the door for us to start running Christianity Explored Youth (VOX) with the young people.
Rather than changing the whole session, our team decided to keep the first hour for the usual games, food, and chatting, and then spend the last 30 minutes on the VOX sessions. We gathered consent forms, and at the start of the summer term, we began. From the very first week, we saw some really exciting conversations start to happen about faith.
A few weeks in, I felt a little nudge to offer the young people the chance to take home the Bibles they had been using. We didn’t really have enough to do that, but I thought, “Let’s just see what happens, we can worry about the consequences later.” Immediately everyone said no, either because they had a Bible already or they didn’t want to take one home. But as everyone was leaving, one young person came back and said they would actually like to take a Bible home. This young person put the Bible in their bag and left the session.
A few weeks later, the same young person told us they had tried reading it but found it quite confusing and wasn’t sure where to start. We suggested beginning in the Gospel of Mark. The next week, they returned and shared that they had been reading it again. As the weeks went on, they started asking more and more questions about faith. Our volunteer team has been brilliant at responding to these questions and creating space for conversation. It has been so encouraging to see other young people begin to listen in on the conversations and then join the discussions too.
It has been amazing to see how a few small changes, a simple step of faith, and a bit of courage to hand out a Bible have opened up such meaningful and exciting opportunities for these young people to explore who God is and what it means for their lives.