Issue No 192
Magazine for the Builth, Irfon and Wye Valley Churches June 2017
DON’T KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON
It was with these words that Bishop John galvanised the Governing Body of the Church in Wales at its most recent meeting – he actually said “don’t keep calm and carry on, but be positive and reach out to new things, sharing and using the blessings you have”. The focus of this recent meeting was ‘Evangelism’ and one of the keynote sessions was a meeting of minds between young people from across the Church in Wales aged between thirteen and seventeen, and a Governing Body largely made up of members who are over fifty. Our Diocese was represented by three young people from the Builth Ministry Area – Nikki, Owen and Casey (led and guided by Petra - Bishops Officer for Children, Youth and Families) who were chosen out of a much larger group of young people to try to convey to the supreme body of the Church in Wales how they can improve relationships between young people and the church. When they were asked if they had enjoyed the experience Casey said “I thought it was very enjoyable. I think it was a good thing for us to do” whilst Nikki added that “we got to meet teenagers like us” Owen expanded that by saying “Yeah, we don’t get to meet many other people who are churchgoers like us. It was very good for youth to have such a big influential voice in such a big meeting for the Church”.
All three young people thought the decision by the Governing Body to convene a provincial Youth Forum was very brave “As a whole group we came
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together and figured out what we would like to change in the Church and what we think should happen to make youth feel more included and involved in the Church, to enjoy Church life more and try to entice more people into the Church”. They were pleasantly surprised when “They listened and considered our views and then together we then discussed the issues and topics that we had presented to them in separate groups. We went into further detail and gave examples of what we said”. The group were surprised at the Governing Body’s reaction “I think we gave many older members of the Church ideas about what they could do. In my group we talked to vicars from different churches and they told us how listening to us has helped them change their mind and given them ideas of how to involve youth more in their own parishes. One of the people in my group said that when he was younger, he had similar views to what we have, but then he, being the person he is now – a vicar, he has kind of forgotten about that. He said that we did a good job with an allround view and that we kind of considered everyone including the older generation as well. A lot of the people in the groups were taking down notes to then go back to their church and introduce some sort of youth thing there”. The Youth Forum also led the worship for the Governing Body, which set the tone of their status as youth delegates before their presentation. Casey, Owen and Nikki finally led the intercessions at the Governing Body Eucharist in front of all the representatives and delegates as well as all the Bishops. Owen, Nikki and Casey all agreed that it had been a positive experience for them and concluded by saying that ALL the young people from every diocese agreed that “going into this meeting we took the ideas of the youth who we surveyed before but in two years’ time for the next one we want to come back with the views of even more young people”.
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