Animate Youth Ministry

‘Chaotic, but in the best possible way’

Ellie Leatherbarrow, retreat co-ordinator at Animate Youth Ministries, reflects on a busy start to 2022/23 – and the satisfaction of helping guide young people with their faith.

I am writing this as we come to the end of the first half-term of this academic year. As usual, it has been filled with chaos, but the better part of chaos – being able to meet so many young people who have taken the step to high school as well as reuniting with those whom we had previously encountered when they were in primary school. The first high school we worked with was St John Fisher from Wigan. We explored the theme of community and how we all have a part to play. It was great to see again so many pupils we had worked with before and to see how far they have come and how they well they have settled into their new school. More recently, we worked with St Joseph’s High School in Horwich and looked at the theme of stepping out of the boat. We considered how life can throw so many challenges at us but how we have people around us to help us have the courage to overcome the difficult hurdles.

Ultimately and crucially, we also have God. On the last day we were able to work with the school’s mission team and think about servant leadership – how they can step out of the boat, just like Peter did – and they were able to come up with many ideas on the lead-up to Christmas. This year I have taken over the role of Animate’s retreat co-ordinator. This has meant the opportunity to lead some day retreats and while I was quite nervous about this, there has been a sense of fulfilment gained from being able to speak to young people and spread the good news. One of the retreats I have led was with the Year 10 pupils from St Mary’s College in Crosby with whom we considered the theme of reconciliation, exploring both ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ reconciliation. This involved focusing on how we can reconcile with ourselves, our friends and families and other people around the world, and it ended with looking at how we are then able to reconcile with God.

By the time you read this, we will be into the next half-term and working on the build-up to Christmas – we have retreats booked with different schools, our first mission week of the year, and Youth Alive. In addition, we are all looking forward to spending some time on our own Advent retreat which will enable us to reflect and renew our beliefs.

In this period, we will celebrate the feast of Christ the King which is also known as Youth Sunday, a celebration of all the young people in the Church. If you are wondering how to support young people, we have been recently selected to be part of the community grants scheme to support local school pupils who are completing their Faith in Action award this year. If you shop at Tesco in St Helens, therefore, we would really appreciate it if you could take a blue token and place it in the box for Faith in Action. Thank you. God bless.