Working in partnership to take the good news relevantly to every young person in Swindon.
Swindon
Autumn 2016
youthforchristnews
Registered Charity no. 274402
Happy New Year As we start a new year here at SYFC we are excited to consider all that God has in store for us. Looking back, as you often do at the start of a new year, it is hugely encouraging to reflect that we are building on the rich heritage that Swindon YFC has. So many good people, so many faithful servants, so many stories of the difference SYFC has made to people’s lives. What a privilege and a thrill it is to consider that God has so much more in store for us to do. As a team, Swindon YFC met with trustees to seek God for the next chapter of journey that He has called us to, over the coming season. After praying, contemplating and reflecting we believe that the message that God has called us to, will continue to bring life to the young people of Swindon. We firmly believe that our purpose continues to be two fold; the young people of Swindon that are currently untouched by church, and the church itself. If as Christians we believe that Swindon is God’s town, then, partnering with churches continues to be our focus and, as such, we have changed our vision statement subtly to clearly reflect our intention of partnership with the church: “Working in partnership to take the good news relevantly to every young person in Swindon”, and we aim to do this by: Working in partnerships, to deliver hope, and restore communities. We aim to strengthen partnerships with churches by providing different events for Children, Young people, and their prospective workers alike (please see details of IMPACT and V2, in this Newsletter.) We recognise that our communication could be better with churches, and so this is something that we are committing to enhance over the coming few months. If your church is not receiving regular mailings, please get in contact with SYFC on, office@syfc.org.uk and we will let you know how you can receive these. Our church partnerships will continue to sit alongside the evangelistic work that takes place within school settings in assemblies, lessons and lunch clubs; out on the streets through our mobile youth club BIOS, and our chance encounters as we move around the town. If you want to hear more about SYFC’s new Vision, check out our Celebration Evening event and please come and join us. I hope you capture something of our enthusiasm as you read this Newsletter and we will continue to update you with developments as the year continues. Happy New Year! Helen Chappell Centre Manager
Celebration Event As the new 2016/17 Academic year begins we would like thank God for all that he has done throughout the previous year (of which there has been much to thank Him for). Within this time, you will have chance to see our new premises at Meadowcroft community centre; meet many of the new team including our new YFCone gap year individuals; hear about the next steps in SYFC’s journey as they launch a new vision; and hear from the Bishop of Swindon as he commissions the team for another year. We hope that you will be able to join us – check out details and reserve your place at www.swindonyfc.eventbrite.co.uk
Swindon Youth for Christ, P. O. BOX 2352, SWINDON SN2 1WE (01793) 977676 office@syfc.org.uk www.syfc.org.uk
Ben Crathorne
George Green
I’m Ben, I’m 18 years old, live in Burton on Trent in Staffordshire and have just finished studying maths, physics and IT at A level. I’ve been brought up a Christian home with my mum, dad and two brothers. I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember and my faith has just grown stronger as I have got older. I’ve always been involved in the church and play drums in the worship team. I really enjoy getting out and being active especially playing sport, my main sport is football and I love to get out and play as much as I can.
My name’s George Green and I’m doing my second year with YFC having just done a year with Youth for Christ’s cage football team Nomad. I love pretty much all sports, but my favourites are Rugby and football, although I do have the misfortune of being a Birmingham City fan! Having never been to Swindon before I’m really excited to join the team this year and am really excited to see what God has in store. I’m hoping that God will continue to challenge and stretch me throughout this year, and I’m really looking forward to the ways in which God will grow me this year as well as doing my best to benefit Swindon YFC! I’m really excited for what’s to come and cannot wait to get stuck in! - George Green
This year I am really hoping to strengthen my relationship with God and help bring so many other people to him. I’ve been going to Soul Survivor for the last 6 years and it’s given me such a passion for young people and helping them connect with God. I also hope that my love of sport will give me opportunities to connect with young people that I might not otherwise get. - Ben Crathorne
BIOS Update - Life on the Streets 1 Thessalonions 1:3 says “We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is the reason I do what I do, day in and day out, through the wind, rain, hail and darkness. We seek to see God’s light breaking through the darkness. Just a few weeks ago I was at a van session and I saw a teenage girl that I haven’t seen for about a year and a half, she was surprised that I recognised her, remembered her name and information about her. She is someone who I have talked to a lot about self-harm and I remember her telling me about all the brokenness in her life. She had been let down by friends, family, boys, school and she seemed hopeless. All of this had caused her to turn to selfharm as a way of being able to feel something, anything. Seeing her again was amazing, she was in a really good place, enjoying college, getting on well and her home life was good. During the conversation with her she was really excited to tell me that she hadn’t cut herself in over a year. She shared with me about how she had woken up one morning and decided that she didn’t want that to be her life anymore, so had thrown away all of her blades and hadn’t cut herself since. In the same evening I saw another girl who completely separately also told me that she hadn’t cut herself in 8 months. This again was someone who I have talked to at length about self-harm. It is amazing to see these young people overcoming massive obstacles in their lives and being a part of that. Every week we engage with hundreds of young people and every week I hear heart breaking stories. In the last week alone I have heard stories of young people who are struggling with being bullied and the effects that is having on them. I have heard young people sharing how they hate their bodies and the pressures they are experiencing from school and parents. A young person who has been really struggling told me he went to the doctors and has been diagnosed with depression. I was told about a young person that I have worked closely with in the past who is now dealing heroin and another young person who has just been arrested for carrying a weapon. Closer to home, when we aren’t even on sessions and are based at the SYFC Office doing admin work we see young people, often they come and sit next to our building. Just yesterday I arrived at the office at 9am and could smell cannabis in the air outside. I walked round the outside of the building and found three young people, two of which were in school uniform, getting high before going into school. During the summer I was in the office when a young person knocked on the door, it was really good to see him again and we sat and chatted for a while. He told me about how he had fallen out with his mum and so he had left home four weeks earlier and was living in a tent. He had cut his foot and had no first aid kit to be able to dress it so I sat and cleaned it and dressed it for him. He told me that he was stealing food to eat, and wouldn’t mind if he were to be arrested because at least he would be inside in the cell. He told me that life was completely pointless, he had no hope. shared with him about how we have all been designed and created by an incredible God and how there is a purpose to life. We talked about why bad things happen and God’s great rescue plan. I shared with him about a God that loves him. This is what we do, at SYFC we show young people their worth and their importance, we love young people and we share with them a love that is greater than ours. Please do stand with us in prayer as we seek to work in partnership to take the good news relevantly to every young person in Swindon. - Amy Cox
I
In:School Update In our Spring newsletter in:School, alongside Scripture Union and Malmesbury Abbey were busy planning and preparing for the Lifepath event 2016 and we already had three Primary schools booked to attend. At the actual event we ended up having a total of eight Primary Schools and over 300 year 5 children attend. With the help of over 40 volunteers from a variety of churches, Lifepath was a huge success and due to popular demand we have decided to run Lifepath in 2017 for not just two days but three, enabling more schools, children and staff to experience this event. Lifepath – If you would like to know more about the Lifepath event then please get in touch. Future Possibilities
“A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every passer by leaves a mark.” This term has already started in an exciting way with various meetings taking place with church leaders looking at how we can partner together more in serving the local primary schools through assemblies, storytelling, Parable workshops and more of a focus on Anti Bullying week. The urgency for our involvement in primary schools is greater now than it has ever been. Alarming statistics and local incidents highlight how children as young as 5 are being exposed to such negative and damaging experiences and images. 85% of our adult personality is formed by the age of 6 years so the need for our positive presence and message of hope among young children is essential. Our aim this year is that together we can leave as many positive marks on children’s lives as possible, as we get more involved with the Primary schools of Swindon. - Abi Corry
Schools Work Update LUSH IS BACK!!! LUSH, SYFC’s sex and healthy relationships lesson series are up and running in schools within Swindon. LUSH has been developed and grown over the past 9 years here at Swindon YFC. The programme recognises that young people need safe spaces to talk with trusted adults about these life issues in honest and supportive ways. Young people learn about relationships and sex from the very youngest age. Some of the things they learn are incorrect, confusing and frightening. It is increasingly critical that we talk meaningfully to our young people to help them make sense of their relationships with others, the pressures they experience and those things that can be a hindrance to their wellbeing and safety. Our education system is increasingly aware of the need for good quality relationships, sex and PSHE education as highlighted by the Life Lessons report (2015). The LUSH programme helps schools to tackle difficult topics with their students as part of their wider PSHE schemes of work through quality workshops led by the team that go in as visitors into the school community. The P Word. The P Word, is new material for 2016/17 that looks at the effects pornography has upon our society. Based in a lesson format, students will explore 3 main areas that pornography impacts: the brain, their emotion and psychological state, and the society around them; giving students the opportunity to speak with peers and ask questions as they go along. The students will also have the chance to hear startling facts about pornography, hear information from professional pornography psychologist, and quotes from ex industry employees themselves about their experience within the industry.
“Every secondary school pupil should be educated about the negative effects of porn.”
- Teacher at Lydiard Park Academy
Please pray for the work of tried and tested material alongside new, that young people across Swindon will be transformed for the better because of these subjects. - Dave Clarke
IMPACT Youth Event... Pausing IMPACT is an ecumenical youth praise and worship event that SYFC have run for many years. Over the past year many key members of the team have left and so we have taken this opportunity to pause, undergo a consultation with church youth leaders and find out how we can relaunch this with a new flavour for Jan 2017 – Please pray for the team as they talk about its future and for individuals joining the team. Watch this space…
V2... Coming Soon SYFC are speaking to many churches in the area to provide a town wide evangelistic event as a tool for young people to be able to invite their friends along to. These events would run 3 times a year in conjunction with IMPACT. These would be ideal opportunities for church young people to invite their school friends along to an event where the gospel will be guaranteed to be shared without limit. Watch this space for more.
Could YOU be a Trustee? We’re looking for 3 passionate Trustees with a heart for mission to join our SYFC family… Could it be you? Do you have any schools or youth work experience? We need your input. Are you involved in Human Resources? We need your expertise. Are you a church leader? We need your voice. If you have any of these skills to offer then please email our Chair of Trustees; Lianne Semans Smith office@syfc.org.uk, to arrange a meeting (coffee and cake provided).
Introducing David Ahern We are really pleased to introduce David Ahern to you – our most recently appointed Trustee. He has a wealth of experience to bring to the team and has a real heart for developing and nurturing young people. We know you will find his article interesting and maybe it will inspire you to respond to the advert for more people to join the Trustees. “I am delighted to be a recent addition to the Swindon Youth for Christ trustee team and look forward to meeting many of you in the future. I am married to Jane, we have three adult children and we moved from London to Shrivenham six years ago. My father was an Army doctor and I spent much of my early childhood living abroad in Greece, Egypt, Libya, France, America, Germany and England. Like many service children at that time I was educated at a boarding school in North Yorkshire. At the age of 18 I joined the Army serving for 24 years. Among many postings I spent two years on operations in Northern Ireland in the mid 1970’s, served for three years in Berlin during the collapse of the Wall and a year in Zimbabwe, in 1984 where I met my wife. In 1994 I left the Army and joined a management company in London. In 2001 I attended an Alpha course. It had a profound impact upon me and I knew my calling was elsewhere. Against best advise from several colleagues I left my job and joined a Christian charity working with gangs in Hackney. It was there that I learnt many lessons about how young people from inner city estates can be disadvantaged and damaged by circumstances not of their own making, and that we need to nurture the good in them rather than labelling them a societal problem to be sorted out.
SUPPORT SYFC .....
In March 2007 I was appointed CEO of Shannon Trust, a prisons’ charity supporting prisoners who can read, to teach prisoners who cannot. By the time I left in 2015 we were working in every prison in the country teaching over 4,500 prisoners to read each year. The impact of a prisoner learning to read is infinitely greater than learning a new skill. For many it was life changing. I saw many prisoners become more confident, less aggressive and learning to engage at an emotional level. Many went into education, often for the first time, gaining qualifications beyond their expectations. In my time with the charity I received many hundreds of letters from prisoners thanking our volunteers and staff for helping them to transform their lives and turn away from crime. We don’t have to do much to transform someone’s life, we simply have to believe in them and empower people to do so.” - David Ahern The work of SYFC is only made possible by the amazing COULD YOU OR YOUR HOMEGROUP SPONSOR A SESSION? generosity of churches and individuals like yourselves. £25 per month enables us to run Could you consider investing in the future ministry of SYFC? 1 School Lunchclub or 1 RE or LUSH lesson or 1 set of Assemblies or Perhaps you could consider becoming a monthly financial 1 BIOS Van session or 1 support session with a young person in crisis. Why not choose a specific event to sponsor and pray for? partner or send a special one-off gift now, to help us develop the work over the coming months. Or could you commit to sending us just £5 or £10 a month. All you need to do is ask us for a Standing Order Form and Every amount donated makes a significant impact on our work. return it to our PO Box address and if you are a tax payer Visit www.syfc.org.uk/donate to donate online, we can claim 20% of the sum donated back from HMRC. or call us to request a standing order form.
KEEP IN TOUCH Yes I would like to be kept informed about all the fantastic work of SYFC, please send me Newsletters, Updates and Emails. Alternatively you can sign up online at www.syfc.org.uk Name : _______________________________________________________________ Address : _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________ Postcode : ________________________________________
Email Address : ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Phone Number : _________________________________________ Church Attended : __________________________________ PLEASE SEND YOUR COMPLETED FORM TO: SYFC, PO Box 2352, Swindon, Wilts, SN2 1WE. THANKYOU.
You can follow us on: