I want to know, as a youth worker, what would your young people’s Love Your… be? Students have their own little bubble world – community, learning, work, psuedo-family, accomodation, social centre all in one place. For young people that’s not quite the same, so what would their Love Yours be and what would that look like?
Here are some stories to inspire you from one small-sized church community…
Love Your Community…
A group of students in York wanted to love the community around the church. An organisation called the Besom gave them a contact and they went round and did a major tidy up in a local home as it had recently been trashed. During the day, they noticed that the lady’s fridge was empty, so they quietly nipped off to Morrisons and came back with bags laden. The woman was overwhelmed. Since, she’s built a strong friendship with one of the students and despite being a Muslim, began regularly attending church and praying there. Through church she was also introduced to CAP to help her with her debt issues.
Love Your Mates…
There were two students who had mostly non-Christian mates. They decided that they wanted their mates to do Alpha but there was no Alpha course running. Luckily, they’d heard that you can get the talks for free online, so they decided to cook for their mates once a week, watch the talks on a laptop in their lounge and ‘do’ Student Alpha themselves! They didn’t want any help from the student workers, they just got on with it – community, fun, hanging out and Jesus – not a bad combination!
Love Your School…
How could our young people do Love Your School?
Love Your Mates…
Could your young people run Youth Alpha – cooking, serving, leading discussion groups?
Love Your Community…
What are the needs of your young people’s communities? What could they do to serve those needs and love their communities?
At Fusion, we see young people arriving in churches every year who already get this – they’ve been Loving Their Worlds for years. Seeing them arrive is a joy, as they get stuck in with passionate lives of faith and service. So tell me, what does that look like on the ground?
