St. Leonard's Youth Work Update

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat. We're simply having a wonderful Christmas time here in St Leonards church office. So this is Christmas, and what have you done? Ok, I'm going to stop with the Christmas songs now. But seriously, we are interested in what you're getting up to and want to tell you all about what we've got planned. So here's a little run down of everything that's going on in the next few weeks in the run up to Christmas and beyond... Cell groups will be finishing this week with sessions looking at the Christmas story. Never fear though – there is the cell Christmas social next Thursday, the 19 th December. If you haven't already been told about it, it's from 7 – 9.30pm in the church. We are selling tickets for £5 each, which includes pizza and drinks plus games and loads of fun. The Pathfinders Christmas specials are on this Friday, the 13 th . Younger Pathfinders runs from 6.30 – 7.45pm

As you may or may not know, St. Leonard's Youth have our very own (extremely talented) youth band called The Vine  (click on their name to go to their Facebook group). They have been very busy over the last 2 years and have recently been booked to play for a church in Bicester as well as being the band for the Diocesan youth camp called Yellow Braces. What you might not know is that we are starting a new youth band (to go alongside The Vine) which is going to be called.... The Bud (get it ha, we're so funny!). The first meeting will be this Monday 2nd December at St. Leonard's Church and it is for anyone who is interested in joining (who is under the age of 25). If you would like to check it out, or you have a young person who might like to join then go here  www.stleonardsyouth.co.uk/ConsentForms.html  to download the forms and come along and join us at 7.00pm!

Some times in youth work it seems like its all change all the time. Change for the better, change for the worst, young people leaving to go to uni, young people coming up from year 7. Groups change, groups dynamics change and (hopefully) the people involved, my self included, become more like the people Christ made them to be. Change is good, change is exciting! But change can be scary... Some times (particularly in the Anglican Church) things can seem to dip into the 'plodding along' stage where nothing really seems set to change at all. Not that the is a bad thing, there is a lot to be said for plodding along! ( Romans 8:25 ,  Galatians 6:9 )  Amongst other changes, having just taken on 2 new members to the team, adding more groups and losing a long standing cell group with a couple of long standing leaders it felt like a big term of change last year. Some of which was exciting, some of which was scary. This term seems set to be a bit more steady. Not boring by any st

For anyone who has never heard of a Cell Celebration it is a church service where all our regular cell groups come together to worship God. Each group plan and run a different part of the service and bring the whole thing together as a whole. They are run by the cell groups but anyone of any age is welcome to come along and we are really pleased that there is usually a great mix people and 'generations'! The Sunday just gone (21st October) at 6pm we had our Cell Celebration for this term. The theme was 'Living Life to the Full'. The service was based around Jesus' statement in John 10:10 "   I have come that they may have life,  and have it to the full ".  We looked at what it means to live life to the full and how following Jesus might effect that. About 90 people came along and as usual we had a full range of prayer stations, great music from The Vine ,  a great talk and welcome game. Our next Cell Celebration is on Sunday 9th February 2014 at 6pm so

On Monday 7 th October, we were blessed to be visited by Peter S Williams - apologist, philosopher, author and general very cool guy. We broke into small groups to begin with and wrote down some questions with no restrictions (brave Peter). We then put them all together and the minions (Beth and Sarah) sorted them into similar questions. There were several themes that came up a lot, particularly questions on heaven and hell, why God created disabilities, and the Devil. Peter faced such a range of questions but he answered every one in a way that everybody could understand and with interesting information. The questions ranged from “What are your ideas on the cosmological argument?” to “What's your best Christian chat-up line?” and there was definitely something for everyone as Peter discussed his views on whether to take the Bible literally, dating and the challenges posed to us by new atheists. Peter took away the questions that we ran out of time to ask and he will send an

As you will hopefully be aware by now, we have taken on 2 interns to work with us for this academic year. They will be studying under the internship programme at Oxford CYM  www.oxfordcym.com/internship.html   (the same organisation that Olly did his degree with). We will be their placement church and they will be working with us full time. So far, this has been fantastic and I am really excited to see all that God will be doing in our youth work through running this internship course. Already Beth and Sarah have got stuck in to everything and there is a real buzz around the office. Taking on the interns does have a financial cost. As a church we have agreed to pay for their travel expenses up to £800. Other than that, due to our current deficit, the PCC were unable to offer any other financial support such as covering their course fees (£1650 each) or contributing to their cost of living or housing for the year.   So we are asking if you would like to Sponsor an Intern?... A

It has been an eventful and exciting start to the new year. The major change has been the appointment of our 2 interns Beth and Sarah  (they have their own update blogs, click on their names if you want to take a look). Having had them working with us officially for three weeks I can honestly say I am really excited for the next year and am looking forward to all God is going to do in them and through them. So far it has been going really well and God's hand is clearly on this. In other news, we are already beginning to fund raise for next years Soul Survivor. Having had such a great time in August all the young people who went are very keen to go again so it is looking like next year will be very large!! After Soul Survivor 2 young people have decided to start leading a CU at Bartholomew school. Our youth team has been visiting every week and seems to be a fantastic group! Last week we had Peter S. Williams join us for a Q&A session at 7pm at the Church Hall with all of

I am aware that not everyone knows the structure of our regular weekly groups or who meets when, so I thought I would take this opportunity to fill you all in. For more information about specific groups, please visit our website www.stleonardsyouth.co.uk ... Monday 5.30pm - 6.45pm : Year 11- 12 mixed Cell Group Tuesday 6.15pm - 7.30pm: Year 9 mixed Cell Group 7.00pm - 8.30pm: Year 9 girls Cell Group (this group takes place in Hanbrough) Wednesday  4.30pm - 5.30pm: Year 7 mixed Cell Group Thursday  3.05pm - 4.45pm: Year 10 mixed Cell Group 6.30pm - 9.00pm: Thursday Night Junior Youth Centre 7.30pm - 9.00pm: Year 12 - 15 mixed Cell Group Friday 3.05pm - 4.30pm: Year 8 mixed Cell Group 6.30pm - 7.45pm: Younger Friday Pathfinders 8.00pm - 9.30pm: Older Friday Pathfinders Saturday No Groups Sunday 10.45am - 12.00am: Sunday Pathfinders 10.45am - 12.00am:  Cyfa (every 1st and 3rd Sunday of the month)

Have you ever wanted to be kept more informed about what we are doing with St. Leonard's youth? Well now you can! It seems crazy, in a world of information overload, that at church we have to wait for a piece of paper to be handed around before you are filled in on what is going on. The solution? As a youth work we have decided to make better use of social media to keep you lovely people informed on what is going on. At least once a month we will be posting general information here about what is coming up and what has been happening with 'da youf'.  We will also be tweeting regular updates and posting regularly on to Facebook. So, if you want to stay informed, get subscribing to, following and 'friending' us and try to keep up!