In a village with “four houses, three dogs and a cockerel that is considering a career move”, there was no guarantee the new youth group in Headley Heath would be successful.
But a year after the Limitless Christian youth festival helped pioneer the ministry at New Life Church Centre near Birmingham, pastor Tom Skelton (inset in the picture above) says the church is celebrating a 45-strong group where relationships, trust and consistency are the focus.
Tom said: “The church is in a very rural area with no obvious residential estate nearby so it was a bit of an odd situation and they weren’t sure how it was going to go.
“But because of relationships that had been built historically with the church and various youth things that had been done over the years, they ended up with 25 kids on the first night.
“The original format had some quite detailed Christian material which we felt was aimed at church kids, but very few of our kids come from church backgrounds. They don’t have that high level of Christian literacy so we’ve scaled it back to make it more accessible for them.”
Tom is keen to build an atmosphere where trust can flourish, and kids from challenging backgrounds can find consistency, stability and a welcome.
“There’s the old adage that people need to know you care before they care what you know, so our first aim is to build relationships and win trust. Then we can introduce God and help them have a meaningful encounter with Jesus.
“Maybe home isn’t very stable so we teach them that God sees them and cares about them while they experience that instability. We teach them that God sees them when they’re alone and scared and that they can ask him to help them wherever they are.”
