Hello church 

There are all sorts to update you all on this month!

Rooted continues to go well; we have been working on the ‘The Tough Stuff’ series, where we spent a number of weeks recently looking at the book of Revelation. The youth really spoke openly and honestly about this, and we had some really good conversations, so much so that we extended it across three weeks! We recently did a prayer activity where the young people wrote some prayers specifically for SBC. Here are some of their prayers which we thought were so lovely…

‘Lord let this Church grow more than anyone here could imagine’
‘Prayers for everyone to be safe & happy’
‘God, please guide this Church towards the right path. Please work through us and be with us on this journey to live for you and worship you.’ 
‘Guide and help me to spread your love throughout all your people by praising and worshipping you in Church’

We’ve also been super blessed recently, and a number of new volunteers have come forward to help with Sundays, which is amazing so see!

Hot chocolate has been back on the high street! However, we now do this outside Sainsbury’s as this seems to be the hot spot for young people to hang around after school! We’ve had some really good conversations with young people in the community, with some recognising us from previous weeks, and others asking if we’ll be back on future weeks! So, it’s really great and so important for us to be having a presence known on the high street, but even more importantly, to be building relationships with those in the community.

I’ve also been invited into Tenison’s, to do a workshop with the year 8 students about the theme of knife crime. This is such a difficult topic for young people today, so throughout it all, I encourage them to think about how they can be peacemakers, and what they can do to try and make a change.

We ran a couple of events during February half term which all went super well! A group of young people came along with a team of us to London to visit the National Gallery and The British Museum which was a really great day out. We also ran a pancake event at SBC which was great, and it felt like a really fun and exciting environment! Having these social events has been great to see the young people spend time with each other and enables them to build relationships. 

There is lots more upcoming with all things youth, so please do continue to pray for the young people that we meet… here at SBC, in the communities, and in their schools too.

God bless you all. Katie Canning