illuminate Update
For this month’s newsletter please have a read of an excerpt of our first report to the Growing Faith Network Learning Hub.“Before we get into the story of the first few months of work, allow me to introduce the main players of our work in the Stroud District. First we have Archway School, the largest comprehensive school in Stroud, then we have the local network of parish churches, and finally we have ourselves the illuminate project from The Door – a charity which has been providing open access youthwork in the Stroud district for over 30 years.
The main aim of the illuminate Project is to provide youth ministry to Stroud young people by linking up schools work, church work, and open access youthwork. This is no mean feat.
The period from January to March 2025 has felt like the mad dash at the start of a race. Our first main priority was to leverage our positive relationship with Archway School to explore how we may expand our presence there in a ministerial capacity, specifically, we presented the idea of a Chaplaincy to the school’s leadership. They were immediately receptive to this idea and incredibly keen to get this started.
By the beginning of March, we had begun working in the school for two days a week. Instantly, Isak was welcomed into the pastoral team at the school, and the impact was clear to see, with one of the staff saying: “We can already see the usefulness and impact Isak is having in relating to the young people and supporting them.” It has been a whirlwind of a month since starting the Chaplaincy, especially as the community work and the open access youthwork continued and increased as more young people from the school were turning up to the sessions we run.
Another priority during this period was running a residential for a group of our young people who we would class as Church curious, with some Church committed young people joining also. This trip was a great success, and we had 6 young people respond to a gospel message with a commitment to exploring faith in Jesus.
One of the challenges in this period, besides being particularly busy, has been making progress with our strategy with the local churches. One of the main motivations for the illuminate Project is to establish a Ministry that meets the young people in Stroud, a desire echoed by the church leaders we have spoken with so far, as they feel that the young generation is currently absent from the church community and that needs to change. We have in this period spoken to a few Church leaders, but we recognise we need to connect more and start to consider working even more in partnership going forward.
Finally, looking forward, we are hoping to raise the profile of the ministry locally with a large fundraising event, and increase social media content aimed at the local Christian curious young people, possibly combining these two goals creatively.
This is a glimpse of what has happened for this project, but it truly feels like the beginning, where certain seeds are taking root and beginning to sprout, so please pray for this to continue.
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