SwindonRegistered Charity no. 274402

Swindon Youth for Christ, P. O. BOX 2352, SWINDON SN2 1WE (01793) 829795 office@syfc.org.uk www.syfc.org.uk

Autumn 2012

After an already busy summer, we launched into the winter term. Three weeks in, we had Guvna B with us for four days, predominantly based in Pinehurst. He is a MOBO (Music of Black Origin) award winning Christian Rap Artist and has toured with Tinie Tempah and Chipmunk (both very famous rappers). His vision for his work is to promote positivity within the rap and music culture, a culture which is often linked to many things negative such as drugs, abuse, and violence. He has toured across the country linking in with many other YFC centres, going into schools taking lessons, leading assemblies and spreading his message of hope and positivity.

He tells every young person about himself and his story of how when he was growing up and he had no interest in God but went to church because he was made to. The change came when he was challenged by his youth worker, this prompted him to change his life direction, choosing the good path instead of always getting into trouble. After nearly quitting rapping because he thought no one would listen to positive rap music, his new found faith in God and outlook on life opened up the door to being signed with a record label and has got him to where he is today.

During his 4 days in Swindon he was involved in 17 lessons, 4 secondary assemblies, 3 gigs, 1 youth group, a music/rap workshop and a concert in a young persons living room, clocking up 33 hours speaking to a total of over

700 young people. He took a range of RE, sociology and music lessons from year 5 all the way up to year 12 (ages 9-17) exploring topics such as gang culture, what does it mean to be a Christian and making your own decisions.

Many people were inspired by what he said and all the students were getting really excited by him coming into their lessons. Whilst we were hanging out around the school a lot of the students would come up to us just to be near him with many of them getting him to sign their planners. The week finished off with a gig in the courtyard at the Swindon Academy with half the school attending. Nothing on that scale had ever happened before and there was a feeling among the staff that it would create an afternoon of mayhem and excitement leading to trouble in lessons, however this did not happen and the school principle is looking forward to more events happening during lunchtime at other points in the year.

The two main messages that have been remembered by the young people is that they are “free” and that “Jesus Loves Me” which are the lyrics of two of his songs! By the end of the week to have 250 students singing

Jesus Loves Me at the courtyard gig was incredible and two weeks on I still hear the young people singing the songs in the corridors and one young person tells me that she “listens to JLM (Jesus Loves Me) every night before bed.” This is a non Christian girl hearing every night that she is loved by Jesus, I thank God for all that was changed in the hearts of the young people. One of the music teachers said, “Thank you for bringing him in! The kids were in complete awe of what he did and how he changed his life around. There is still a buzz around school now!”

You can watch GUVNA B speak about his time with Swindon YFC at www.syfc.org.uk/guvnab

Taking Good News to young people in Swindon for over 60 years

youthforchristnews

“GUVNAB at Swindon Academy was amazing!!!! Thank you for coming”

700 Young People Hear That Jesus Loves Them

“Absolutely sick concert, loved it!”

“Not gonna lie, GUVNAB was amazing in our assembly, all I’ve been singing

all day is JLM JLM JLM, Legend!”

“Ur too sick, you were amazing

when you came into Swindon

Academy”

Schoolswork Update

We continue to be excited by the growth in opportunities we are presented with by schools and by young peoples interest in the Christian Faith. The ChatRoom is the name for our 5 lunchtime clubs where young people can come and explore the Christian faith with us. Recently at Commonweal one of the boys who has been coming regularly since the start of September, who’s not a Christian, invited his friend to come to lunch club, he told his friend to come because ‘lunch club is fun and you get to do loads of fun games’. His friend came along and I introduced myself to him and told him about what Swindon Youth for Christ was and he was really excited that we were Christians. He then told me that he was also a Christian and he didn’t know that Christians came into his school but that that was really cool. I love the fact that he was invited to a Christian club by his non-Christian friend and that he was really pleased that there was a Christian witness in his school! Another ChatRoom regularly gets 25 students attend and in another we recently gave bible to some of the young people, because they asked for them. A few weeks after receiving her new bible one young girl

told us that she was half way through reading it and had a long list of questions she had written for us to answer for her! We have now begun to work with St Luke’s School, a school for young people with severe behavioural difficulties. The school rang us up to ask us if we could come and help them to deliver their gathering for worship commitment. We spent a few sessions at the school getting to know the students and are now visiting every other week to work with year 7 students. Each time we explore a different topic together such as, dreams, bullying, respect, forgiveness and peace. Through these topics we will share with them what our faith and the Bible says about each thing. Please pray for this wonderful and exciting new opportunity for us and for the students at St Luke’s School.

Fort RockyOn Friday 19th October we had the exciting opportunity to take 9 young people to Fort Rocky a YFC residential weekend that aims to share the good news of Jesus in a new, fun and exciting way. The weekend consisted of outdoor activities such as canoeing, climbing, areoball and the giant swing and special roadshow events. The theme of the roadshows this year was ‘at the movies’ and each roadshow looked at a different genre of film. The first evening looked at ‘action’ and how the bible is a book packed full of action and not boring. The second roadshow looked at the theme of ‘romance’ and how God loves us unconditionally; the third one looked at ‘fantasy’ and how there are two different worlds, our world and God’s world and we have to choose which world we want to be a part of. The fourth roadshow looked at ‘drama’ and focused on Matthew 7:7 and the final roadshow looked at ‘to be continued...’ how each young person’s story will be continued after they leave Fort Rocky. The young people had a fantastic time. At the last roadshow they had a chance to write down something about the weekend; one girl wrote ‘I have had an amazing weekend, I have found out that there are a lot of perspectives to the insight of God. Fort Rocky has inspired me.’ Please pray for us as we continue to share about the love of God with these young people.

The SYFC TeamWe are blessed to have an incredible team this year and would love you to support us all in prayer as we serve together to take Good News to every young person in Swindon.

Chris PriddyCentre Director

Chris DavisonCentre Manager

Laura Rawson Youth and Schools Worker

Amy CoxYouth Ministry Service

Abi Corry in:School Worker (Partnership)

Simon Couzens

Joanne Millar Becky Longbottom

YFCone Volunteers Hello! I’m Becky, one of the new YFCone volunteers. I come from a little village called Cottingham which is just outside of Hull (Up North!). When YFC told me I was being sent to Swindon I was initially apprehensive about it, but you know what? I’m loving it! Having never really done any work with Young People prior to this opportunity, I didn’t really know what to expect and in all honesty I never expected to get accepted onto the YFCone programme anyway. But God has opened this door for me and the opportunities I have been given already have blessed me so much. It’s a real privilege to connect with the young people in Swindon in the way we do, and this experience is already strengthening my faith beyond anything I believed was possible. I’m one of those people who still doesn’t know what I want to do with my life after this year. I like to live each day as it comes with some vague plans for the future floating around in an ethereal manner. If anything this year is already showing me that God has plans for my life and they are going to be epic. Proverbs 16:9 says ‘We plan the way we want to live, but only God makes us able to live it’ and my word is that true! It’s so exciting yet so frustrating but that’s God’s style and it’s amazing. I pray that this year continues to inspire and empower me as I serve alongside the rest of the SYFC team.

Hello, my name is Joanne, I am 20 years old and have three brothers. I have arrived in Swindon from Kirriemuir, Scotland. I attended Strathmore Christian Fellowship and for the last two years I was also involved at Gate Church international in Dundee. I wanted to take a gap year after completing my HND in Music and also decided I wanted to carry on singing, which is my passion. Youth for Christ offer a Worship year out with youth work opportunities and I felt that this was what God wanted me to do. One month later I had applied, been accepted and offered a placement in Swindon! I thought I would struggle to raise the necessary financial support but God provided for me. I am grateful to Him for the opportunity to take a year out and grow closer to God as well as make a difference in young people’s lives. The thing I have enjoyed most during my first term is meeting Guvna B the Christian rap artist and listening to him speak about his faith and hear his songs which are known world-wide. I have learnt a lot already and am excited to see what God has next for me.

Hello, my name is Simon and you can read all about me and my story in the Summer 2012 edition of SYFC news. Available online or through the SYFC office.

IMPACT YEAR 5 The vision for IMPACT is to provide an evening where young people can come together to explore faith through fun, fellowship, teaching and worship. It looks a lot like a church service but it’s tailored to be accessible to and relevant for the young people of Swindon and beyond! This is our 5th year and saw us move to a new venue (Elim Swindon), new day (Sunday’s) and a new time (6-8pm).

The October event was really exciting as 71 young people came – they were queuing to get in! We started the evening upstairs where we served crumpets and hot chocolate and introduced our theme for the year – taken from 1 Timothy 4:12 ‘Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young but set an example for the believers in SPEECH, LIFE, LOVE, FAITH and PURITY’.

The worship was led by the newly formed IMPACT band which consists of a collection of amazingly gifted young people from churches across the town. Simon, Becky and Joanne our YFCone volunteers spoke. Simon helped us to think about ‘not letting anyone look down on you just because you’re young’. Becky spoke on ‘the power of our words and how they affect those around us’ and Joanne shared a testimony on ‘witnessing to our friends’. Each talk was great and significantly impacted the young people as they responded through receiving prayer or by coming forward and taking a starburst whilst thinking of the friends they can witness to. The evening was great and we are looking forward to all that God has for us as a group this year!

Supporting SYFCDid you know you can support SYFC by:

Texting ‘SYFC00 £amount’ to 70070. The text is free & SYFC receive 100% of your donation!

Donating online through our website. By using paypal.com and your debit/credit card.

Giving us your old car using giveacar.com Cars will be collected from you and sold or scrapped and the money sent direct to SYFC.

Selling unwanted items on Ebay and automatically donating the profits to SYFC.

Shopping online using easyfundraising.org.ukOnce registered, when you shop online at a huge range of stores SYFC will receive a donation.

Or simply send a cheque, payable to ‘SYFC’ to SYFCFreepost SCE 15917, Swindon, SN2 1BR

Director’s Notes Bike RideAre you a keen cyclist? We are planning a 150mile fundraising ride that follows the route of the original GWR mainline for the 14-15th June 2013. If you are interested in joining us please contact the office.

SYFC Mobile App - download at www.syfc.org.uk/appHave you downloaded our mobile app yet? It really is fantastic. In the last newsletter we announced that it was avaliable for IOS, Android and Windows Mobile. Sadly due to some technical challenges the IOS version has been delayed. We are still working on it and will let you know as soon as its done.

Youth for Christ Commissioning & Showcase Event The annual National YFC Commissioning event took place on Sat 27th October, Chris Davison took our YFCone volunteers up to Birmingham to be commissioned by the Archbishop of York alongside 80 others for their ministry with YFC around the country. The event also showcased performances by GUVNAB and the new YFC Street Dance Mission Team ‘Stance’. For more information about the work of Youth for Christ in Britain visit their new website www.yfc.co.uk

Rock Solid Clubs

This term we have started running a Rock Solid after school club in Dorcan Academy. It is attended mainly by a group of year 8 boys who used to talk to Chris last year during lunch time detached work. This just shows the value of spending time with young people without an agenda and getting to know them for who they are, as this gives you the opportunity to invite them to more organised groups where they can explore the gospel in much greater detail . This year we are continuing to do lunch time detached work in Dorcan meeting year 7’s in their designated lunch area.The launch of this new club means that we are now running 4 Rock Solid clubs after school every week in Swindon. Through these clubs we have bought young people bibles, invited young people to church, taught them verses from scripture, answered their questions about faith and taken some to the annual Fort Rocky Residential. Exciting stuff!

Pray For Schools : Prayer and Commissioning Event On Monday 8th of October we held our 4th Pray for Schools event at Gorse Hill Baptist Church. People from across the town gathered to pray for the schools & colleges in our area. We heard encouraging stories of work that was being done in our primary and secondary schools and further education colleges. Prayer requests had been collected from pupils and staff from various schools and were written on paper leaves, people were invited to read the requests, pray and to write a written response if they so wished., once they had done this the leaves were hung on our tree so that by the end of the evening the once bare tree had come to life with leaves, each one representing a prayer that had been offered up to God. There was also time for private reflection, and group prayer. The evening ended with the commissioning ‘sending out’, of all those there who were involved in schools in anyway, asking God to take them and use them, to inspire them and energise them and to give wisdom in decision making. It was a good evening lifting up young people and all those who work with them day by day. If you are involved in working in Primary or Secondary schools please look out for next years event and come along to be commissioned for the year ahead.

Has your church signed up to the Swindon Churches Youth Work Charter yet? One of the 7 promises that churches that have signed up have committed to is to pray for their local school. The charter initiative is having a fantastic impact right across town encouraging churches to pray for, welcome, reach out to, disciple and value the next generation. To check if your church has signed up and for more info visit www.swindonchurchesyouthworkcharter.info

Growing Young LeadersOn the 19th October we took the 10 young people who are taking part in our year long Growing Young Leaders Course to Legge House for a 24 hr retreat. During the 24 hours the group explored what different gifts, talents, abilities and spiritual gifts God has given each one of us to use in our different leadership roles. We continue to be so excited to watch this group grow into the leaders that God has called them to be. Their heart and passion for serving Him and their attitude towards leading others is an inspiration to us. We are also really excited to see how God is choosing to

use them now and to think about how He may choose to use them in the future.At the end we asked them what questions they were going to go away and think about, here are some: ‘How can I put what I’m passionate about into action?’, ‘How can I lead in such a way that I use my talents and gifts to help inspire those around me?’ and ‘How can I best use my gifts to benefit others and honour God?’.

Pinehurst ChaplaincyI have been working within Pinehurst for a year now and have grown to love this place. I spend around 10 hours of my working week within the school helping in lessons, doing assemblies, being part of the lunch time team in the faith room, running an after school club and mentoring 4/5 students and a few more hours doing youth work within the community.

The amount of opportunities which have opened up for us over the past year have been numerous and the presence of the chaplaincy team within the academy continues to grow. Last year we contributed 1600 hours of service to the school which equates to a £20,000 monetary value for time and resources.

In October the school invited us to deliver a 2 hour 40 minute lesson on Relationships and Sexual Health. I spent a week tweaking and adding to our LUSH relationships education programme to fulfil their learning needs. We used this time to talk to the whole of year 9 about the importance of respect in a relationship and to tell them a different story to the one they see on TV.

Over the summer we ran a number of projects to engage young people with positive activities. The most exciting one by far was our cooking project. It was attended by young people who otherwise would not have

eaten a hot meal that day. The first week was spent learning about the need for food hygiene and basic cooking skills. The first day was a little terrifying as it became evident that some of the young people had never cut up vegetables before, the first aid kit came in handy for one in particular. On one day we took

the group to a restaurant in town to experience cooking in a real industrial kitchen, something they all enjoyed.

The group then met once a week throughout the summer to learn to cook more dishes and prepare for the summer finale, cooking for 30 of their friends and family. The young people worked tirelessly and managed to cook a three course meal completely from scratch using, 6 camping stoves and an oven! They cooked chicken goujons with a range of homemade dips, Thai green curry and apple crumble for dessert. By the end of the summer all of the young people (and myself included) had become far better cooks, my prayer is that they can take these skills home so that they can prepare meals for their family.

Another summer project was a sports programme which included a range of sports which young people could get involved in. Each session also had a theme for life taken out of the Bible which included looking at how we win and lose and the idea of teamwork.

The Pinehurst chaplaincy wants to launch church for young people in Pinehurst, this is a vision of ours for this year and we would really value your prayer as we search for more young people to get involved. We pray that by Christmas we have a group meeting together to worship God, to spend time together and to pray for our community. With your prayer and support we want to see change in our community and change within the hearts of the young people. Laura Rawson

Trustee Focus : Dave DavisonHi, my name is Dave and I am the Youth Worker for Freshbrook Evangelical Church. I was posted with my job in the RAF to Lyneham in 1994. My wife Chris and I moved into our own house in the November of that year. We had a 2 year old son, Josh and another son on the way. We had moved from North Devon where we had first encountered the work of YFC through the youth work activities that they led at Spring Harvest. There was no local centre in North Devon, but we knew there was one

in Swindon and were keen to find out how we might get involved. Almost the first phone call we made from our new home was to the then director, David Howell, to ask how we could support Thamesdown YFC. We were introduced to the trustee committee and in time invited to join it. Since that time Chris has joined the staff team and I’ve continued to support and work alongside the team in its many different outreach programmes. These have changed in focus and direction over the years as the Lord has guided us but the heart to take the Good News relevantly to every young person beats as passionately now as it ever did. In dark times SYFC continue to bring life, light and hope to a troubled generation and I am privileged to be a part of that.

The work of SYFC is only made possible by the amazing generosity of individuals and churches like yourselves. Could you consider investing in the future ministry of SYFC?

Perhaps you could consider becoming a monthly financial partner or send a special one-off gift now, to help us develop the work over the coming months.

All you need to do is ask us for a Standing Order Form and return it to our freepost address and if you are a tax payer we can claim 20% of the sum donated back from HMRC.

COULD YOU SPONSOR SOMETHING? £25 per month enables us to run 1 School Lunchclub or 1 RE or LUSH lesson or 1 set of Assemblies or 1 Rock Solid Club or 1 support session with a young person in crisis. Why not choose a specific event to sponsor and pray for?

Or Do Something Simple for SYFC and commit to sending us just £5 or £10 a month. This may be simple but has significant impact on our work.

Visit www.syfc.org.uk or call 01793 829795 for a standing order form.SUPP

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PLEASE SEND YOUR COMPLETED FORM TO: SYFC, FREEPOST SCE 15917, SWINDON SN2 1BR. THANKYOU.

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