Designed By St Ediths
Sea Mills
Project Type: Single Church
Project Area: North
Project Address:
St Edyth's Church
Avonleaze
Bristol
Postcode: BS9 2HU
Website: http://www.stedyths.org.uk
Project History & Affiliations:
St edyth's Church (Church of England) was built in the 1930s when the surrounding suburb of Sea Mills was also built. The area was built as a garden suburb, and was well respected and looked after. Over time, however, the area has become one in which there is feelings of insecurity and fear due to an increasing number of local families and local young people who cause disruption, commit crime and unsettle the community.
Our desire through this project is to engage with local young people and help them to find purpose and meaning in life, and to help them know and experiance Jesus' love.
The Church itself consists of about 120 people on a sunday, of which about 35 are under 18.
We are an evangelical church with a desire to engage with our community and help others know about the love of Jesus.
While we have an established youth work within the Church, this project has begun because of our desire to reach out to the local young people and to express Jesus' love and care for them. Hence while the role will consist of some work with the young people in the Church, the emphasis of the project is on reaching out to the unchurched young people in the local area.
Structure & Vision of the Project:
We are looking for someone who will be able to head our outreach with the young people in the community. While we have other willing helpers, the youth worker will be the leader of this team and will need to have the appropiate skills to entuse others and make the work happen.
As curate at St Edyth's, Edward Huxley will be the line manager for the youth worker and will be involved in some of the work. A leadership team includes the Vicar, Rev David Izzard, and a member of the congregation.
About the location of the Project:
Sea Mills is a suburb on the west of Bristol. It is predominantly residental, with a very few shops, a community centre, libary, and three Churches (Church of England, Methodist and independent Free).
See above for more details about area.
About the youth work of the Project:
St Edyth's has an established youth ministry within the Church, and is seeking to build on this work by expanding it to reach out to the local community. We are therefore looking for someone who can lead us in establishing relationships with the unchurched young people in the local area, and who can also take on the role in leading the work with the young people in the church (12 -18 year olds). Some efforts are being made towards the outreach, and in partnership with another local Churc we are beginning to make some connections, but we are keen to further these and involve more people from within the church.
The emphasis of the work that we would like our youth worker to carry out is therefore twofold:
1. Work with the unchurched young people of the community. The cheif emphasis of this will be to lead a team in detached work in the community and to build on relationships and links already established.
We envisage that this element of the work will involve the formation of the detached team (there is some momentum behind this, and currently about 5 willing volunteers, but we need someone who can push it forwards and make it happen), starting up a drop-in centre within the church building (the small-ish crypt has been renovated for this purpose), and walking the streets with others to chat to the young people in the area and form positive relationships with them.
This work is likely to involve building on contacts made during our recent mission, and being invovled in the leadership of a Youth Alpha course.
Similar work to this is happening at another Church -Highgrove- with the involvement of some of our youth team. We see these two projects as complementary, and currently members of our youth team help out at their drop-in night.
In addition, this will involve building on links which we have with the local community. This is likely to involve occasional involvement with other groups and clubs which run during the week such as the Youth Bus, the boys and girls club, crusaders and the youth action group.
2. To join the leadership team of the continuing youth work within the Church.
the youth group currently meets on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings and has a small team of volunteers who lead it. It is envisaged that you will take on a leadership role within this group with the others, and be involved with leading sessions and encouraging and teaching the young people within the Church.