So my remit for this post is two-fold. One part involves working with the young people in the church and the other is pioneering work with the unchurched in the community. So far most of my work has been with the former simply because programmes are already there, the young people are accessible and i knew some already. The latter group i knew were always going to be a bit more difficult. Went to a church prayer meeting last night and i asked our group to pray for opportunities to really get connections with young people in the community. Then i had to pop into the leadership meeting at church to say hello. There were about a dozen young people hanging out in the church car park. After i came out of the meeting i went up and introduced myself to a few and got chatting for about an hour. It was cool and really encouraging for me - God is good. It was interesting too cos they got chatting about church - here is one young lads observations of church:

• don't go because i don't need to and its kinda boring.
  
• all the people with money are the ones in leadership and the ones sitting at the front of church.

At the same time though they were really frustrated with their local community because:

• there is nothing for them to do.
• they feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in local youth clubs.
• they feel that people in the community who don't know them don't like them and are rude to them and won't even say hello in the street.

It was interesting for me to listen to that because I've heard it a lot before. I'm looking forward to meeting a few more local young people soon. If your praying for me continue to pray for favour in this because it isn't always easy to walk up to a group of young people you don't know!