Stories
ALL IN for God, ALL OUT for the world
Creating Meaningful Conversations about Faith, Life and Purpose
Living out the vision to be ALL IN for God, ALL OUT for the world: Sam McKee of Aylesbury Vale Youth For Christ writes,
I feel thankful every week to have my job. As director of AVYFC I get to work with every secondary school in the wider Aylesbury area putting on events for the schools to engage and inspire.
Most of the young people have no faith and have not really thought about the God question. It is simply not something they have engaged with at home or school. Working with the religious studies and philosophy departments to put on events around the big questions of life, faith, meaning, and purpose is exciting and rewarding. All year round AVYFC run humanities programs including Religious Education days, philosophy festivals, focus weeks, debates, and guest speaker specials.
This year we ran 5 debates for different schools with Justin Brierley from Unbelievable, hosting dialogues over God’s existence, whether Christianity is rational or not, and over the value and relevance of the Christian faith. The students are the live audience, and their questions make up part of the event. We have welcomed academics, leading sceptics, and speakers from OCCA to our schools for these events which serve thousands of students every year.
This year we are running Aylesbury Vale Socratic Society in honour of CS Lewis. It is a year-round humanities program where ten speakers will be serving around 3000 students per day per month. In terms of scale, it is the largest initiative of its kind in the country. This will see academics in RE, philosophy and other humanities visit the area schools in 1-hour blocks to speak on their field and take questions from the students before doing a special after-school event. It is a fantastic vehicle for addressing the queries of teenagers and opening avenues of thought that would otherwise probably remain unexplored.
There are so many wonderful discussion and debate platforms out there, such as Unbelievable and The Big Conversation, it made sense to me that this would be extraordinary in a school setting. Invaluable for staff, students, and curriculums, at AVYFC we want to revolutionise discussion of the big topics of life, meaning and purpose for teenagers in the context of education. It has never been needed as much as it is now with the crisis of meaning, cancel culture and echo chambers that teenagers inhabit. Furthermore, our area of the country is a hotbed of different cultures, ethnicities, and beliefs.
By running the work this way I typically see hundreds and thousands of students every week, running several large-scale events in schools each month, with more big programs run each year than anyone else is doing nationally. Even before summer holidays hit, we have 34 large events booked for next academic year across the area. It is set to be the biggest year of its kind, facilitating conversations about faith to around 15000 people.
We are the smallest centre in the UK, so to have this kind of reach is a wonderful story and we are all excited to see how it unfolds. Thank you so much for your support as a church. I truly feel “sent” by you all every week and your prayers and interest in the work make a huge difference.
Our Mission Trip to Kenya
From 27th May to 3rd June 2023 Tim, Ali, Kelly and Ethan Barnett joined Ian and Marcena Dalton as they visited some inspiring work in and around Nairobi, Kenya. Ali Barnett writes about their trip.
On 27th May we (Tim, Ali, Kelly and Ethan Barnett and Marcena Dalton) travelled to Nairobi in Kenya, flying from Heathrow to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Upon arrival we were quickly drawn to the Kenyan people’s friendly, smiley and welcoming dispositions, especially thanks to our young Christian driver, Newman, with whom we would spend much time during the week.
On arrival at Mama Kijiji guesthouse at the Kijiji Resort, which is situated on the grounds of The African International University, we were greeted by several Christians and Ian Dalton, who had flown out before us to do work with The Giraffe Project.
The next morning Newman drove us to ByGrace, a large Christian boarding school for children (many of them orphans) from the slums of Nairobi, where we were greeted with warmth and respect. We were struck by their gracious, gentle manner as we joyfully joined in the Sunday Service with children, staff and others involved with the organisation of our trip. Amongst these, were Dr Stephen Mbogo, International Leader for the Christian organisation ‘African Enterprise’ and his wife, Rosemary, Professor at The African International University.
We were moved by the beautiful worship, led by the teenagers, and it was clear to see that every young person in the hall loved and was filled with gratitude towards their Lord Jesus. Ian and Tim were blessed to encourage our brothers and sisters from God’s word and pray for the young people. The staff at ByGrace showed great hospitality and many of us, adults and children alike, enjoyed fun, fellowship and amazing views as we hiked up the Ngong Hills together.
We were privileged to spend time with the Mbogos, who are selfless servants of God and Founders of ByGrace School. They are known as ‘Mum and Dad’ to the rescued slum children living and studying there.
Over the course of our trip we visited three schools ByGrace, Tumaini (in Mathare slum) and Green Pastures (in Kibera slum) where we Barnetts, had the joy of presenting CBR UK’s You Are Amazing lesson to 600 children. We taught on the value of human life from conception and included a video of an 8 week old baby growing in utero. The children’s eyes widened with wonder as they learned of God’s love for every human being made in His image. The teachers were also delighted in the lesson.
Tumaini School students performed wonderful African dances, songs and dramas for us and we were glad to leave gifts at all three schools of clothing, stationery, footballs, wool and baby stuff (donated by friends, neighbours and family).
Ali had the joy of hearing from and encouraging some teen Mums, who, thanks to ByGrace, had been given an opportunity to continue with their education. Kelly taught girls to crochet and Ethan played football with the boys! Venture Church donated towards a new floor in ByGrace’s Chapel and we saw men at work and even sieved some sand for the cement mixture. Tim shared at The African University about The Sanity of Belief by Simon Edwards and 50 copies were gifted to them. We were blessed with gifts from the ByGrace Community.
Glory to God for this wonderful opportunity to serve, spend time with and learn from our humble, beautiful Kenyan brothers and sisters. We hope to revisit them in the future!
Writing my own “Rule of Life”
In the summer term of 2023 Venture Church ran “Rule of Life for All of Life”, a SatNav Journey which offered participants the opportunity to create their own personalised ‘Rule of Life’ to strengthen their relationship with God and help them steward their bodies, key relationships and their purposes. Cameron Potts caught up with Lois Fergusson, a member of the church family who attended the course.
Why did you sign up for this particular SatNav journey?
I signed up to Rule of Life for All Of Life because there can never be a bad time to think about how to be more intentional about our habits and how to develop those habits to be more deliberate and God-honouring. Personally, I’m pretty outcome and output focused and I enjoy seeing the bigger picture, so having an external impetus to look at my processes and think about what might appear to be small habitual changes was helpful.
SatNav journeys are usually six weeks long with a mixture of online and in-person sessions. Tell us about a particular highlight.
For me, a highlight was learning about the root of the word “sloth”!
Go on…
“Sloth” doesn’t mean “doing nothing” but is rather about spending time on things that don’t matter. For me that helped form a foundation for thinking about both focus and sabbath, for instance when you contrast the notion of “doing things that don’t matter” with “rest”, which is deliberate, God ordained, refreshing and restorative. It changes your perspective a little!
Oh, and the group pilates session in the garden! Such a beautiful setting for some physical exercise!
Since finishing the course what impact have you noticed that Rule of Life has already had and what do you hope might continue in the future?
From the start, the course has helped me to consider whether things that I am doing or spending time on or even eating are genuinely deliberate or just ‘automatic’ or ‘default’.
For now, I’m trying to finish off my written up Rule of Life – a single page summary of what I want to implement as a framework in my life, a trellis to direct growth – and start to implement that.
For the future, I hope it will serve as a point of reference in the coming year and a tool that enables me to experience God more in daily life.
What would you say to someone considering taking part in a similar SatNav journey in the future?
You should do it! I found the content itself excellent and it was encouraging not to do it alone. The mixture of in-person and online content helped make it feasible to fit around family life.
Thanks so much Lois!
You can find out more about The SatNav Series here, and keep your eyes peeled for information about our next SatNav journey, which will be coming in February 2024.