Video for June 12th, 2025
Bishop Richard: Hello everyone and welcome to this week's video. This is the 250th video since I've been here. I'm not sure where the time has gone. This video is released the Thursday before Trinity Sunday, and I'm sure you'll be delighted to hear that I'm not going to give you an extended meditation on the Athanasian Creed.
You know, that's the one that talks about not one incomprehensible, but three incomprehensibles. Please see the BCP for further details. This distinctively Christian understanding of God's nature puts relationships at the heart of the universe. We know that all mission starts with relationships. They're the bridges over which the gospel travels into people's hearts.
Research a few years ago showed the vast majority of adult Christians made a commitment to Jesus Christ before they were 25. Work with young people is thus of vital importance if we are committed to helping them to become followers of Jesus. So this week, I've decided to ask Lizzie Hackney and some of her team to tell you a bit more about our Youth Hubs project, which is all about building bridges with young people and helping them find faith.
I asked the team to share the vision that lies behind it, what they're doing practically in its early stages, and to tell you how you can support it. It's going to run over the next five years. I hope that you're inspired, inspired by what you're going to hear next.
Lizzie Hackney: Thank you, Bishop Richards, for having us share with you. The vision behind the Youth Hubs is to be able to provide youth ministry and the support for local churches and growing fresh expressions of church for young people that enable every young person in our diocese, whatever age they are and stage of faith, to connect with something that really helps them.
And that's led to us growing this wonderful team that keeps growing as we generate more funding from the national church and from other funders that help us to do just that. So in the early stages, Heather is really key. Heather's our Youth Hub coordinator. And, Heather, tell us what happens in these early stages as we begin our youth hubs.
Heather Martin: Yeah, well, it will look different depending on the different context. So for each of those initial hubs starting, it will look slightly different. But initially it's really about connecting with the local church, connecting with local clergy as well as laity, schools, other agencies, council, and just really understanding the context in which we're trying to reach young people.
Lizzie Hackney: That's right. And it's a hub and spoke model. So we particularly think about Putting a resource like youth pioneers, like Ed and Nick and youth and community workers like Codie, in a place that works for young people, where they gather, but also using all the resources we have, like with our intergenerational church enabler, Kathy, and our chaplains and our intergenerational missioner, Beckie, and all the people who are out there already to join local churches to that resource, so that even if you're not where the youth pioneer is or the youth and community worker, they and the wider team can support you wherever you are.
Codie Jones: In Leominster, we're definitely experiencing that. A lot of our youths have got more anxiety than ever. They've had a hard couple of years with COVID Technology is bombarding them with loads of information that they've never had before. So they need to kind of have someone or somewhere that they can experience all of these but feel safe, that someone will always be there to support them.
Kathy Bland: We've got a lot that we can offer in, in terms of building relationships with young people. Offering reinsurance and continuity of care and faith offers a lot into that hope of Jesus as well.
Lizzie Hackney: We think that there is a way that everyone in our diocese could support if they would like to.
Heather Martin: And the first one is prayer, which we value above all the others. So we want you to think about how you can be praying for young people, whether they're inside your church walls or outside your church walls, in your community.
The second thing is people. So do you feel called to working with younger generations, with young people, children, families alike? f you feel that you are, or you'd like to discern that further, then do get in touch with your local church, with your local youth hub or one of us on the team as well.
Then there's place, whatever it might be, is there a way that you, as a church or as individual, can create a place for young people to come and dwell?
And then the fourth is pounds. So are you able to financially support the work of the Youth Hubs project? We might have funding nationally, but actually it all really depends on the local church and we want the local church to be really invested in this project and in engaging with younger generations.
Lizzie Hackney: The extra three. The first one is protection. So how can we create safeguarding culture in all our churches? So you can support us by making sure that your church is safe for young people? You can contact our diocesan safeguarding team. We also have a wonderful person called Karen who is working with the Youth Hubs around safeguarding to enable our churches to become safer. You could do a safeguarding audit as well. That would be really great.
Also publicity. So it's all about how we get the word out there for young people, for their families to know about the opportunities. So putting things on social media by word of mouth, telling people about the stuff that's going on and about the opportunities.
And lastly, partnership. So although individuals can get involved in the hubs, you might be part of a local community group, you might have a particular interest group that might want to partner with your local hub. So think about how you might partner with us as we work together with all that God is calling us to.
Bishop Richard: Well, thanks very much, Lizzie and the team for all the work that they're doing now. I hope you enjoyed hearing a different set of voices this week for this special 250th anniversary edition of the video. Before I go, we do need to thank the church commissioners who are largely funding this project in partnership with our diocesan funds.
I hope you'll pray for this work to grow and flourish over the next few years and that for many young people will discover that God is for them and that in relationship with him they find love, acceptance, forgiveness and a purpose in life to change the world for Jesus sake.
You can find out more about the Youth Hubs Project here.