Church rebuild is youth-focused

Terry Jennings was convinced that kids and youth work were key to rebuilding his church in Hull, and when he teamed up with Limitless Pioneers to launch a youth group, his congregation were right behind him. Chris Rolfe reports.

When Terry Jennings came to Bourne Street Elim in September 2021 he was joining a church that was keen to grow.

The congregation in Hull was emerging from lockdown and recovering from a split during which many under-60s had left, so when Terry suggested rebuilding by focusing on under-18s, the church embraced the idea.

“The vision was to start with the kids church, then move on to youth. Very quickly we started growing in these younger age groups,” he explains.

God helped seed this idea, Terry says, via the church’s links with the Further Faster Network.

“We’d been following their vision of being a church for the unchurched. One of their pillars is to prioritise the younger generation because they’re not just the future of the church, they are the church, so people were already used to me talking about that.”

A couple of years on and the kids work had been established. Now Terry and the team were eager to launch a group for teens. Their early goal was to reach non-church kids and offer something for Bourne Street’s four remaining teens, says Terry.

“I was afraid we were going to lose this group because we didn’t have many young people, so there was a real need.”

Teaming up with Limitless Pioneers would bring the support they needed, Terry decided, so he got in touch.

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