The life and times of 2011

2011 has been an exciting year for youth work at Colchester Road Baptist Church so we thought we would share some of the highlights with you…

On Sunday mornings, FRED has continued to enjoy using Scripture Union Material, while SAS have been watching a video series by Francis Chan called “Crazy Love” In the new year both the video and the book will be available in the new youth library… and you can even borrow from it if you are an adult!


Weekdays, the two eldest girl ypod groups have continued with a happy mix of discipleship, worship and fellowship as they meet together fortnightly. The younger ypod groups have joined together to form Sorted, and we now have a mixed group of 15 young people who meet for an hour of relaxing and an hour of “God stuff”


In the Autumn term we used Rock Solid material for our God time and we had art and craft, computer games, jewellery making, remote controlled cars, pool, table tennis and sitting on some amazing new beanbags…


Which brings me on to a BIG THANK YOU to Councillor Judy Terry, whose grant has let us buy previously the Xbox, table tennis and table football and now… huge bean bags, art and craft materials, radio controlled cars, games, and for the garden project: a green house, Dutch hoes, forks, willow for a fence and dome and seeds.


Over the summer both our older and younger young people had the opportunity to go away. First our year 7-9’s went to Hallowtree for games, learning more about Jesus and of course, having a camp fire.


Later in the summer our year 10 and over’s went to Soul Survivor, which proved to be a real time of blessing with many of our young people discovering a deep relationship with Jesus while enjoying the company of other Christians their age, some of whom were also from Ipswich.

This year we have started a garden club and have been slowly transforming a scruffy plot into what will not only be a garden project for our youth, but will also allow room for church members to have a micro plot in which to grow things (ask Karen for more information). The last job of the year has been to plant a live willow fence and dome on the allotment! We look forward to the spring and growing both flowers and vegetables.


Coffee bar has been going in leaps and bounds this year, with our hard working team of volunteers and ably assisted by our CYM year team person, Josh. We have had a steady stream of young people reaching 240 each week, and for our Christmas special we fed, and shared the gospel with over 350 young people.

This year has also seen an increased participation by our young people in church services. You will have noticed them in the music group, doing readings and helping the youth worker with children’s talks!

The autumn term youth CXP course saw young Christians not only from our church but also their friends from other Ipswich churches joining together to remember the story of our faith and to take time to ask and discuss some of the questions they have about their faith. We intend to meet again in the new year and plan what we do next, so watch this space!


We have also seen the advent of youth social evenings and film evenings, some of which have been “in house” and some of which have been trips out such as the last social of the year, a trip to the cinema to see Puss In Boots.
Our older young people have also had a mixture of their own socials such as starting a knitting club and meeting with the youth worker at Nero’s. We are still planning on having a Christmas lunchtime meal with our 6th formers and returning university students.

We have now had four fair trade shop and café events, which will continue to run once a month in 2012. Our young people are showing a real flair for fair-trading and really enjoying running the shop. The youth worker is enjoying buying and eating fair trade chocolate…


This autumn has also seen the beginning of mentoring work amongst our young people. Karen is at present mentoring one young woman and has another three in the pipeline. Next year we will begin a small mentoring scheme where volunteers, supported by Karen, will begin to mentor other young people.

Out of our relationship with Northgate school via coffee bar, this year we have grown the work we do, starting with a seven week “managing stress” course where young people have come out of there lessons to learn more on this subject with Karen. This proved successful and we have a second, ten week course booked with the school for the new year.


Finally I would like to say a personal thank you to all those who have supported the youth work this year and especially all of you who have volunteered. Your hard work, prayers and dedication have allowed us to see God’s work among our young people and young people in our local community.


Karen Turnbull, Lead Youth Worker