Woking Urban Saints needs you

As of September '09 Woking Urban Saints will be changing. This past year we have been growing as a group and forming something of a group identity that has been absent in the past but now we are looking to start an ambitious new structure and looking to enlarge our weekly group size by better establishing ourselves in the community and also getting information about the club circulating in the local schools.

Our core team is small but the running of each week is currently within our control, this is a plea for more irregular help:

Talented People:
Do you have a special skill/calling that your group enjoy, or know someone in your church with a passion for skills like drama, dance, circus skills or any artistic/ craft based skills?? We would love to have people from outside our group to come in to take special sessions with the young people and the younger age group in particular have a great love of both performing and creating. It would be up to you what age group you worked with (or even both!) but it would only require the sacrifice of at MOST 1 wednesday evening per half term (if your activity proved exceedingly popular) but we would most likely just need people to give up one wednesday ever to come in and work with our young people.

Youth Teacher:
Have you had a calling to or talent for preaching? Do you have a heart for young people? (Not surprising if you are a part of Urban Saints!). We are content to lead the majority of the teachings but being familiar faces to the young people their minds tend to wander, therefore having other leaders coming in to talk about a particular Bible study, or issue, means that the young people will benefit as much as we wish them to. Again it would be very little in the way of sacrifice and you'd have the full support and assistance of our team, and the topic would be decided long in advance.

More regular leaders:
We currently have a cap on how many people can attend our group due to the small size of our leadership team, and our wish would be to greater establish ourselves in the community and be able to get more young people coming from the local schools. To do this we would have to have more regular leaders. If there is anyone able to come on and help in the overall running of a Wednesday night every week, (or at least regularly) for the younger and/or older sessions we have a very close, supportive leadership group that you would be welcomed into.

Contact:
If you think that you would be interested in offering help in any of the ways listed above or just wish to learn a little more then please contact either myself - Michael or Clare Strong our main group leader:

Michael: Silentmic301@homail.com
Clare: Clarestrong@gmail.com

Prayer:
One final request we could make as a group just finding its feet and setting out on a new path is the obvious: Prayer! The more the better! If you can't make a Wednesday to help us out just find time to Bless what God has done, and bless what we're stepping into for the continuation of the good work that has been done in His name in Crusaders/Urban Saints. At Not Whit camp we excel at supporting and interacting with one another and yet it is very easy to go back and feel very self-enclosed, so knowing we're supported in prayer is a stress relief - but also if any games or activities have been very successful at your group it would be great to share them so that we don't have to choose between playing the same games each week and trying something new that proves a disaster!

Further information:
We meet currently on a Wednesday night from 7 - 830 with anywhere between 15-30 young people 10yrs-17yrs old. One of the main reasons for restructuring is that we have two distinct age groups: 10-12 yr olds and 15-17 yr olds, both requiring different things. The other important reason is to reinstigate the talk aspect of Urban Saints, although recently we have had talks on stranger danger and bullying, we are looking to infuse more of a christian aspect back into our discussion time with the young people.

From September the plan is for the younger ones to come from 7 until 830 as currently, but to have a talk somewhere within the first 45 minutes. From 745 until 915 the older ones will come, with a more in depth and mature discussion time after the young ones have left. The crossover time will be used for our weekly meal with them and most likely some games that they can all enjoy together. We are also planning on implementing a 6 week rolling structure on what we will do each week of the half term, currently in undecided order: - Cookery night, craft night, drama night, film night, games night and free time/social.

Thankyou all for your time

Michael

Urban Saints is the operating name of The Crusaders' Union, a registered charity in England and Wales (223798) and Scotland (SCO39313)