How we have gone from zero to real breakthrough

When Kingdom Living Church had no young people left, prayer sparked a bold step. Now, with Limitless Pioneers, their youth group is changing everything, says pastor Desmond Egharevba

Looking out at the congregation at Kingdom Living Church, Des Egharevba couldn’t see a single teen or child.

It was 2022, the UK was still recovering from lockdown and the Sunday school that had thrived since Kingdom Living was planted had dwindled as families had moved away during the pandemic. Not a single young person was left, so the church brought the problem to God.

“I go for a prayer walk most mornings and one day sensed God was saying we should reach out to young people in our area,” says Des, who has pastored the church in Staines – near Heathrow Airport – since 2009.

“He said he wanted us to do this because through them he would reach their families too.” The church began to pray and sensed God speaking about starting a youth group.

“We had a prophetic word about a girl carrying corn seeds in her dress. Those seeds fell onto the street, began to grow and from them came a harvest of corn.

“We began to claim that picture and believe God for it.”

Without finances to fund their early plan of hiring a youth pastor, Des instead contacted Emma Gaze at Limitless Pioneers. As Emma advertised for someone to help Kingdom Living Church build and train a youth team the church continued to pray. As they did so, Limitless’s Daniel Shillingford felt God speak to him about helping in Staines. It would involve a huge trek across London from Essex each week, but he agreed to work with the church for six months to train a team of volunteers and help them launch their youth ministry.

Des’s youth leaders tell how this training proved invaluable. “Pioneers have a strategy that works – they focus on core values we all believe in and this affects our development – both spiritual and personal,” says Sam Mensah.

“There’s a peace about us that then translates to the young people in our community and church.”

Elizabeth Egharevba adds that the training prepared her to work with non-church kids and boosted her confidence to lead.

“When I first started I was like ‘there’s no way I can lead an Alpha session’ but as time went on I developed the ability and the confidence to do it well; to engage them and make it fun at the same time.”

Kingdom Living’s Limitless group launched in January 2023 and immediately started attracting and impacting kids from the area.

“We have a regular group of seven or eight kids and they’re all from the community,” says Deborah Egharevba. “We start with games like ping-pong and PlayStation, then team games like dodgeball before having a discussion session.

“That’s biblically-based but not as deep as you’d have in Sunday school because none of these guys have a church background.”

Alongside friendship and faith input the group has benefited kids in other ways too, says Des.

“We noticed that some have ADHD and three or four were really disruptive, but over time we’ve seen them become much calmer. They don’t cause problems like they used to and it seems their ADHD has improved when they’re in church.”

The group has had a transformational influence on the wider church too. “Sam wanted to create continuity between the discussions they had at the group and those in church, so we decided to start a family service,” Des says.

“We have it every two months and it’s become our most popular service.

“After worship we’ll have anything from bingo to competitions and questions – it’s exciting! The presence of God is obvious and we all look forward to it.”

The youth have become fully immersed in church life too – stepping up to run the livestream and serve on the worship team, for example – and their involvement and creativity in services has become a gateway to invite their families to church.

“Family members who aren’t Christians come along and fit in easily because services are structured in a way that makes it easy to invite them,” says Des.

And so successful has the group been that when Kingdom Living’s mother church, Chiswick Christian Centre, also wanted to launch a group the Staines team were able to train them and help birth one last September.

Recalling that early prayer walk, Des says God’s message about impacting families through the youth group has clearly come to pass, with more young people coming to church and links built with their families, friends and community.

“It’s helped us create a culture that welcomes young people and their families.

“The culture of the church has been completely transformed and that’s happened through our youth.”

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.