It’s encouraging to see how the group is growing

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 onto 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.

Limitless team member Josh Daniel came to recruit and train a team of leaders alongside Terry and his wife Debbie. By September 2024 they were ready to go.

Why do it?

“It’s funny how God works, because our initial motivation for starting actually ended up having no impact.

“As we looked to gather a group, two of those four kids we were aiming things at had left when their family moved area. Then the others got jobs. Instead, one of the youth leaders, Femi, who’s quite an evangelist, got talking to his neighbours and found six young Christian teens who wanted to join a youth group. So we started with them. They brought friends, then some of the older ones from our kids church became old enough to join too. We were up to 10-12 kids after 12 months.”

Terry was also keen to reach non-church kids, so the group’s two main leaders, Ade and Ayo suggested organising football and a picnic in a local park as outreach.

A handful of kids connected with the group as a result, but brought with them a new challenge for the leaders.

“Their language and behaviour is very challenging – they don’t listen and they leave before the talk,” says Terry. “But we decided as a team that we’re open, we’re here for them and we’re just going to serve them.

“If they get too boisterous – and they do most weeks – we ask them to leave, but we make it clear we’d love to see them again and they come back every week.”

Ade and Ayo have been brilliant at handling the situation, Terry says.

“They’re such an encouragement. When we have difficulties they don’t see it as a bad thing. They have a pastor’s mindset that they’ll just welcome these kids and are simply glad we have unchurched people coming along.

“We learned in training how important it is to bring our best, so however tired we are, we all come hyped up and excited and it makes a ton of difference.

“I won’t lie though, as soon as it’s over, I’m ready for bed. I’m too old to be a youth leader!”

The congregation’s support for the group has been fantastic too.

“The whole church is behind it because they understand the significance of having a thriving youth group,” Terry says. “We regularly pray together for our teens on Sunday mornings and because we’re in a very deprived area the church gave a love offering so we could take a big group to Limitless Festival last summer.

“That was amazing – we normally take half a dozen but we had 22 including leaders this time!”

What’s next?

Asked how he would like to see Bourne Street’s youth work develop in the next year and beyond, Terry has three ideas in mind.

“We have these unchurched kids coming along and they’re obviously talking to their friends because we had two one week, four another, then six, sometimes eight.

“It’s slow and steady growth and Ade, Ayo and I would really like to respond to what God’s doing there.”

Another big goal is to integrate the youth group into the rest of the church to create a more intergenerational congregation.

“I talk a lot about parenting and grandparenting in terms of our spiritual walk and discipleship and that has encouraged the whole church to get behind the group.

“Because of our history it’s important to make sure no age group feels left out and that everyone has a role to play. We’ll maybe start with youth sessions during the services a couple of times a month and take it from there.”

Then, longer-term, Terry’s aim is to build on the kids church and youth group with students work.

“That’s one for the future, but I see how it could develop through our youth.

“The great blessing is that they’re all young at the moment. That means we should have around five years with them, then my hope is we’ll have junior leaders ready to do student work by the time they’re 16 to 18.

“It’s so encouraging to see how the group is growing and how the church has got behind this vision for kids and youth work. I’m excited to see what will happen next.”

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