Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Young people communicate God’s love through ice-cream, surfing and socks – Youth Evangelism Fund primes the pumps


From the Church of England-

Young people in Coventry Diocese are about to blend their love for God with their love of ice-cream by opening an ice-cream parlour, to give away ice-creams and host events for young people in the area who fancy a fun flavour of Church life.

Meanwhile, in Chester Diocese a Christian Union wants to run the Sock Project to communicate God’s love to their school using sock puppets, running events and film-based discussions, and performing random acts of kindness in the school lunch hour.

These are two of 84 ingenious new evangelistic projects to receive a pump-priming grant of up to £3,000 from the Church of England’s Youth Evangelism Fund (YEF) in 2009. The fund is supported by the Archbishops' Council (50 per cent), the Henry Smith Charity, the Laing Family Trusts, and the Jerusalem Trust.

Launched in 2006, the YEF grew out of a report presented to General Synod in 2002 entitled Good News for Young People: The Church of England’s National Youth Strategy, which included proposals for a Youth Evangelism Fund. It aims to enable more young people to connect with the Gospel and develop faith within the life of the Church by allowing the young to share faith with friends in ways that make sense to them. Each year for five years, eight to 10 dioceses are receiving YEF support to resource new ideas for mission.

“It’s for young people themselves,” explains the Archbishops’ Council’s Mission and Evangelism Associate Dr Rachel Jordan in the latest Church of England podcast, “to be able to express their Christian faith in a way that is engaging and will help to introduce their friends to the importance of Jesus Christ in their lives.”

More here-

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr9609.html

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