CandY at the Diocesan Synod

It was a fantastic day on 12th March when the Diocesan Synod was joined by children and young people from across the diocese for their own exciting sessions based on the same issues being discussed by the adults. Members of the youth council welcomed other teenagers and Emma Pettifer guided a group of children in looking at Future Ministry in the church. As well as creative prayers which helped the children and young people together look at their own gifts and talents they decided what building blocks you need for a church (in addition to those we had suggested such as people, a building, worship, etc they added love and reflection). There was a silent debate for the teenagers which led into discussions about being a Christian at school, taking an active part in serving the church as a young person and sharing your faith with other teenagers. The children drew pictures of their dream church and ran around to different coloured dots to show whether they agreed or disagreed with various statements like “Children and young people should worship with the adults” and “Children should be able to take communion”. As well as all that the children and young people wrote some prayers and prepared some worship for the WHOLE synod who came and joined them in their space. The teenagers went on to discuss topics from a national youth event called the Regeneration Summit when Bishop John signed a pledge including these words:

“We are excited by all the positive work with young people across our nation. We rejoice that so many young people are involved in the life of our Church, yet we yearn for more. As Bishops and Church leaders we pledge ourselves to find new ways to listen to the voices of young people, and encourage them in their Christian walk. We will work to enable young people’s voices to be heard better both within our Diocese and the national Church. We will seek to find new ways to empower young people both in leadership and ministry. We will endeavour to work with colleagues to enable new mission initiatives with young people, and consider if new financial resources can be made available to support these.”

Reflecting on these words and the fantastic day which we had with children and young people from across the diocese, we’re looking at a new start for our diocesan youth council to encompass three distinct but collaborating councils of children, young people and young adults. We would like you and your children and young people to be a part of forming how it will all work and so want to invite you to bring up to four children/young people from your parish to our tea party called CanYou? on Sunday 19th June at St Stephen’s Barbourne in Worcester from 3pm-5pm.