Youth Worker in the Dengie

A meeting was held on 20th July to discuss the possibility of having a church youth worker in the Dengie area, shared between several local churches.

There was a good attendance, with representatives from many of the local churches from Mayland, Southminster, Tillingham, St Lawrence and Bradwell.

The need for a youth worker was agreed, although there are a lot of questions still to be discussed about what the worker should do, how the finance would be arranged, and which churches want to participate.

A small steering group was arranged to do some more research by looking at similar schemes, and after taking some of the matters raised forward, then call another meeting.

The Steering group has looked at 2 other similar projects. TYPO (the Tiptree Youth Project Outreach) have recently formed a charity are are currently advertising for a Youth Worker. See www.chelmsford.anglican.org/typo.html

The Steering group have held a meeting with the Treasurer from Tiptree, and much valuable information was acquired.

Also a project in North Tendring have been employing a Youth Worker for several years. See www.pyms.org/index.php

Both these projects have been contacted, and they have offered help.

If you would like to register an interest in this project, then please send a response on the Feedback form.

Young people today

They face great pressures, especially when coming into adult life as a teenager and going from primary to secondary school.  

·       All too often they live with broken family connections.

·       They live in a highly materialistic world.

·      New technology makes human relationships shallow.

·       Peer pressure is always present.

·       And not least, “religious education” can serve more to confuse than to help.

That list could be easily lengthened. In comparison to the childhood of most church members (who are often two generations away from these youngsters), the world today is a much more hostile place.

Those same church members also often feel helpless about doing anything about helping the upcoming generation, other than the important task of doing their best for their own family.

The aim here is to spread the idea that the members of several local churches in the Dengie area could combine to employ a Youth Worker who would be qualified and properly authorised to work with youngsters of various ages in the villages.

This is a bold (and some might say foolish) idea. Yet it has been proved many times over in the past 2000 years that God will bless such boldness, when it is in tune with his great love and compassion for the lost.

 What would the worker do?

The first priority for the worker will be to do the work of the church. In Matthew’s Gospel after comparing the crowd to sheep, Jesus then compared them to a field of ripe grain and said the disciples should “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers”.

Note the plural. One worker is not enough! In this case it will be one paid worker, plus a number of unpaid helpers from the churches.
The next step

In order to get this project under way, a small steering group will investigate other similar schemes. Their report will be added to this page.