Youth Alpha

“So, like, who is actually gonna be inviting the guests to the course?”  
              “You…”
 

“And, like, who is going to be leading the groups?”
              “You!”
 

“What about the talks?”
              “You guys too…”
 

“So, you mean, that we are actually responsible for like all the course?”
               “Yep. That’s the idea!”

So went the conversation at our recent Youth Alpha training afternoon at Holy Trinity Brompton. We’re running a Youth Alpha course this term on Sunday afternoons before our evening service, and decided to hand it over entirely to our 16-17 year olds to run. We’re taking a group of them to Ghana in October to do some Youth Alpha GATs (Global Alpha Training) and figured it would be a great thing for them to be able to have a good story to tell out there.

We met for lunch together before we did our training session. I think they thought they were turning up to be told that we would be running the course for them, but some were in for a surprise! It didn’t seem to matter that even though we had told them months earlier, and started a Facebook group for them, and communicated (what I thought was) pretty clearly that they were in charge; some hadn’t clocked it!

The training was the Youth Alpha session entitled ‘How to lead a Youth Alpha small group’. Throughout the afternoon the penny began to drop as they realized that we, the ‘adult’ youth team, were very happy to fully support them and prepare them, (Ephesians 4:12 tells of the job of pastors and others “to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up”) but that the rest was up to them.

It was amazing the galvanising effect it had on them. Very quickly they had assigned themselves jobs – worship leaders, welcomers, food, hosts, technical and more – and they even started a Facebook stream between one another of suggested funny YouTube clips that could be used as icebreakers!

The end result was truly wonderful. We ran a big launch party on a Friday night a few weeks ago – a Boat Party on the River Thames (watch out for the next Blog!) – and they brought loads of friends. One of the youth gave his testimony, two others hosted the evening, and when the course started there was a real excitement about what God might do.

Sure enough, the group did an incredible job running the first session. We had 24 guests turn up, enough for four small groups, and on week 2 another 10 more so we had to start a new group! We are only two weeks in as I write this but I can honestly say that the entire course has been led by our youth – not a single leader has made it on stage at any point – and it is so much better for it.

It has been a great reminder to me as a youth pastor that simply because we let them run with it, spread their wings and own the course, make their own mistakes (and they have!), we have seen more fruit than if we had done it all ourselves. We must never go back!

Matt Costley is Youth Pastor at Holy Trinity Brompton, London.