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Aldridge Youth Fellowship
It’s been a year of changes for AYF in a number of ways but God is faithful and we continue to see our
teenagers grow and develop “through friendship, through fellowship to Christ”. It is such a privilege for us as
leaders to be part of AYF and its long history of serving the teenagers of our community – and that community
extends well beyond our church family. Each Friday we welcome anywhere between 90 and 120 teenagers,
many of whom have no previous church connection and come because they’ve been invited by their friends.
Our first big change last year was to settle into our new Church Centre in the summer – and how we love it!
With such big numbers on Friday evenings, we really value the size of the function room and the café is a great
space for milling and chilling. On Sunday evenings we have a cosy group of up to 25 teenagers at the ‘After
Café’ and following refreshments in the café there’s a stampede to the upstairs landing to grab a beanbag or a
space on the luxurious leather sofas for a time of deeper fellowship. We’re so grateful for everything the Centre
offers us.
Then in September we had a change around of leadership. Phil Wilks and Catherine Miller left to be replaced by
Andy and Kate Watson, Chris Hassell and Liam Matthews-Dibbins, making the leadership team 9 strong. We’re
grateful for Maxine Roberts’ input too when we need an extra pair of hands! All too soon, Matt and Becki Emery
announced they would be hearing the patter of tiny feet in June ’15; they stepped down on Good Friday after
some 15 years of leadership and years before that as members. We are so grateful to them for their
commitment and their contributions - we will miss them very much.
During the past year, as usual we’ve had our summer camp on the Gower Peninsula and weekend at Cloverley
Hall. Camp 2014 was particularly special as we celebrated our 40th camp at Pitton Cross!
The Button family, who
have owned the camp site for
all that time and through
several generations of their
family have welcomed us
each year, marked the
occasion for us with the
planting of a commemorative
plum tree.
Our Cloverley Weekend 2015 was led by Mark Castleton and he inspired us to “find our part in God’s story”
through encountering God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As with camp, teenagers gave their lives to Christ for
the first time and others made re-commitments. After camp and Cloverley we’ve set up nurture groups to help
the teenagers on their discipleship journeys. Our dream is that these nurture groups become self-led cell groups
and to see new leaders emerging from among them for the next generation of nurture groups as camps and
Cloverleys go by.
We have so much to be grateful for and thank God each week for our teenagers and the delight that they are.
Do pray for them; the pressures on teenagers today are immense – we want AYF to be a safe haven for them
where they can be the young people God has created them to be, to come to know Him and to develop into
young Christian adults ready for life in the wider world. Pray also for discernment as we seek new leaders for
our team (see the role description on the notice board in church, if you’re interested!)
Andy & Kate Watson, Rob Cook, Al Harris, Chris Hassell, Liam Matthews-Dibbins, Dean Leadon.