A few lessons learned

Throughout August the Cool Box team went out on The Common every Friday evening, mostly hanging out together, getting to know the area and each other and spotting the occasional teenager. It has been slow. We know there are young people out there but they aren't exactly waving flags to let us know where they are. We have seen a few groups around the fairground and arcades but they seem to change every week. We have remained outwardly confident that with patience the evening will come when we get a chance to engage more effectively but I will admit that inside I was beginning to have a few doubts.

Alongside the actual project I was having lots of fun talking about Cool Box at meetings, creating a newsletter about it, organising the rotas and writing reports. I was enjoying the recognition and attention and wondering privately if this was one big fraud.

It took a rainy, miserable Friday night out to teach me the lesson I should already have learned - this is God's project and not mine. On that evening I lost my nerve completely and missed two or three chances to begin a conversation with a group of young people. I was with a small, inexperienced group who were looking at me for leadership and I totally bottled it. Next day as I wrote up my notes on the evening I was ready to justify what happened in a hundred and one ways: it wasn't the right time, it was too dark, I wasn't feeling great, when it's the right time I'll KNOW. Actually the real reason is more to do with my fear and lack of confidence and that I'm really not at my best approaching strangers!

So a week later we went out again and having realised our, and mostly my, limitations we prayed for the ability to go out in God's strength ...as our own wasn't going to be enough. Maybe you have to be completely humbled and faced with your own ineptitude before you can pray that and actually mean it, I don't know ...but we did have a surprising evening.

Project launch ahead!

So the blog has gone quiet for a while but lots has been happening behind the scenes. For starters three of us have gone for glorious strolls by the sea at sunset in the name of research, just to get an idea of who is around and where they hang out. Then secondly Richard Passmore came up to train the team and gave us a lot to think about and to inspire us. We had 23 participants at the training event, if any of them are reading this I want them to know how touched I was by their support.

As you will see we also have a new, brilliantly designed logo too which will be showing up on ID badges, T-Shirts, stationery and anything else that'll stay still long enough!

This Friday is the official Cool Box launch and we will have a presence on the Common every Friday night this Summer. Please remember us in your prayers!

And then there were two.....

...two churches involved that is!

A meeting with the youth worker from our neighbouring parish lead to the question "Would you mind this becoming a joint church project?" Mind? I could have kissed her!

Right now there is a lot of watching and waiting going on. We are going to go out for a second research walk on Friday but otherwise things won't really take off until the training day in a few weeks. It's time to pray, ponder, take stock and rest a little before the busy times begin.

Our first look

To be totally honest with you last night was a terrible time to have our first wander on the Common, from my perspective. A recurring leg injury flared up during the day and by 5 o'clock, feeling very sore and swollen, I had to admit defeat, go home and put my feet up.

By 8 the painkillers had taken the edge off the problem and I felt I would be ok to have a short hobble around at least, so three of us gathered around a little café table in an almost deserted church to talk about how the project is going and pray before heading out to explore. Amazingly as soon as we piled into the car to drive around our little patch of Common my pain and fatigue went away and I was able to walk further than I sometimes manage on a good day!

After a general look at the area we would be covering from the car window we parked up and set out across the grass to the sea and in the late evening sunshine, when fewer people were out to share the view, it felt like we were very privileged to be enjoying the beauty of creation as the sun set above Southsea. Not that we were the only ones enjoying it of course. We identified two or three groups of young people enjoying the last of the sunshine on the grass as well as a couple of smaller groups of skateboarders and BMXers. It was quieter than we had expected but we hadn't factored exams or the opening night of the World Cup into our numbers.

All in all it was a valuable evening, not so much because of what we learned about the young people but perhaps because we learned more about each other and began to feel like a team. Thank you Father God that you are building this team from scratch and it is amazing.

Getting in training

It's been a fabulous few weeks and looking back on everything that I have got done I'm surprised that I managed to do my day job at all - although the half-term break helped. We now have a designer friend working on the "Cool Box" logo and a training day arranged for in a few weeks' time.

The enthusiasm with which the church has got behind the project is really energising. People of all ages are stopping me after services to ask how things are going, we have loads of behind the scenes prayer support and gradually a trickle of people are coming forward wanting to know more about volunteering. Just a week ago I was concerned that we might only be able to send out a team of 3 each week and now people who I don't know too well are coming forward, which brings with it the need for references, interviews and more coffee drinking! It is a new challenge but one that I am happy to have. A couple of neighbouring churches are also asking for more information and it is beginning to dawn on me that this little idea is getting bigger by the day.

The most exciting development is that Richard Passmore, a real pioneer where Christian detached youth work is concerned, is going to be delivering our training. We have so much to learn from his experiences. You can read about some of them by following the link below.

http://www.sundaypapers.org.uk/

This Friday a small group of us is going out to look around the Common and see who is about. It isn't an official outing, just a reccy, but I am looking forward to doing something practical. I will let you know how it all goes.....

We're all at it!

Meetings seem to feature heavily in the set-up of a project of this kind. Oddly for someone trying to launch a youth project I haven't spoken to a single teenager about this yet, apart from my long-suffering foster-teen who I suspect is humouring me whenever I talk about the Cool Box.

First I had a meeting with the local coordinator of the Street Pastors only to find that they are expanding their project to a pubbing and clubbing street very near to us. She was very encouraging and in turn referred me to the local Salvation Army Citadel who plan on opening up their Community Café on late Friday and Saturday nights soon. Then I had coffee with the youth worker at a church up the road who has been running a youth centre on Friday nights for some time now.

It feels like God has been talking to all of us individually about this area and now we have caught up with him and are starting to talk to each other.

Getting organised

I am constantly amazed at how much can be achieved when God is giving us a good, hard shove. I have done more in a few days than I usually do in months!

In spare moments I am emailing, on days off I have meetings...it may sound like your idea of hell but actually I'm loving it. Before I became a teacher I was a Store Manager and my favourite part of that job was recruitment, team building, training and coaching and mentoring. I hadn't realised that it was something I missed until now.

Tonight our tiny, fledgling team met over a plate of chilli to discuss how things are shaping up and we finished the evening feeling very excited and importantly we have set a date for our first outing onto the common. It will only be a research walk to see where the young people are and how many of them are around but it is a solid, real date in our diaries...this is no longer just an idea.

In search of the two "P"s ...........

.....people and prayer!

The first is a big challenge but I am encouraged that so far at least nobody that I have approached has said no. We are currently a team of four and I am really grateful that even three other people are enthusiastic about joining me on this journey into new territory. OK so we are talking to teenagers on the seafront not circumnavigating the world, but this is still a new concept for our church.

I was given some good advice about recruiting volunteers, that I should be direct and approach the people on my wish-list and just tell them that I want them on my team. This is not my style and I'm not finding it at all easy but this whole project is a "step out of the boat" moment so I should get used to being out of my comfort zone!

Having prayer support for the Cool Box is crucial and seeking it has been central in my plans. As soon as it becomes a secondary concern we are really in trouble. We have some real prayer warriors at our church, in the shape of the Intercessory Prayer Group, and I am relieved that they share my enthusiasm for what we are doing. We also had a prayer station at our Mission Sunday service tonight. In fact praying for each other was a big feature of tonight's service and I was blessed with words of encouragement from several of the congregation.

Those of you reading this who want to add your prayers to ours may like some points to focus on. Right now our main concerns are:

• Finding the right volunteers.
• Arranging appropriate training.
• Finding the right designer for our logo and flyers and a supplier for uniforms and ID badges.
• Finding the right volunteers (Yes, so important it's on here twice!)

More news soon..............

So it began, like most things do, with an idea.

Our church had a vision weekend and a guest speaker encouraged us to think of an unmet need on our doorstep and then to begin to witness to our community by meeting those people at their point of need.

As a secondary school teacher and a member of the church youth team I suppose it’s not surprising that the first thing that came to my mind was a safe place where teenagers could hang out with their friends.You see our church is just a short walk away from a beach, a common and a skate park – all areas where young people congregate in the evenings.

It wasn’t just that speaker who had got me thinking. I had been helping with our Friday night outreach project, the Friday Fridge. Essentially the Fridge is a late night café and chill-out space staffed by church volunteers. It opens from 10.30pm till 1.30am on a Friday night and although it is aimed to appeal to adults in their 20s to 40s heading home from the pub it primarily attracted under 18s in its first year. In fact by 10.15pm a crowd of up to 30 young people would often be sitting outside the Church doors and would impatiently knock if we weren’t open on the dot of 10.30. Most of them had spent the evening with friends on the common but as it became darker and colder welcomed a coffee, a bacon sandwich and a comfy cushion to sit on while they continued to chat. We were basically providing a warm, safe, alcohol-free venue for them. On one particular evening a teenage girl even celebrated her birthday in the Fridge café zone, bringing a cake and telling her friends to meet her there.

As we had regularly prayed that God would bring the right individuals to our door, those who he had selected, I began to wonder if he had had young people in mind all along.

In our Youth Team meetings we started throwing about ideas. So, what if we created a “Portable Fridge” which we could take to the common, the seafront or anywhere else where groups of young people were? What did those young people need? What if we took bottles of water? Doughnuts? A frisbee or kite? Would they talk to us? When it began to get dark and cold would they come back to the Fridge for a coffee and a bacon sarnie? Would they talk to our Christian volunteers and discover they were fairly normal after all?

It looks like we may soon find out.