dave
Going Public has given me the opportunity to pursue what I believe God is calling me to do in a creative ministry. They believed in me and encouraged me and in turn helped me to believe in myself. They continue to mentor me today and this source of accountability is invaluable.
I am blessed to be working for a charity who believes in investing in people. I am given room to create and in turn to perform. But I don’t just do it for the sake of a round of applause, or nice comments at the end of a show – I do it, because I am passionate about making a difference in a way that has a positive outcome.
So many young people believe that they don’t add up to much unless they become someone socially acceptable amongst their peers, and so often give up who they are. Sex is a big part of this – teenagers either see it as a points scoring system – the more you do, the higher up the popularity chart you get, or as a quick fix for their desire to be loved by another human being. But we at Going Public, think there’s more to sex than this, we think that teens are selling themselves short of what they truly deserve; a relationship which isn’t centred around sex, but around trust, friendship, love and respect.
I was recently having a conversation with one of the youth from our church. He was telling me of how he had been chatting to a friend of his and Going Public came up randomly in conversation. He retells the conversation…
‘So what does your Dad do?’ She says
‘Oh, he works for a small charity called Going Public, you’ve probably not heard of it’ he said.
‘Oh? Is that with Cath and Dave?’ she asks.
‘Uh, yeah’…he replies, a bit surprised.
‘I thought so…’ She says…adding…’They came in my school and did a play and talked about sex.’
And so they got chatting, she continued to talk about the content of it, how it was about healthy relationships and encouraging abstinence as an option and what she had thought.
It had changed her whole outlook on sex and relationships. It was something she was questioning at the time but after the presentation she felt encouraged to wait. This conversation was 2 years after we went into that school – she was now 16, and though she said…
‘I don’t think I could wait till marriage, that would be too hard!’
Guess what? She was still waiting.