paul
Over 20 years ago I was sat at home on a rainy Tuesday afternoon flicking between channels.
I still don’t know why I did this but I stopped flicking as I came across a documentary about a poem competition. The competition was to encourage young people to write poems. The winning poem would be printed in the Guardian and the BBC would make a documentary about it.
The theme of the poems was water. And the winner was a 17 year old teenager from Liverpool who wrote her poem about the Mersey river.
I sat watching the television mesmerised by this poem.
It was nothing short of prophetic.
For it captured the angst of teenager years, the pain of rejection and the utter devastation of wrong decisions made in regards to sex. The poem was called The Seduction and is now part of the English syllabus. I think I cried as I watched it and I simply heard God say that I was to start doing something to help this broken generation.
So a year later with Martyn Joseph, Trapdoor Theatre Company and Joy Crawley (now Watson) we set off on a national tour around the UK. Over 12,000 young people came to 12 presentations.
Our message was simple: There is a better way to live. The broken can be healed. The hurting restored. And those in chains set free.
From that point the project took off. We did more national tours but our schools work ministry also started and we spoke to tens of thousands of young people about sex and drugs.
From the start creative arts were high on our agenda. It is such a positive vehicle that can speak into lives in a way that no other format can. However, at the time, it had such low value in the local church and so was rarely used.
I wanted in some small way for Going Public to help change this and so our gap year programme started.
And what a journey.
We now have a wonderful missional training team that spend a year alongside gap year students. We have invested in so many lives over the years. People who have gone on to make a difference in the local church through youth work, creative arts, children’s work, administration and so many other ways.
I am thankful to God for the wonderful people I have had the pleasure of serving over the last 20 years. I am constantly humbled and challenged by them. May the impact of these people in society increase and may we see God’s Kingdom come on earth as in heaven.