14th July 2024 All Age All Nation Service - East to West

We give thanks and for all that you're going to do. Lord, we

want a partnership with in prayer, in your spirit, Lord, and in

the natural two So Father, as we hear from them, Father, I

pray that you stir our hearts for your glory in Jesus name. Amen,

yeap over to you guys. I want to do the techy bit first,

No, I'm hoping that that work. Thank you so much for inviting us

to come today, and thank you so much for joining us online as we

kind of share with you our heart for working with young people. And before

we even get into the nitty gritty of what East West do, I'd just

like to share personally what privilege it is to walk alongside young people at some

of the hardest times of their lives. And isn't it amazing that when God's

people walk in stuff happens, and the way that young people are willing to

open up their lives to us to share with us such sorrow and such pain.

But in that moment God comes in with his wisdom, with his healing,

and sometimes with his silence, just to sit along side. So I'd

love to share. I don't know if you've got the PowerPoint I'm not going

to go too much into all of it's there. If you're interesting figures,

there's a lot of figures. I know some people are. But as has

just been mentioned, we've grown. We've grown quite a lot to see the

boiler room days. So we've been going out for twenty seven years. I

can't quite believe that I haven't worked with these to us for that long,

but I've worked alongside them with different charities and always be drawn to what they're

doing. Primarily we work in schools with young people, but we also work

now in GP surgeries and also into Peter's Hospital. And Karen, who isn't

here to I think she's over in Dallas today, very nice, probably sleeping

at this time of the day, so might not be joining us online.

But she's one of our amazing volunteers who comes along and works with us with

the young people. So what's been at the forefront of all that we do

is walking us alongside young people and their families who are experienced well being and

mental health need. So we support them in that We do this in a

relational way. So we think this is very biblical. You know, Jesus

walked alongside Jesus put people to walk alongside, and that's what we do.

That when you explain to people, what do you do, Oh, we

chat to young people. We walk alongside. It doesn't really sound that dramatic,

but you know what it is, and it has such an impact.

So if you're right to see the next this is what we're doing at the

moment. Say so. We have relational support workers in primary stores, we

have early intervention in primary. We now have a team of counselors across primary

and secondary school. We have the hospital and the Social Prescribing Project as well,

And that's about meeting us, going to where young people are. I

think so often we expect people to come to us, don't we. But

again, what I loved about when you read the stories of Jesus, he

got in the mess. I think, you know what, I think he'd

be in the A and E departments if he was here today. I don't

think he'd mind the mess and the noise and sometimes the language and all the

who are that's going on there? And he'd sit in that mess and he'd

just bring that element of peace. And I pray that's what we do for

our young people. So our impacts so this is just in a small area

is and this is our impact up to the end of last month, which

we hadn't gone through all of the exam season then, and as we know,

exam season does have an impact on our young people. We've worked with

one seven hundred and forty four individual young people and delivered over fourteen thousand sessions

with those young people. And interestingly, which I'm sure will be no surprise

to any parent or anybody that works with young people, anxiety and self esteem

top of the list. I wouldn't just say it's young people. Actually,

if I'm being honest, anxiety and self esteem can still affect me today and

it's that underpinning who am I, what's my place? What's my worth?

And being able to stat into young people's lives and just had that moment of

clarity when they ah, that could be what I've been put on this earth

to do. Oh, that's my joy, That's what brings me pleasure.

So this is kind for those that like stats. This is the status of

what we do over the heart of the East West Project. But narrowing down

just to the product at Saint Peter's. In Saint Peter's we do what we

consider to be crisis care. The NHS does not, but we consider it

to be crisis care. So we work with young people from age seven up

to age twenty one that have been admitted to any due to self harm,

due to attempted suicide, due to anxiety. And we know that of young

people that are going through that is only going up and being able to sit

with them in that place, give them a space, give them a chance

to be heard, makes a massive difference. What we then do is we

work with them when come home and we offer them ongoing support because that we

find is when the change happens. So our tagline, if you like,

when you ask earlier, what's our hashtag, it's hope, bringing hope to

young lives. So how we do that, as I say, is walking

alongside. And we've found from years of experience that taking time to build those

relationships with themselves, with their families makes a massive impact on their lives.

We focus on the young person who they are, not what they've done.

I come from and being a prison chaplain and from that background, you definitely

do not focus on what people have done. You focus on hope and what

their future holds. For some young people, they're very aware of the reasons

that have brought them to any very very aware. For others, it was

a moment, and what we want to do is to bring hope in the

darkness and despair, Hope in the horrible reality of their experience, Hope that

there may be a way through how they are feeling to find a better place

and a brighter future. Our key is always hope, and for me as

well, it's the hope that this is today. Like we said at the

beginning of the service, there's a new day coming. This is just how

it feels in this moment, and there's a new day coming. So a

few little stats again from our hospital project. So over the last year we've

supported one hundred and twenty nine young people in A and E. That's just

in our local A and E in Saint Peter's. And of those eighty three

young people had follow ups that's when we worked with them for a period of

time afterwards. And what astounds me every time is that when young people reach

out for that help and they have those follow up sessions, they don't end

up back in A and E. So of those eighty three, none of

them ended up back in A and for the same reasons that they were admitted.

So a lot of hours spent two hundred and sixty hours spent in A

and E five hundred and eighty one working with them in the community. But

what privilege it is to oble to do that. I think Sacy's going to

share one or two stories of young people because I think we need to actually

bring this to life now and see what the impact is. Yeah. So

I've been part of the hospital project now for a year ish and I've had

been very privileged to be able to go into the hospital and meet a lot

of these young people, and so I just wanted to share a few things

that I've experienced some of the young people I've talked to. And I think

one family I should say that stands out in particular is we went in and

this young person was in the hospital, and she was in the hospital for

quite a long time. So our team got to see her on several occasions,

got to play games with her, we got to chat, and in

that sense just bring hope and kind of she wasn't in the hospital for any

kind of great reason, so just being able to sit with her for an

hour or sorry, play some games, talk about life and when she wanted

to talk about what the future would look like and the help and supports she

would like to see for herself, but also in that space being able to

actually connect with her family and her sister as well, who was herself quite

taken by what was going on. And so the way this developed was that

because we saw them so many times, we began building a relationship not just

with this young person in hospital, but actually with her family as well.

And when it came to this young person moving on from the hospital, the

family reached out and asked, actually, this has affected up the sister really

quite a lot. Is there anything you can do in terms of supporting her.

So we agreed to meet up and have some sessions out in the community

as we do like follow ups, and just you know, talk to her

through what she was going through and actually put some support in and just give

her space where she could feel heard as well. And you were talking as

well about this bringing hope. There was a different young person that came to

mind. Again. I saw this young person with one of our team members

that might actually have been Karen. Anyway, we met the young person and

mum in the hospital. Yeah, and they asked for follow up as well,

so we agreed. When we started meeting up in the community, went

for coffees and stuff like that, and I think it was the second time

meeting this young person. The young person showed up and was just you can

just see the whole demeanor was life is just nothing's going right, just really

really said, really heavy, there's nothing good. And that was the word

that was coming out of this young person's mouth as well, it's nothing good,

there's no hope, no thing whatsoever. And then we sat and we

spoke, and we spent some time just looking into well, what actually does

bring you hope? What is it that you do enjoy? And we came

back to music. Music was something that this young person really seemed to have

a passion for, and we kind of boiled it down to okay, well

what is it about music? And we got on to the point of,

well, this young person would really like to learn how to play the guitar.

And through our session you could see this young person just I mean,

you should have been there. It was quite quite the change over this hour

we were set sing for. But as a young person came to me meeting

in a coffee shop was completely down to leaving the session feeling so uplifted,

so hopeful about wanting to go home, wanting a mum to help find a

guitar, and learning some chords. By next time the young person would see

me, it was really quite significant, something that stuck with me. So

it's nice to see and be able to be part of something that brings hope.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. But one last story, if I'm allowed,

very good. So there's a young There was a young lad. And

often we don't see boys in A and E for self harm, but there

was a young lad that I saw in A and E and it was one

of those days that was just particularly loud. There was no seat for him,

so my first job was to try and find a quiet room where he

and I could sit, and bless him, he didn't. We sat there

for forty five minutes and all he needed was to sit in silence because life

was too busy, and I realized that actually filling that space with words was

really unhelpful. So I had to do the most awkward thing and sit in

silence without even playing on my phone for forty five minutes and just internally just

pray, just pray, for this boy, which meant that he stayed in

A and E, which meant that he got the help that he needed.

And then, like Ceci said, met him to do follow up work,

and he through the journey worked out that he really wanted to become a mechanic,

but because he'd done not so great shall we say, at school,

he didn't think that was an option. But we managed to find him an

apprenticeship. And every now and then he messages me and I think, oh,

no, what's gone wrong, But no, it's to tell me and

to show me his latest certificates, latest achievement. And then it just amazing

to be able to celebrate with young people as well. And now he's in

a much better place. And I dared to ask him about that really awkward

forty five minutes and I said to him, what did that actually do?

Because I thought, I'm not going to lie that really awkward, And he

said, the brilliant thing is you sat there, and he said, if

you imagine I am an iPhone and you are the charger, I could use

you to charge me, to be like, to pull the strength from you,

even though no word was said, so that then I could go and

get the help and support I needed. Isn't that amazing that to just sit

quietly in prayer and wonder what on earth God is doing? And then you

realize that that gave him the strength to be able to go and get the

help. So amazing. So our real prayer for our young people is Jeremiah

twenty nine, verse eleven. For any of the plans I have for you,

declares the Lord, not whispers. The Lord declares, The Lord plans

to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope

and to give you a future. And we know that this was spoken over

people when they're in exile, and our young people often feel that they're in

exile, that they're abandoned, that they're alone. But in that moment,

God says, I've got a plan for you. It's not going to harm

you, it's going to prosper you. And this is the prayer that all

of our team go into when we meet with young people. So we we

love it. The Karen volunteers for us. If anybody else would like to

that is local, please come and see us and please pray for us.

We've got some info at the end if you want to come connectent about us,

but thank you so much for partnering with us, standing in the mess

with us. Thank you. They're all the kind of things we want to

run away from. If you are out to be giving up second time now,

A long time in the coffee shop. I know you like coffee,

but yes, and I believe you told me it was eight or nine times,

twelve Sorry, I'm okay. Twelve times she turned up, sat in

the coffee shop waiting for this young lady to turn up. When she eventually

turned up, she said, I was sitting outside every time, just seeing,

just sitting whether you turn up. Because people give up on people in

church and people listening at home, don't give up on those people you're praying

for, on those people you're trying to reach, on those people you're trying

to touch. If you run out of yourself, that's the time you need

to run into God. When you say, Lord, I've got no more,

I've got no more energy to give. I want to give up right

now because some of what these guys are doing is changing people's lives. But

that's not just for east to west. That's for God's church, and that's

part of what he wants to inspire us to do. Yeah, okay,

so I'm just going to give a short children's address today, building upon our

series of dealing with the unseen. Interesting I hadn't really kind of registered and

you put that list of things. A lot of the stuff that we deal

with in life is unseen. It goes on inside here and inside here.

And as you said, Claire, it is very very messy. Who likes

mess? Anybody like mess? And we don't. We like order, don't

we? But you know what, let's press into this. So I want

to talk a little bit, just very briefly about taking steps of faith.

And actually I'm going to do the memory verse now. So Church for the

we do a memory verse every week, so I know this is part of

the notes. You don't need to turn that are in. We have a

memory verse every week, and last week it was he Brews Chapter eleven,

verse one. And for everybody who remembers the memory verse, and you don't

have to be in here last week, if you know he bruised eleven,

verse one, then you'll get a chocolate. So does anybody remember he bruised

eleven verse one? Oh? Hands leaping up row? Okay, Norman,

let's go with you first, then friend, okay, pretty good sum anybody

else? Lots of chocolate's going out now, I can see the east,

the west, hands going in Spaniel. Amen, anybody else, hope?

Okay, Elizabeth in a moment getting to you brilliant Okay. And we're getting

different translations here as well. Oh you're digging for your favorite, aren't you.

Elizabeth. You're gonna have a go good and the substance things stop seeing

go on. Thank you for having a try. Anybody else? Did I

miss anybody? Okay? The reason I wanted to do that before we got

to the notices was because that's my first scripture, so I didn't want to

give you any revision. If some of you can tell him, I was

a teacher by eleven verse one. We know this well. So dealing with

the unseen, I want to talk about having a bigger picture. Anybody being

to the National Portrait Gallery. Yeah, it's a beautiful place and some lovely

pictures on the wall. And there are some pictures that are so big they

wouldn't fit in your house. Their enormous pictures. Now, when that artist

started painting that canvas, what do you think their picture was? Do you

think they had an idea or did they start in a corner and they just

built. When Michael Angelo painted the ceiling, you know, did he have

the whole picture in mind or did he just have a little bit of detail.

I'm going to ask you whether you know one person in this room should

recognize this building? Does anybody else recognize this building? It's in the village

Julia and I used to live in. This is the high street of Cookham

and this is a Stanley Spencer gallery. Now Stanley Spencer was an artist.

He lived in cook And most of his life, and it was a Christian

and he wanted to put Christ in the center of his community. Now,

Cookham has a regatta every year and he painted started a painting called Christ Preaching

at the regatta in Cookham. I'll show you a picture of it. It's

on the wall in the actual museum. You go, here's the actual picture.

Here's the actual picture. Okay, now here's the point you're looking at

it going. But it's not finished. It's not finished because he didn't finish

it. He never got around to finishing. But do you know what,

you can see evidence of things to come. You can start to see the

bigger picture, and he took his real world. These are some of the

boats that would have been part of the cook and Regatta, and he put

Christ right in the middle of it. And I want you to imagine your

bigger picture. Whatever's in your world, whatever you do, wherever you go,

is your bigger picture that you're taking Christ with you. Think about.

I'm going to ask you to close your eyes for a few moments. Now,

those listening at home, those listening later, those listening in the room,

I'm going to ask you to close your eyes. I'm going to ask

you the picture somewhere else, not Virginia Lodge or not church, not even

your home. Somewhere you go to. It might be a place you go

meet people. It might be a place that you work, It might be

a place that you do some voluntary work. But think about a place,

a destination you go to. And I'd like you to imagine sitting there,

not just you and whoever you would normally sit there with, but having Christ

sitting at the table with you, having Christ in the presentation with you.

Stanley Spencer painted this picture Christ preaching at the cook and Raghetta. Christ in

your meeting, Christ in your conversation Christ in your workplace? Do you know

every time you and I go into work, every time you and I go

somewhere, we should be taking Christ with us because we're Christians. And I

don't know whether you feel uncomfortable about that picture. As you've pictured going to

work, you know suddenly that you might be thinking, Oh, this person

there might be some colorful language if I take them into a meeting at work.

Well, as Claire so cleverly put it, you know, sometimes language

is colorful. But Jesus would still have been there. He would still have

been there. So let's take Christ. Let's take the presence of God,

his son Ah, his hegly spirit wherever we find ourselves. And I want

you to picture just like I want you to get the bigger picture, because

the bigger picture is not just the conversation. There's a bigger thing going on.

Sometimes people are just looking to see whether you're reliable. Sometimes people are

looking to see whether you're faithful. Sometimes people are looking to see whether you're

consistent with doing what you say and saying what you do. And I'm talking

to the whole age generation in the room here, whether we're twelve, twenty

two, fifty two or one hundred and two. It's same applies. People

are looking at us to see whether we are willing to be salts and plights

in our community, in our workplace, where we live, and so I

want to encourage you to have the bigger picture. I also want to encourage

you to think about who you are because you are unique. You are unique,

just like snowflakes are unique. You are unique. Many many, many

years ago, one of our young people in our youth group came back from

holiday. He said, Dave, we met you in Serbia. I went,

excuse me, never been to Serbia. So we know we've got a

picture, We've got evidence to prove we met. You said, well,

I don't remember it. So they took a picture out and there was a

picture of them with a person who looked exactly like me. Do you know

what, even though this person, you know, not even British, not

the same length, look very similar to me, this person's a different person.

They've got a different destiny, they've got a different promise, they've got

a different purpose, do you know? And I want to say the same

to you. Every one of us has unique fingerprints. Everyone is different.

Even if you're a twin, you're different. Even if you're an identical twin,

you're still different. There is something unique and different about you. God

has a plan and a purpose for you, and there's gifts in you that

you need to use. And sometimes we don't like to be seen as gifts,

but you know what. You're a gift to your family, You're a

gift to your friends, You're a gift to the church, You're a gift

to the community. And use those gifts, don't hide them. There's a

lady called Helen Color. Some of you may have heard of her, born

blind and death, and they really struggled to help her to learn anything because

they didn't realize that she had a great brain inside her head. Until her

teacher realized that she could talk to her through a sign language and started to

sign through her hands. Helen Color got a degree, mind blowing that anybody

can get a degree without sight and without hearing. But do you know one

of the statements she made is this. It says, the only thing worse

than being blind is having sight but no vision. Now, this is a

woman who is blind, so she's speaking from a position of authority. She's

saying the only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

Church, Have you got a vision for your workplace? Have you got a

vision to see something change? Have you been able to envision miraculous change where

you are and with what you do? Because this is true, for I

know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of

peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

There's a future and a hope, not only for us, but for the

people we work with. It does not matter how desperate someone's situation is,

there is still a hope in the natural. We might go I don't,

I can't see it. That's when we have to pray into the supernatural and

say, God show us, God help us. So let me encourage you.

I'm going to ask us to close our eyes, because it's interesting that

the two messages kind of or the two sharings got blended and merged. And

that's just the goodness of God. And whether I looked at some of the

countries that have joined us today, and whether you're in Turkey or South Africa,

Spain, Norway, Italy, those are some of the countries that I

saw were joining us today. Thank you that you've joined us. But I

want to pray for all of us, those who are watching, whatever country

you're in, whether you're in the room, whether you're watching later. Father,

I pray first. Firstly, I want to come to you, Father,

God who is able to do more than we ask or imagine. And

so Father, we come to you with our let me call it mess,

might just need a little tidy upper, it might be a complete mess.

The Lord, we come to you with our circumstances, our situations, or

maybe we stand in the gap and intercede. We stand in the gap for

our friends, those we know, and we say, look at this mess.

Not that we're any better, but we say, Lord, would you

move, Would you give us a bigger picture? Would you shine shafts of

hope into situations and circumstances. Would you cause your spirit to come, Cause

your spirit to move, Open e eyes of our hearts, Lord, that

we might see your glory, see Heaven, touch Earth in Jesus name.

Amen. And I do want to say this because I don't We don't say

this necessarily every Sunday, but for some people are in the room and some

people are listening from home. Maybe you don't know this Christ, that I've

been talking about maybe you don't know, maybe you think life's such a mess

and it's all my