Flourish: Young Leaders Rising in Faith

Flourish: Young Leaders Rising in Faith

Flourish is a vibrant and growing movement that’s enabling worshipping communities in schools, creating spaces where children and young people can encounter God, grow in their faith, and develop leadership skills. At The Good Shepherd, Lee, working in partnership with Trinity Secondary School, Lewisham, Sonnet Kelly, the Flourish minister is present in school 24 hours each week. Sonnet writes about the recent student led prayer stations below.

As The Flourish Minister for Trinity Secondary School, Lewisham in conjunction with the Church of The Good Shepherd in Lee; I have the privilege and honour to be a facilitator of intergenerational worship and young leadership therein. There are currently four Flourish Young Leaders in the Flourish group and through their leadership we held a Parents and Carers breakfast in the Church which was fully planned, prepped and facilitated by these incredible young people. There were three prayer stations set up in the Church for parents and carers to come together to pray for themselves, their children and the school community. Adverts were sent via email, text message and the event was publicised in the school Newsletter. Breakfast was provided and the three prayer stations were: Bind Us Together, Just Be and the Prayer Bowl.

One of the proposals of the Flourish pilot is Children and Young People are more likely to flourish in their Christian spirituality if the school and church together hold a worshipping community in and for the school. One young leader commented ‘flourish young leaders work in unison, strengthen one another’s faith and lead efficiently’ and another stated ‘the impact that I think I am having as a young leader and not an adult is that I might encourage others (CYP) to have faith in Christ and trust Him.’

The first prayer station was prayer weaving; adults were led through the activity by the young leader and were told “as you weave your prayer into the ‘fabric’ of the other prayers prayed by our community for Trinity School, remember, you are part a rich tapestry which is God’s community of believers. Our Heavenly Father hears you and welcomes you and loves you.” Our second station, again led entirely by two young leaders; ‘Be Still’ was focussed on ‘Be still, and know that I am God’ (Psalm 46:10). Adults were encouraged to take some time away from the chaos and noise of the world, ‘there is a reason why we are called human beings and not human doings’ was part of the young leader’s explanation. The adults were encouraged to get comfortable on the large beanbags and take some time to hear from God. Prayer bowl was the final prayer station and an exploration of what prayer is and how to pray at this prayer station; our school just like our Jesus, is for everybody and we have families of all faiths and none so the young leaders felt it important to guide the adults who were unfamiliar with prayer through a simple way to pray, ‘Christians believe that no prayer is too big nor too small. God hears and receives them all’ was the encouragement from the Flourish young leader at the prayer bowl station.

All the adults, including some clergy who attended, were then led in our sung worship by the Flourish Young Leaders. All those in attendance agreed that the Young Leaders did a fantastic job and blessed us with their leadership and guidance; a second proposal of the Flourish Pilot being CYP are more likely to engage with an exploration of worship if they or their peers are given genuine agency in the shaping, practice, content and leadership of that worshipping community; which was clearly explored by our Flourish Prayer Breakfast. The Young Leaders are keen to do another Flourish Prayer Breakfast for the pupils of the school and their parents and carers. I really pray this inspires other churches to strengthen their church and school connections and to try something similar, you won’t be disappointed!

Read more about Flourish at The Good Shepherd, Lee and St Mark’s Kennington here Flourish: Growing Faith, Worship, and Community in Schools – The Diocese of Southwark

If you would like more information about the Flourish programme, please don’t hesitate to email the Children and Young People team on [email protected].