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More?
St. Albans has no real provision for young people and so as a group of youthworkers we have been looking
for some time to see where we could start a drop-in centre. the2:67project set up the ‘More?’ cafés in
order to encourage youthwork across St Albans and provide a non-threatening environment for Christians
to invite friends to hear about Jesus Christ. They gave youth leaders a different and neutral place to build
relationships with their young people and have conversations about faith related subjects that had been
raised during the talk given during the café. This in turn provided young Christians a ‘safe’ place away
from church or school where their friends could experience something of Jesus.
The cafés ran for 5 weeks and we saw over 60 young people from around 6-8 churches during the course,
with an average of about 40 young people each week. We also had a small group that came from one of the
local schools. This initial series of cafés is a great foundation to build upon: we intend to run two further
sets of cafés this year. Our aim is that they create a safe space that is considered ‘cool’ where young people
can ‘hang out’ but crucially where they can also meet with Christians and be able to ask questions about life
and faith. The cafés enabled many relationships to be built between young people and youth leaders and
even led on to 2 youth leaders taking away a group of 6 young people from Townsend School on a camping
trip. The cafés have quickly become a significant youthwork tool that youth leaders can use as well as
being a place where young Christians are happy to invite their friends.
We believe that relational evangelism is massively important with young people and building strong
relationships with them is vital to then have conversations about God, Jesus and other faith-based topics.
The ‘More?’ cafés provide a perfect environment to do this and we have carefully ‘balanced’ the input during
the café sessions from talks to acoustic music sessions to testimonies. Our hope is to build on this ministry
and we pray that it will play a hugely important role in the future outreach of the young people of St. Albans.
"More is an excellent place to go whether you're in the frame of mind to ask questions and
learn "more" about God or whether you just want to go and chill in a safe, positive environment with other
people in the same situations as yourself. It's an excellent way to make friends with people in the area and
fantastic in intertwining people of different ages from different schools. It helps people give advice to each
other about the different challenges they may be facing ahead and helps them feel supported in every aspect
of their lives." – Becky Giles, young person
More? will be running on:
Monday 11th May – Chill-out Cafe
Monday 18th May – Acoustic Music Cafe
Monday 25th May – Wii Tournament
Monday 1st June – Interesting Jobs 1
Monday 8th June – Wii Tournament
Monday 15th June – Acoustic Music Cafe
Monday 22nd June – Interesting Jobs 2
Monday 29th June – Acoustic Music Cafe
Monday 6th July – Wii Tournament
Monday 13th July – ‘Change the world in a summer!’
7pm - 9pm, at The Merchant Tea & Coffee, St Albans Town Hall
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Training Mornings are held each term for youth and children's leaders. Click here to learn more.
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The next More? begins on 11th May! It's at The Merchant every Monday from 7pm . Click here to learn more.
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Area Youth Group Weekend Away
Find out more here .
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2:67 Youth Work Network is a great thing to get involved in. It's like brilliant! Click here to learn more.
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Join our Facebook group here!
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Registered charity: 1122830
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