Maybe a little too much for a piece of glass? Sadly not.
Beverley is a fairly middle class place, with a large majority of its residents being of retirement age. It isn’t the most exciting town for young people. Quite often you’ll see in our local press, reports of anti-social behaviour caused by ‘unruly’ youth. I believe positive transformation comes alongside positive investment. And get this, one story reported of how the council was to pipe classical music through the bus station speakers on evenings, to deter young people from hanging around. No headline story of how our authorities were going to tackle the root cause of the problem, just another ‘let’s see if this works-shove it under the carpet response’. Nationally, the church by far, is the largest provider of youth work, and this applies to Beverley too. The town has at least four full time church youth workers, not to mention part time, gap year, and schools workers. I think it’s a huge privilege to be in a position where the church has committed and said “yes” we want to play our part and provide provision for young people. With that, comes a huge responsibility and a risk. The possibility of broken windows for instance...
For six years, we’ve been running a large youth event in Beverley Minster, the ‘Youth Café’. We often attract between 200-300 young people to each event. The whole idea is above all to ‘welcome’ young people into the church, help break down any stereotypes they may have, but to also provide a foundation for creating purposeful relationships with them. My vision has always been to feed these young people into our weekly programme, so that we can work more closely, and enable these young people to realise their God given potential in life. I must admit, for a few years, I’ve questioned whether or not the ‘feed in’ idea has been working, but now I know it is! Last Friday we had 28 young people aged 11-14 come to our Friday night youth club. The majority of them live on Swinemoor Estate, which itself comes with many difficulties and challenges. Most of these young people have come from broken homes and broken families, and simple things like having a conversation with them, and complimenting their behaviour has really encouraged and given them confidence. You can see it in their faces when you say “well done – you were brilliant tonight!”
Last Friday was particularly challenging for our staff, as we were faced with a couple of new lads, who insisted on being abusive towards us. In the heat of the moment, my head was thinking logical, professional, common sense things, but my heart was clearly shouting “just love, love, love…” I find the heart speaks powerfully, and I try to listen to it moreso than my mind. Probably all day, every day, these young people will be shouted at, criticised, judged, punished, and starved of sincere love. They have come to ‘us’, the church on their Friday night. It's not our right, but our privilege and honour. It is these people God calls us to work with. It is these people God calls us to share the good news with. It is these people that we are called to love.
Yes, a window did get accidently broken on Friday night. There was a very apologetic young person, who went home in fear that his mother would tell him off. And for a short time, I was more concerned about the window, than being thankful to God for bringing many young people through our doors that night and touching their lives. I realised the reality of the whole scheme of things. The window is £40-£50 to replace. Easily done. We can forget it and move on. There were many more broken lives in that place on Friday night that deserve deeper investment.
Over Easter we held a 24/3 prayer event, and seven of these young people gave their lives to Jesus. We had to ask them to spend at least some time at home each day, because they spent more or less every hour of every day with us. They couldn't get enough of just being there. They wanted to be in the very place where they experienced God, and felt welcomed, accepted and loved. Today, one of these young people came to church for the third week in a row. We are called to serve the broken and bring God’s restoration on lives. This particular young person is beginning a life where he wants to experience all the fullness God offers. Not a life where one will constantly condemn his brokenness.
Beverley Minster should not foolishly ponder too much on its broken glass, but rejoice that it is able to reflect Christ, and reveal His love to these 28 young lives, every single week.
If a saved life comes at the cost of a window, then bring... (I'll say no more)
Listen to your heart… What brokenness has God called you to be more concerned about?
Broken glass over broken lives anyday!
