rural spirituality
Elliot’s Thing!
The Baptist church in Bourton on the Water (BOW) has been around for over 350 years. There were once quite a few churches in Bourton but now there is the Parish Church, a Catholic Church (about to close) and the Baptist Church. The Baptists once had a thriving Sunday School numbering hundreds, but since the 1960’s numbers of children and young people coming to church have rarely reached double figures.
Bourton Baptist church has been talking about doing youth work for a number of years, but had little idea how to go about it. There were only a couple of young people attached to the church, including me. Several meetings were held with other churches, youth workers, the local authority youth service, the schools. With the Parish Council we undertook some research at the secondary school asking what they would like to see in BOW. It was clear that it was the boys who were wanting something to be organized for them. There is no regular evening bus service out of the village and whilst there is a leisure centre attached to the school, uniformed organizations, and a youth club meeting once a week, most young people who do attend activities are taken by car to towns 20 plus miles away. The train station to Oxford is eight miles across country. BOW has a population of 3320 with 530 young people aged 0 – 17. The Cotswold School serves all the surrounding villages and has about 1000 young people aged 11 – 18 years.
I have a birthday in the summer and last year decided to invite all my friends to the church hall for a different type of event. We had the use of the hall, kitchen and a small room. We turned them into a place suitable for young
people to relax and play. We ate food and brought along music and played with games consoles. It seemed to work. I gave everyone a questionnaire and asked whether they would like to come again, what they would like to do and whether they would pay £1 to cover some basic costs. So Elliot’s Thing! was born.
Elliot’s Thing! not a group, but an informal event called ‘Elliot’s Thing!’ An invitation by Elliot to come to the Church hall in Bourton and enjoy a Thing! The young people who did the survey did not want to come to a youth group, did not want it called a youth group. They started to call it Elliot’s Thing! and that name has been adopted by them. With the local youth worker I have set up a Facebook group which is by invitation only (for safeguarding reasons). Elliot’s Thing! is not openly advertised currently in order that numbers can be controlled and also so that it can be allowed to
grow naturally. Anyone who hears about it and wants to be invited is given an invitation. A number of young people have asked to come. That’s what is meant to happen. Elliot’s Thing! started with 13 young people in September, it has a database of 30 and about 15
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www.countyway.org.uk
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