As explained here, this is the first in a series of posts we are going to put up over the next few weeks talking about how Unite came about and where it is now. We are hoping that this might help us to figure out where to go next.

In 2003 Becky and I were involved with the youth group at Above Bar Church in Southampton. Because she knew vaguely what she was doing, she got paid to do this. At this time letters to her were addressed to Ms Thornton. Mrs Ward was my mum. I was working for IBM.

You know how when you go on a residential you often decide God has told you to do something, you get all excited. Somewhere between 2 days and 3 weeks later, it's all blown over and you decide you aren't going to chance the known world after all. In the case of John and Andy, the last bit didn't happen. Not for a year or two anyway.

Having two young people that wanted to change the world, or Southampton at least, was a good thing. As they came to the end of school, they began to look around for something exciting to do for God. At that time, staying in Southampton didn't seem an option – there weren't many options to do this, and none that involved starting and running outreach projects to young people. Many conversations later we'd come up with some money, Ruth to work with them a few days a week to give them “direction” and they got started.

The vision was to help the young people in Southampton to get to know Jesus. The strategy was to find ways for churches to work together to achieve this. I don't really remember when exactly they came up with the name “Unite”, but it seemed to work and as it was their project it was their decision anyway.

Personally, I had never had the faintest interest in church unity. My view was that there were good and sensible reasons that people met in different congregations in different buildings on Sundays. Everyone has a different personality and preferences, so it seemed natural that they would want to meet in different ways. I had always had a passion for working with young people, and this seemed exciting, and I wanted to be involved.

I think I lasted about 6 more months at IBM before I decided to leave, sell my flat and live off the profits so I could be involved day-to-day. Becky was our top advisor, doing what she would continue to do which was help me see things more clearly.

So, that's how we got started. In future posts over the next few weeks, we'll write more about where things went and how we began to be changed as we went on. Stick around and we might even admit to some mistakes.

So here we are. Right here, doing this. But where next? Man, I don't know. It's got confusing. It all seemed so simple. Time to figure it out.

Lots has happened since we started out doing the Unite thing in 2003. Things have changed. We've changed. Some people have moved on, new people come onto the scene. Some of us got married, had children. Others just moved to Shirley Warren. Each to their own.

We figured it would be a useful exercise to write about how we got started, what's happened and what we have learned. It might be interesting for you to read. Hopefully, it will help us get a grip on things and help us to see the way forward.

We haven't written anything yet, so I can't say how many there will be or anything much else really. Watch this space I guess.

Steve tells me that Freecycle celebrates its 5th birthday today. If you aren't part of it, you should be. From their website:

Our goal is to keep usable items out of landfills. By using what we already have on this earth, we reduce consumerism, manufacture fewer goods, and lessen the impact on the earth. Another benefit of using Freecycle is that it encourages us to get rid of junk that we no longer need and promote community involvement in the process.

Things we should all definitely be interested in. The best thing we have been given is probably a highchair for Mae. But way better than that is getting rid of 9 large concrete paving slabs from my garden. It would have taken me at least 2 trips to the tip in the car to get rid of, but instead the Freecycle community meant that they got picked up and someone's mum now has a new patio.

Giving is definitely better than receiving.

God is really good in giving us opportunities to go into schools to serve them. We run a weekly lunch club in a local secondary school. We play some games with the kids, do a short thought to help them think about who they are, what the world is all about and the possibility that God is interested in them. Its not uncommon for us to attract kids that, well, might not otherwise be popping down the shops to buy the teacher an apple.

We have this at the moment, and we are struggling to know what to do. We do get opportunities to tell them about what we believe about Jesus, but its hard work and they often make a mess of the classroom. On top of this they have put off others from coming to the club. We are close to banning them from coming - something we have never had to do. Please pray that we can help them to be better people and that they might meet Jesus. Thanks

I'm pretty interested right now in the question "are we doing it right?". The it would be the church, the we would range from me to the West (I know I can't be church on my own, but I am part of it).

That has sparked off lots of other questions in me: what is it, who is it? That kind of thing.

So it's really useful that my friend Dave Couchman from Focus arranged for Mike Frost to come to Southampton in October this year to help us think about all that. You can find out all the details here.

For a flavour of what it's all about, take a look at this video.

It's not safe. There are gangs of teenagers waiting to attack you.

A quick google of "teenage crime" gives pages of troubling headlines. The murders committed by teenagers in Warrington and Sunderland recently were sickening. What would cause a young person act in such a way is hard to imagine.

However the sensational reporting of the acts of teenagers is unhelpful and doesn't paint a true picture of the state of things. There's some interesting thoughts about the true stats on teenage crime here. Worth a read to help us remember that in general kids are good.

All of us need to be involved in helping our young people grow up well. As the church we need to be doing as much as we can to build our communities. Next time I meet a group of teenagers out on a Streetlight project (or even popping out for milk) will I treat them as unique people made in the image of God, or assume they are criminals who might attack me? Praying both for the media's handling of these events and for each of us to treat people right are probably good places to start.

I heard some talks by a bloke called Mike Frost on the recommendation of some friends and talked about it here. Well, he is coming to Southampton in October 2008 to do some sessions to help us think more about church and what it's all about really.

Find out more by going here. Do it soon, as you need to book and its cheaper to do it sooner rather than later.

If you want more samples, try these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77ndCFSv47g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YaXbkD1sgs

We have stalled in our work of getting a new minibus. This is partly due to us having a baby, and partly due to us being disorganised. Please pray we will get this sorted out soon so that the new bus can start being used as soon as possible.

Tommy I and me (I know that's incorrect grammer, but you can say "Tommy I and I really can you) went into Millbrook School today to do a bible study with some of the students we met doing our lunch clubs on Mondays.

On Mondays, we do a little talk about Jesus and then play some games and chat with them. People have been asking loads of questions recently so we thought we would try something more. Plus, we figured that even if no one else turned up we would still read the bible together which can only be a good thing.

Lessons learnt:

1. Get there on time. Even if you have baby poo on your hands, get out of the door on time. Otherwise the classroom you are going to use will be locked and you will spend ages getting another one.
2. Make sure you know which of you is going to decide which bit of the bible to look at.
3. Think of some good questions before hand about what to do.

If anyone has ever taught me how to do anything had seen the whole thing, they would have despaired I imagine.  It keeps you humble, and makes you pray more I guess.

Lord Jesus - help us do a better job next week and please help the kids that came to get something out of it and come next week. 

For those that haven't heard the news through other means, Chris and Becky have a lovely little daughter with an aweful sense of timing - lunch time on Christmas day. Very useful visual aid for the Christmas story though. She's called Mae by the way.

On Saturday evening just gone, we spent a great evening with the 5 teenagers who are part of Freemantle Baptist Church. I reckon I'm still the best at ten pin bowling on the Wii, but I had to concede my performance on the dance mat could possibly do with a little work.

We are really hoping that this can be the start of working with teenagers in our area. It would be great to be able to link up with some of the other churches in the area and see what can happen.

When Jesus said "follow me" he meant it. Lots of us Christians don't really get that. We are pretty happy to declare that he is the boss on Sunday morning services, but I think we have stopped short of really following him.

I've read a lot recently from people like Rob Bell, Steve Chalke and Shane Claiborne that Jesus really meant what he said about peacemakers being the children of God. Was his world-saving demonstation of non-violence just for him in that situation, or was that something he meant for us to follow him in?

In a recent article in Christianity Today, Ron Sider has challanged us to take this seriously:

If Christians with both just-war and pacifist convictions truly mean what they have been saying for centuries about war and peace, then they have no choice. Nonviolence has worked. It's time to invest large amounts of money and time in serious training and deployment. We cannot know ahead of time what will happen. But we already know that unless we do this, our Christian rhetoric about war will be both hypocritical and dishonest.

I keep thinking to myself, what would the world look like if the church actually looked like this? And where do I start in getting there?

Nothing to do with the way Becky is wearing her belly button this season.

Lots of things have caused me to have been thinking recently: At what point would we have called the appostle Paul a Christian?

Some would point to his statement that Jesus was the messiah Mark 8:29.

Maybe it was when he heard Thomas realise Jesus divinity John 20:28.

Others might say much earlier when he said yes to following Jesus Mark 1:18.

Maybe it was much later when they started to work out what it all meant and clever chaps like Paul were able to help them think it through.

It helps me when thinking about who is in and who is out. I have pretty much decided it is unhelpful to think that way. Jesus didn't seem to do it in his time, but one day he will think about it a lot. In the meantime, I'm not sure it's our business.

A friend of mine, Tommy Eye, helped me see it more clearly recently. He said "Jesus asked me to make disciples. So if that is with a kid on the estate where I live, or with you now in this pub, I want to help the person I am with be a better disciple."

Its a liberating veiw of the world. Give it a go. Or tell me it's wrong.

Becky goes on maternity leave from 1 December. Please pray for a safe delivery of the baby (due at the end of the year) and that he/she will grow up to follow Jesus.

Much of the work that Chris and Becky are involved in is done in teams, and so should carry on as normal. Please particularly pray for Freemantle and the Christians who are emerging in that area and are keen to work with local young people. Becky and Chris are hoping to meet lots of new people in the area once the baby is born - please pray that God would give them opportunities that will feed into work with the youth.

Streetlight has been given a grant from The Evangelization Society for £2500 for a new minibus so pray that we will be able to find an appropriate bus.

This week we started the evening thinking we weren't going to find anyone. We saw Mitch near the firestation but he couldn't find anyone either so didn't want to hang around for too long. We then walked down Windermere Ave. and saw a couple of lads that we've not seen since last Christmas and they were very grateful for a hot drink! They both said that they were Christians but didn't seem to want to talk about it much so pray that they will learn to understand what it means.

We then went to Mansel park where we saw some of the older kids. They were all a bit bored but in good spirits and we had a good chat with them. Just as we were leaving Calum arrived, his Grandad is doing a lot better. He's got a court case coming up next year for an assault charge (his last outstanding charge). As he's done so much over the last year to turn his life around pray that that goes well and that it might teach him something about justice.

It would be also good if you can pray for ideas of what to do with them leading up to Christmas, lots of the kids still talk about the presents we gave them last year.

Didn't know where else to put this, but the commenting feature now works without needing us to validate the comments. We were having trouble with lots of spam so we couldn't allow comments to go straight up. We have now put in some stuff to hopefully stop that happening which means that we can let comments go straight up. 

There's a few people in the city who would love to see some form of 24/7 prayer going on involving people from any (and hopefully every) congregation across Southampton. The idea ultimately is to find a space that we can use to have a prayer room that is open to everyone. At the moment, interested people are meeting to pray. If you'd like to join in, get in touch and we'll let you know the details.

For more information on (and to be inspired by) 24/7 prayer, visit the website: http://www.24-7prayer.com/  or read 'Red Moon Rising' by Pete Greig.

Freemantle Baptist Church have a student placed with them from Moorlands College and we met her today. We are all very excited about the possibility of working with the youth in the area and are praying together to see what we could do. We are trying to make contact with other Christians nearby and planning to visit the other local churches to see what their thoughts are. Please pray for God to provide people with a heart to reach out to young people, and that we'd figure out what to do. A StreetLight team is a possibility if more people emerge...but why stop there?! If you'd like to join us in prayer and/or on the street, then please get in touch.

The original StreetLight minibus was finally laid to rest this week after very worthy service. However, some StreetLight teams would still like a bus to use on their projects so we are on the look out. Please pray that God would provide us with one - and if you know of anything suitable, please let us know.

Here's some recent news from the team in Millbrook:

The Team: Iain, Laura, Mike, Dave, Fiona, Jackie, Ben, Itchy & StephThis week we had a big team so we decided to split in two.  The first group went up Mansel park where they met up with Ginny and some of his friends.  We had some stuff about the "4 points" this week, one of which had a pray on it.  When we gave it to Ginny he read it out to everyone and got quite excited about some parts of it (like the God loves me part of it).  One of the girls (Laura) then asked us lots of questions about God and things which was cool.  Pray that our answers will have been clear and that they will give them some thought.

The other group went up to Windermere Ave. where we saw a group of slightly younger who were all very excited about everything (in particular our names!)  Some of them had Rosary beads on so we had a bit of a chat about pray and things although the name guessing game quickly interrupted it!  We then headed down to Paignton Park and we met a couple of girls on the way, they were really excited to see us and said there were lots of people down the park.  When we got to the park everyone there wasn't so excited to see us so we didn't hang around for too long!