CHRISTIAN OPTIONS IN PETERBOROUGH SCHOOLS

R E A C H | R E L E A S E | R E S O U R C E

FEARREJECTION

FORGIVENESS

LETTONHALL

OCTOBER 2010

THE POINT

GSUS LIVE

you canBOOK IN now

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CROPS IS A REGISTERED CHA

RITY NO. 8018

77 WINTER

2010/1

1 EDITIO

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NEW TEAMREPORTS

As I look back over the term, well wow! We have been able to do so much in 15 weeks, but only because of God’s

grace, strength, divine energies and the prayers and support of people like you. The fact you are reading this newsletter, means that on some level you care about what God is doing with young people in schools and the wider scene in Peterborough. So thank you for standing with us for another year!

In this edition you’ll read about some special projects and events that have happened in-cluding the superb recent Letton Houseparty and GSUS Live for the first time in Peterborough.

It has been great to see the new CROPS team Cathy, Joanna, Rachel and Kyle becoming es-tablished at CROPS HQ. Thanks to ex-cropper Decca Riondino and his weekly input with the new gap team helping to hone key skills and enabling the girls to reflect on the journey so far.

We also recognize the oppor-tunity for volunteers from other generations at CROPS, with ex-perience gained through life and work and we have some needs that you may be able to help us with. If you have abilities and experience in the areas of logis-tics (would mainly be centered around our events) or person-nel management and you have some time to give please do get in touch via the office!

To update you on Project 567 you will know that we are in the process of appointing a suitable replacement for Simon to lead Project 567. We have received applications and will have interviewed by Christ-mas. More news on that one as it unfolds!

Can I finally highlight the Mentoring Training Day (back page advert and on CROPS website) that is taking place on 15 January 2011. I would encourage you to think about booking in for this life-changing day that focuses on mentoring to transform lives. As an aside we currently encounter great need in schools for mentors to work with young people if this is something that interests you, then the mentoring training day may be the first step in the jour-ney of you being involved.

Director’s Update

ContentsThe PoinT P.2

SECONDARYSCHOOLS WORK P.2

GSUS LIVE P.3-4

C.U. LINK-UP P.4

LETTON HALLOCTOBER 2010 P.5

NEW TEAM ENDEAVOURS P.6

Matt Wild

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The CROPS Trust

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THANK YOU FOR STANDING WITH US

FOR ANOTHER YEAR!

At The Point we are coming to the end of our 2010 series ‘Get Yourself Con-nected’. Through this series we have been able to explore the life of Moses and discover so much about connect-ing with God’s mission in the world: passion, place, purpose, power, pro-cess and perspective! This term we have had guest speakers including, Ed Walker (YMCA and Bretton Baptist Church), Phil Timson (Bretton Baptist Church youth worker) and Chedz Wild

THE POINT

by Rachel Tucker

NEWSLETTER _CROPS / 2

Secondary Schools WorkWe have enjoyed getting back into our regular

schools work after the summer break with the added dimension of having Kyle Armstrong working with us for his CYM placement. It’s been exciting to also engage differently, and certainly in a concentrated way through the GSUS Live project.

The Peterborough SchoolThe new gappers have picked up the running of the

loaves and fishes club that Simon led last year. They have really thrown themselves into this and also get-ting involved in the new longer chapel slot we have with the whole school in the hall. This presentation looked at how we make choices, and also explored the difference between belief based on what we have found about something compared to belief that is based on an expe-riencing, and in that respect choosing to trust in Jesus.

The Kings SchoolThis term we have been continued to provide Park

Up the drop in facility at Kings School. Buildingon these relationships we have also come in as a team to lead 2x alternative worships sessions and have been involved in providing pastoral support as well as assemblies. Our Christmas assembly was on the theme of the second coming thinking about how we need to keep perspec-tive on life now with the hope of a new age that Jesus will usher in.

The Voyager SchoolHaving spent a few months working through the Quest

resource Matt and Adrian Peters are focusing on young peoples issues based around discussion starters with students who come along each week to the Diversity Club at TVS. Having selected the themes themselves the students have been able to look at issues such as self image, parents, charity, racism and gain a Christian per-spective in the process.

Ormiston Bushfield AcademyHeaded up by Sam Clews (now in his 3rd year of CYM),

the team are maintaining the hot chocolate club \ drop in facility at OBA. With the start of term we re-advertised the club and have connected with new students as well as keeping existing relationships engaging with 30 - 40 mainly year 7 and 9 students each week. Matt is also do-ing some mentoring in the school and looking to develop other initiatives here.

Orton Longueville SchoolOur impact at OLS has been increased with the addition

of Kyle Armstrong to the team! Kyle spends the majority of each Wednesday based in the school working one to one with students in mentoring sessions and by also pro-viding a drop in facility over the lunchtime. Kyle is hoping to get the Christian Union of the ground in the New Year as well as be involved with assemblies. Matt continues to mentor students through small groups as well one to one at OLS.

(Wellspring Community Church youth worker) all challenging the young people with God’s word in meaningful and unique ways. At the November Point we decided to do things a bit differently with a more reflective approach to the worship to help us focus on God without the usual aides! Kyle Armstrong our newest CYm placement led an acoustic worship set without a band and we changed the at-mospherics with lower lighting and candles, creating a very differ-ent worship space. We are now looking forward to what God has in store for The Point in 2011 as we start our new series. More to follow.

a 40ft trailer-come-mobile-class-room, snow and ice, 30 pres-entations, 700 Key Stage 3 students finding out what Jesus has to say about fear, rejection and forgiveness…it could only be GSUS Live at Thomas Deacon Academy!

GSUS Live, a Counties resource, was an exciting project that though initiated by CROPS, was delivered as a TDA chaplaincy team event (for which CROPS is a part) with additional help from youth leaders at Bretton Baptist Church and Werrington Parish Church. On Saturday 27 Novem-ber the team undertook training on the GSUS Live unit before pre-senting our very first lessons on the following Monday morning.

GSUS Live entails an hour-long multimedia experience for 32

students at a time on the spe-cially designed trailer unit. GSUS Live aims to show the relevance of Jesus for today. After a 3D intro video and lesson overview, the students work in pairs on the on-board computer stations, following the story of a young person facing a life issue linked either to fear, forgiveness or re-jection.

By accessing in-built program resources such as The Miracle Maker movie clips, dramatized bible readings, contemporary Christian music clips and much more the students are equipped to choose how to advise their chosen character as each step of the story unfolds. The lesson finishes with a plenary session involving feedback, video tes-timonies, and an explanation

of key Christian beliefs on how Jesus faced all three issues as well the relevance of Christian-ity for our lives. There is also time to answer any questions the students may have.

We saw a great response from the students who enthusi-astically engaged with the les-son. Many comments alluded to whether they could spend other RE lessons on the GSUS Live unit!

It was great to work in part-nership with TDA who were so accommodating in every way. Our thanks go to all the staff at the school be it site staff for all the practical arrangements, teaching staff whose timetables were rearranged to ensure all KS3 could participate and the school Leadership team for agreeing to host GSUS Live on

GSUS LIVEit must be

by Matt Wild

OVER TWO weekS

3 / CROPS _WINTER EDITION

site. Here are a few words from Dr Alan McMurdo, Principal at TDA in regards to the project:

“We felt very privileged to host the GSUS ‘bus’ for a fort-night. It looked great outside the front of our school and captured the interest of the students from day one The provision for our Y7 and 8 students was extremely engaging and motivational and fitted very well into their RE pro-vision. Thanks for providing our youngsters with this great op-portunity to develop their knowl-edge and understanding of our

Lord, Jesus Christ.” A special thanks to the Peter-

borough GSUS Live team for their hard work and commitment that made GSUS Live such a success. The team worked so well to-gether presenting, assisting the students, making hot drinks or

dimming the lights at the right time! As a final word, CROPS will be looking to have GSUS Live for other

schools in the city in the near future. If you wish to be involved

Gsus Live mobile class room outside Thomas Deacon Academy

NEWSLETTER _CROPS / 4

This term’s Christian Union Link-Up saw students from Jack Hunt School, The King’s School and Sawtry Com-munity College attending. It wasv good to find out what had been happening in each of the C.U.’s this term and really encouraging to hear the ideas and opportunities which the C.U. leaders have. We discussed resources that might be used and discussed

how the groups could over-come any problems they are facing. Please pray for Chris-tian Unions running across the city including those at Thomas Deacon Academy and The Voyager School that the students, staff or youth workers from CROPS or other churches involved can be sources of light and hope, reflecting God’s love in their school.

For more information on C.U.’s please contact us at crops@crops.org.uk

C.U. Link-Up

n October 2010 half term, 60 young people from Peterborough and the surrounding area journeyed to Letton Hall for a brilliant week of worshipping God, Bible teaching and exciting activities.

The theme for the week was “In the beginning...”, which was expertly unpacked in a very relevant way by our guest speaker, Han-nah Tibble. Currently working in Oundle as a youth worker, Hannah was a familiar face to the Lettoners, having been a part of the leadership team at Letton several times before. Besides the main sessions during which Hannah spoke and the bands led worship, there were also several great seminars for the young people to choose from, including Walking in Truth, Belonging to God, Mission and Evangelism, God in the Docks, Connecting with Culture, and Encouragement.

Other highlihts of October’s houseparty were:The Wide Game - a classic game of Capture the

Flag, but with several new rules to add to the fun!

Themed Dinner - everyone dressed up as Book Characters, from Abraham to Superman, the Fat Controller to the Mad Hatter!

Talent Show - we had some great acts from the young people including singing, dance-offs, jokes and a sketch with some decidedly dodgy Austral-ian accents.

Soul Stretch - everyone benefitted from our re-flective worship and prayer session each morning.

Workshops - Lettoners and leaders alike enjoyed expressing themselves in the workshops on Sing-ing, Art, Cardboard Testimonies and Contempo-rary Dance.

A fantastic time was had by all who attended Letton in October. A huge number of young people were spoken to by God, either during Hannah Tib-ble’s talks, the worship times, Soul Stretch or the seminars, and many of them shared this with the rest of the group during the main sessions which was an encouragement to all. We’re all looking forward to the next houseparty in February 2011 half term, entitled Its Time To Shine with guest Speaker Dave Newton (National Youth For Christ).

Totally WiredIn partnership with KingsGate Youth Depart-

ment, back in September we hosted Urban Saints’ national Tour TOTALLY Wired. Over 70 parents, teachers and youth leaders attended this in-

formative and engaging evening addressing is-sues around young people and the digital world. We were privileged to have Chris Curtis (Luton Churches Education Trust) and Matt Summerfield (Urban Saints) present TOTALLY Wired in Peter-

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RECENT EVENTS

LETTON HALLOCT 2010

IN THEBEGINNING

by Joana Goldspink

ough. As a trust we are committed to bringing other events aimed at resourcing those who work with or are parents of young people to the city so watch this space.

Annual CelebrationThanks to those who were able to join us at Werrington Parish Church

for our annual supporters celebration in October, it was great to see you! The evening was a fantastic opportunity to celebrate all that God has been doing through this ministry, introduce and pray for new volunteers and recognize the contribution of those moving on from the CROPS team. We were led in worship by the CROPS worship team and were very pleased to welcome Revd Canon Jonathan Baker from Peterborough Cathedral who spoke to us from the book of Daniel challenging us to be different, and not shy back from being distinctive as salt and light in our city schools.

I haven’t been work-ing at CROPS very long but I’m learning so much already. A highlight for me is the weekly lunch-time club we run at The Peterborough School- it’s so rewarding to watch the children learning so much from the Bi-ble stories. The Letton Hall Houseparty in Oc-tober was daunting at first but I enjoyed being a leader rather than a Lettoner in the end. My favourite part, besides watching all the young people experience God, was running the singing workshop with Rachel- it all came together really well and the singers did an amazing job in the tal-ent show!

I have really enjoyed my first term at CROPS. I have loved getting in-volved with all the work CROPS does in schools and helping lead the lunchtime club, “Loaves and Fishes” at The Pe-terborough School. We had a lot of preparation to do for Letton Hall but I think it was my most enjoyable Letton so far. I feel I’ve already grown in self confidence and am looking forward to get-ting involved in helping to lead assemblies and get-ting even more out of my comfort zone for God.

My first few months at CROPS have been very enjoyable. I have found going into schools really fun, being able to talk to all the different children that attend is some-thing I never thought I would be comfortable doing, but have found it really great. I really en-joyed Letton Hall, and had great fun getting in-volved in both the activi-ties at Letton, and all the planning and things, that when attending just as a Lettoner you don’t really see! I have already found that I have a bit more confidence, and am look-ing forward to my next few months at CROPS.

Since starting at CROPS, I’ve had loads to get involved with, the main bulk of this being mentoring sessions at Orton Longueville School, and running a drop in club at lunchtimes with pupils from a variety of backgrounds. It’s amaz-ing to see them have fun and develop friendships that might never occur outside of the lunch club. It has also been great being involved in the al-ternative worship that CROPS leads at the Kings School, and also help-ing lead sessions with the GSUS live trailer at Thomas Deacon Acad-emy. It’s been great to see pupils interact and have fantastic conver-sations with them. This term has been a busy one, and I pray next term we see God move even more within schools in Peterborough.

NEWSLETTER _CROPS / 6

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NEW TEAMReportS

you canBOOK IN now

for these events

CHRISTIAN OPTIONS IN PETERBOROUGH SCHOOLS

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