A Learning Community is an environment of training in which thoughts and ideas are provoked through input, discussion and exercises.  Each group involved works on critiquing, developing and planning for their own youth work but in the process of feedback and discussion naturally challenge, equip and encourage others in their own journey. The basic theory is that …“the answer is in the room … Everyone is an expert!”

The Program

The Learning Community will take you and members of your key team through a two-year process in which all aspects of youth work can be considered and developed.  At the end of each community you’ll leave with a set of development plans for you to implement over the following six months.  Additional coaching and support can be made available to you from the Forge and Onelife team to help you in the process of implementing the changes you decide to make. There will also be set reading between each meeting to help fuel discussion and broaden our experience.

Each community will have a theme, but will also include a wide range of other topics and ideas to be considered which will help you discern and unpack what it is that God is calling you and your youth work to.

Community One:         Being a disciple … making disciples

(Youth work with a discipleship culture; deep end discipleship)

Community Two:          Contacting a generation, raising the leaders

(Reading the culture, raising up leaders, both youth and adults)

Community Three:        Empowering Communities of change

(Targets, MSC, Handling miscommunications etc.)

Community Four:         Creating movement

(Cranking the handle, enabling growth, avoiding bottlenecks)

Every community will run through a program using teaching and exercises to help you decide:

What is: Looking at the good, the bad and the ugly of your youth work.

What could be: Taking a risk and daring to believe where God might just take you.

What will be: Making some concrete plans for the next six months that will get you on the way towards the vision God has given you.

Who can be on your team?

Costs are outlined below, and vary according to the number of places you book. At a minimum, each church involved must book three places, with a maximum of seven (any more than that and decisions become harder to define and make). The key decision maker (usually the youth worker) should attend all four meetings, and there should be one other key worker or volunteer who also attends all four of the meetings. This will help consistency in the networking at the Learning Community, as well as aid the flow of decisions made throughout the 18 month course. The rest of the positions are flexible, and different people can join in for each Learning Community. Other members of the team may include volunteers, interns, or young leaders.

An example of a team: As the youth minister of All Saints Church, Bob signed himself up for the Learning Community. He booked five further positions; he asked Jane, a regular volunteer, to be the second regular position. Bob was keen to connect the PCC to the youth work, and invited a different member of the PCC to each of the intensives. He rotated the three remaining positions between his four interns, and on one occasion, decided to bring three of his young leaders instead to help to engage them with the strategy of the developing work.

Cost (for the whole course, payable in two instalments)

3 places           £480

4 places           £590

5 places           £690

6 places           £750

7 places           £800

Accommodation is not included in the price, and teams will be required to arrange their own accommodation for the Learning Community. Lists of local B&Bs/hotels will be available, and a local church hall floor will be made available for those operating on a tight budget! The only other significant cost will be travel expenses.

When and Where is the next YLLC

After the success of the pilot Youth Leaders Learning Community, we intend to begin two new communities in 2012. One for Scotland/North and one in the South of England. There will be space for 8 - 10 churches on each community. If you would like to apply for the YLLC please get in touch.

Meet the Facilitating Team

Pete Wynter (Onelife) and Rich Atkinson (Forge) will work as the facilitators of the Learning Community.  It is their job to ask the right questions at the right time, to provoke the cumulative knowledge within the room and challenge us all to get the best out of the community as possible.

Pete Wynter is the Director of Onelife, an organisation committed to raising up transformational leaders in the UK. He remains on staff at St. Andrews, Chorleywood, where he served as the Youth Pastor for five years. Before working for the church, Pete was a teacher and spent time as a chaplain in a Young Offenders Prison. Whilst developing Onelife he also regularly speaks at conferences in the UK and beyond, is on the faculty of The Centre for Missional Leadership (LST) and sits on Tearfund’s Church and Supporters board. When he’s not busy with the above he plays plenty of sport, loves hitting the movies and gets away to the Cornish beaches!

Rich Atkinson leads Forge, a network of youth, kids and families ministry working with over 1200 young people a week and is committed to reaching the 125,000 young people of Sheffield.  Forge operates out of St Thomas Church Philadelphia and is committed to seeing local churches equipped to reach a lost generation for Jesus. Rich has worked as a youth worker in Sheffield for nearly 10 years, is on the senior leadership team of St Thomas’ and thinks Arsenal have a shout at the