Pray for MaxLife (the Maximum Life Project) in Hull.  The Church Urban Fund is supporting it in holding to a youth assembly to raise awareness of issues faced by local young people and to encourage them to get involved in community life. MaxLife plans to tackle this issue of youth unemployment by recording the stories of local young people through the youth assembly. The wider community will also record intergenerational experiences of unemployment, which will encourage cohesion and dispel sterotypes. This work will help the young people develop communication, planning and negotiation skills, and will highlight gaps in provision for MaxLife’s future work. It will link up to Hull Young Advisors and Youth Parliament, University of Hull and other agencies to publicise the work.

Pray also for Bob Barstow, working on a joint project between the Contextual Theology Centre and St Peter’s Church Bethnal Green called ‘Church of Today’.  With support from the Church and Communities Fund and a local charity, Bob is helping the church to consider how all of its activities might better to reflect that children and young people are the church of today and not simply of tomorrow.  As well as increasing investment of time and energy in children’s church and youth groups at St Peter’s, this process involves developments in the Sunday liturgy, a more intensive focus on developing children’s spirituality (in church and at home) – and a review of the way children and young people’s voices are reflected in the governance in the church.  The project is seeking to learn from, and in due course share good practice with, the wider Body of Christ.  Pray for all members of St Peter’s involved in this work, including Heather Atkinson.