eXplodeyouth About eXplodeyouth
About eXplodeyouth
Before discussing the vision of eXplode Youth Ministry, I feel it’s necessary to give the interpretation of our name. For us, the meaning of the word eXplode means something so bring that it is impossible NOT to acknowledge it, and something that cause a ripple effect which leaves people wondering what caused such an effect. This interpretation came from the verse - John 8:12 where Christ reveals that He is the Light of the World, so therefore when we accept Christ into our life, we then have this Light in our hearts. - Luke 8:16 tells us that we shouldn’t hide our light, but instead put it on a stand for everyone to see.
Our vision ultimately is to see people come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, but we also acknowledge the responsibility we have in seeing growth and maturity in those that have already made such a decision. We want our young men and women walking with a purpose, knowing what God has called them to do - Jeremiah 29:11 and living a life of worship to Him.
In order to fulfil a vision, you need to adopt a culture within the ministry, and eXplode Youth ministry have 4 key principles that make up its culture:
- Spending regular time in prayer
- Daily reading of the Bible
- Being accountable to one another
- Putting on the Armour of God DAILY
We seek to fulfil part of our interpretation of the name eXplode by supporting other ministry, namely the Homeless Projects by raising funds at Christmas through helping pack bags at Asda. We also like to encourage other youth ministry through attending outreach events, therefore supporting the body of Christ.
During my two and a half years spent as leader, explode Youth ministry has experienced many giant leaps forward. Initially, the first priority when taking over was to provide stability for the Youth Ministry and as a result, bring assurance to the 30 or so people who regularly attended every Friday evening. 4 months later, it was decided to add teaching more often to our Friday night programme, and we did a number of series discussing topics including attitude, influence, heroes and villains, worship, and how Bible related to each of the topics.
When returning from summer break, we felt ready and prepared to expand our influence to more than our existing number of people who attended on a Friday night. This is when our Street Team – a group of people who walk down Hounslow High Street and give out flyers about eXplode – was born. This has brought great success and many new people began to enter. The Friday nights themselves were great variety, ranging from worship night led by the eXplode Youth Band to karaoke nights, from the eXplode Olympics to stop and search workshop led by Hounslow Police.
We have always encouraged the people who attend to be a more active member of the ministry, so we identified a number of teams in which they could be a part of, ranging from dance team to design team, from drama team to tech team. Also, within the youth ministry, there is a great hunger to study the word of God, so we put on a fortnightly Small Group. This initially was one big group, but this was not how is was designed to be, so we have now separated in 3 smaller groups. Through this, we have been seen increased number of youth coming to Sunday services, and also we have seen identified the need to prepare ourselves when entering the House of God, so we spend 10 minutes before each Sunday service preparing ourselves and expecting God to do great things during worship and the Word. Throughout this time period, we have seen numbers increase on a Friday night to regular over 60 people.
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