Connect Project, New Hope Community Church, Runcorn

New Hope Community Church runs a PSI (Progressive Social Inclusion) project as well as a Christian community centre and offers a range of other youth and family services.

We are a local church that was planted to meet the needs of our community. Our project’s passion and heart is to meet the needs of young people who are marginalized and excluded from education and society, and their families.

The Need

In our local community we were witnessing the breakdown of family values. We believe that God has a lot to say about families and so we decided that we would do all we can to meet them at their point of need. Our projects are designed to encompass the whole of the family, from the youngest to the oldest.

"We looked at our community and at ourselves in order to decide which needs we were equipped to address with the talents and resources we had, and which skills we would need to develop in order to meet the needs we were not equipped for. "

The Response

We developed our ideas through training and development, since we wanted to offer our services at the highest standards and to a professional level of competency. Our work began alongside local schools where we developed our mentoring and relational model of working. This later developed to working with the local education authority across the borough, Pupil Referral Unit (PRU),Youth Offending Teams (YOT), Social services, other youth agencies and Adult Learning through the Learning Skills Council (LSC) as well as others.

We now hold a variety of contracts with local government to deliver our services across the borough.

We have also developed a Christian community centre called Hope Corner, and raised money to ensure our centre would offer the same high quality standards as our projects. Our centre was developed and finished to the same high quality ethos of excellence as our projects and is now held in high esteem by the local and national government as a valuable resource for the community.

We were recently awarded National Healthy Schools status and in our most recent Ofsted we were described as high quality provision.

The challenges

One early challenge was to change from the usual church approach to outreach, instead of prescribing solutions to problems that people didn't even think they had, we found out what their needs were. We initially started by going to the schools and asking ‘what are your needs and how can we help?’ Once we had discovered what the real issues In the community were, we could actually meet people at their point of need.

The Ethos - and the rewards

From the very beginning we set out a clear and open Christian ethos in all that we did. This was a battle in the early days as the Church as a whole did not have a reputation of professional and high quality standards in the way they worked, we wanted to change this, although as a lone voice it seemed hard.

"We persevered and did not budge on our ethos, and feel God has blessed us through this as we are now in a position where many people access our projects BECAUSE of our Christian distinctive. It has become one of our greatest assets and allows us to stand out above many other organisations in our area. "

Our greatest current challenge is growth, not a lack of it, but an explosion - we are now seeing a greater demand for our services than ever before. This growth is not only in the projects but in the overall life of the church. Due to this increase in demand we are now working with Halton Borough Council to secure a second site that will allow us to expand in all that we do.

What help made the most difference along the way?

"The most obvious answer must be God, we believe that because we have made a stand in our Christian ethos and distinctive that He has blessed us amazingly in our journey and desire to reach out into the community."

Over time we have developed relationships with key people as God has answered prayer and opened doors, all we had to do was trust Him and walk through. We now have working partnerships with secular, statutory and church- based organisations. We are an approved provider for Halton Education and part of the Gateway School in Halton, offering specialist provision for young people who are permanently excluded from education, we also work with Adult Learning in Halton offering training through our music project (Hope Music), anger management through our AVP Project (Alternatives To Violence) and drugs awareness training through the Re-Think Project.

We partner with TFH (Evangelical Alliance in Merseyside), our own denomination (Assemblies of God), Faithworks and now TearFund who are supporting our work with families through The Connect Project. We now take referrals for our projects from Halton Education, Social Services, YOT (Youth Offending Teams) Adult Learning as well referrals from churches who need support.

Our church youth arm called Xcel Youth Ministries has also just received a great cash boost from Halton Youth Bank, which will allow our youth work to develop further -  we now run three youth nights every week as well as camps and trips throughout the year.

Non of what we have done or will do in the future will be possible if we did not have prayer at the foundation of all we do, we are a church-based organisation and this is one of our greatest areas of assistance as we have people who will support our projects with prayer on a daily basis.

Top tips for others in a similar situation

Clearly lay out your Christian ethos from the very beginning and don't compromise your distinctive as you move forward.

Ephesians 6:18 which says 'And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.' Prayer has been our greatest asset and the thing that has sustained us over the years.

Remember why you are doing all that you do, don't be afraid to say "I don't know" and don't be afraid to seek help.

Written by Darrell Tunningley March 2009

For more information on the church, visit www.hopecorner.co.uk