March 2011: Regeneration Youth Summit

Report by Hannah Page

Kat Witham, Leah Wagstaff and Hannah Page attended the Regeneration Youth Summit on 3rd march 2011. Caitlin Thomson was also there, on the organising team. We got some amazing packs as we arrived, with pens, paper and info on a couple of things, as well as a time table. We were put into groups with at least one bishop and one youth worker, as well as lots of youth, 150 young people attended in all!

The day kicked off with worship, we then started discussions on what Young People could bring to the Church, what the Church of England isn’t doing now but could do and thoughts surrounding the direction young people want the Church to go in. During the discussion time, other activities were happening around the hall – there was the table where people could write what they want from the church. There were also traffic lights; the red was things the Church of England is doing now that they should stop, amber was things the Church of England is doing, but could do better and green was things we’d like the Church of England to do.

Lunch then followed, where Leah and I were joined by Archbishop Rowan. After lunch, we collated our ideas together, and brought three main things that we felt important that came out of our discussions in our groups. Each group then made a one minute video saying these three points, and it all got put together as one video with all the groups, which we got to watch at the end of the day.

After the video, we had Eucharist with Archbishop Rowan celebrating. Mark Russell spoke about how we must go out and ignite change within the Church of England, so that Regeneration was not just a day of talk. During the Eucharist, we signed a pledge which can be found on the Regeneration website. Overall it was a very interesting day, and was very much enjoyed!