Setting young hearts aflame for mission

It has been a delight to meet with Revd Stu Wright as he prepared to pilot SOMA’s META Youth project: a nine-month discipleship programme, culminating in a SOMA Mission. Participants are 16-19 years old and take part in the programme through watching video content via SOMA’s YouTube channel, and then group discussions with four specialist convenors.

Stu, a former youth worker, vicar, and now leadership consultant, heads up the programme and says:

“We are delighted to be working with SOMA on this. We have participants lined up from Pakistan, Iran, Jordan, and Lebanon, as well as from across the UK. The team are really excited and motivated and we have been blown away by the quality of young people who have applied for the programme.”

Young people joined the pilot after nominations by their church leader or youth worker, filling in an application and being selected after interview. We’ll update more on the programme as the pilot year progresses, but Stu’s heart is for the project to be scalable, and then multiply, in order to invest in many more young people around the world at a key stage in their development. It’s a programme that can be done alongside study or work, and brings together high quality leadership material with discipleship and biblical content.

Richard Moy, SOMA National Director, writes,

“In the summer at Lee Abbey we were given a prophesy for SOMA, that God would bring people alongside us who could help carry the load, shape the vision, and move us on in our values. Working with Stu has felt like a real God thing and we’ve got an exciting mission context to take the young people to at the end of the year. I’ve personally done a four month leadership programme with Stu aimed at sector leaders, and I know that Meta will be an amazing programme taking people further with God and further into understanding their own gifts and calling. Praise God for META Youth and SOMA!’

You can see more on META at somauk.org/metayouth and via our YouTube channel.