Placement churches

My work in Open Heaven is largely student work, which I love. The mission statement at Open Heaven is "making 21st Century Disciples"; part of this for me means working with guys within the Church to help them follow God through:
- overseeing student cell groups
- one on one discipleship

Another part of 'making disciples' is evangelism. I'm serving Student Alpha with Caroline through coordinating and hosting the sessions, which is already going really well as we have a great team and some brilliant guests. I'm also heading up the Club Mission team, we work alongside the security staff in the student union, looking after the emotional needs and helping where ever we can. We have great relationships with the head guys in the union, which has allowed us to start a prayer room in the union, get official union stash and has massive future potential.

I love working for Open Heaven, it's a place of constant discipleship and is both challenging and encouraging.

Paul

 

God has placed a passion within me for students, so as a part of Open Heaven, I am centrally involved in the work of the Student Team, who work to support all that goes on within the church. We are especially keen to make new students feel welcome, so church services tend to be a process of networking and befriending people; we don't want anyone left out! Within the running of Open Heaven, I am part of the cell oversight team, looking after a number of student and town cells and ensuring all run smoothly. I disciple two girls within the church, and support a number of others. I also head up the prayer team which is a part of each sunday gathering, caring for, and praying for anyone and anything. This year I have also begun worship leading with a band, and furthermore am stepping out more in speaking and teaching. My main passion is for women's fellowship, and so, I head up a girls mentoring scheme which meets regularly in term time, and I also co-lead the Be:Loved team. Be:Loved is a girl's fellowship day run by Open Heaven which includes teaching, worship, pampering, food, gifts and much more! I hope to be able to host three whilst on my DNA year.

 

Corinne

 

I will be doing a lot of work with a charity called The Baca Project, working with young forced migrants (refugees and asylum seekers). I will be involved in raising awareness and understanding of the issues forced migrants face, mostly through schools work. I will also be helping Baca in other ways, likely to include some admin/office work, befriending the young forced migrants, possibly teaching some of them English, and doing some interpretation for an Albanian-speaking boy who they are currently working with.
 
I will also be volunteering for Project 5000 - preparing and serving food parcels, a hot meal and drinks for the homeless and deprived in Loughborough. I hope this will also provide opportunities to get to know some of them and show them God's love.
 
In addition to this I'll be serving Open Heaven through worship leading and some admin work, as well as leading a cell group for recent graduates.
 
I also have a personal vision to reach out to Albanians living in the Loughborough area, to build relationships and to be a witness of God's love for them.
 
Claire

 

My favourite thing in my week is working with kids who are near to exclusion in school.  Helping them learn 'life skills' such as how to bake a potato and enabling them to see that they all have great skills and qualities.  What I love is building relationship with them, it's early days but the trust is growing.  The rest of my week includes visiting the young offenders institute, child minding and serving at the family expression of Open Heaven, 'OH2'
 
Vicky