Learning to WAIT: A Week in Our Local Schools

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It’s been a busy and encouraging week for Llandudno Youth for Christ, connecting with hundreds of young people across two local schools, exploring some big questions, and strengthening relationships with local churches.

We began the week at St Paul’s Church, attending a commissioning service for their new pioneer minister and youth worker. It was a privilege to offer a few words and deliver a formal welcome on behalf of Youth for Christ. We’re always encouraged to see churches investing in their communities and young people, and we’re looking forward to working together.

Every morning this week, we’ve been at Ysgol Aberconwy, delivering assemblies on conspiracy theories, misinformation, and how we respond to things we disagree with.

In a world where everyone seems to have an opinion, and where social media encourages us to reactinstantly, we wanted to challenge young people to do something surprisingly difficult: stop, think, and learn to WAIT.

  • W – Wait: Pause before reacting to something you disagree with.
  • A – Ask questions: Who is saying this, why, and can you trust them?
  • I – Investigate: Look deeper, explore different perspectives, and check the facts.
  • T – Talk: Make it normal to discuss difficult things with friends, teachers, youth workers, and parents.

The response was fantastic. Students engaged well, teachers were encouraging, and one teacher even gave me a big hug afterwards!

It was also great to able to bring other local youth workers into the school with us. Troy from Gloddaeth Church joined us for one morning, and Steph from St Paul’s Church came along on another. This wasn’t just about delivering a good assembly, but  helping local churches build relationships and become familiar, friendly faces within local schools.

That’s something we’re passionate about at Youth for Christ. We don’t want to do youth ministry in isolation. We want to help churches and schools work together for the good of young people.

Holding It All Together at St David’s College

Alongside the assemblies, we also spent an afternoon at St David’s College, joining their Christian Union to explore the Armour of God.

Our focus was the belt of truth in Ephesians 6. We explored how the truth of Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection, gives us something solid to build our lives around.

When life feels chaotic, confusing, or overwhelming, that truth helps put everything else into perspective. Just as a good belt holds everything together, knowing who Jesus is and what he has done helps us make sense of everything else.

It was a real privilege to spend time with these young people, opening the Bible together and thinking about what following Jesus means in everyday life.

Helping Young People Think, Question, and Grow

What connects these two very different experiences is our desire to help young people develop a thoughtful, resilient faith and a healthy way of engaging with the world around them.

Whether we’re encouraging students to question what they see online or helping young Christians understand the foundations of their faith, we’re creating opportunities for young people to think deeply, ask questions, and have meaningful conversations.

And we couldn’t do any of this alone.

We’re grateful to the schools that welcome us, the churches that partner with us, and the individuals who make this work possible.

If you’d like to be part of helping young people across this part of North Wales, we’d love your support. You could volunteer, help us build connections with your church, pray for our work, or consider becoming a regular supporter.

Every partnership, every prayer, and every gift helps us continue creating these opportunities.

Together, we can help more young people encounter Jesus, explore life’s biggest questions, and grow into thoughtful, confident adults.

Big announcement: A new space for local youth workers!

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Just over a year ago, I had a breakdown.

There were a number of reasons for it, and it would be far too simplistic to reduce the whole experience to one thing. But one significant part of it was isolation.

Youth work can be an oddly lonely calling. That sounds strange, because very little about youth work looks lonely from the outside. Our weeks are filled with young people, volunteers, church leaders, parents, teachers and other professionals. We run groups and events, visit schools, sit in meetings, and spend a great deal of our working lives surrounded by people. Yet behind all of that, many youth workers actually work quite alone.

You plan sessions on your own. You sit at a desk on your own. You make difficult decisions on your own. You carry stories and situations that are sometimes enormously heavy, and there aren’t always many people around who really understand what carrying them feels like.

Even when you are part of a supportive church or organisation, there is something different about having other youth workers alongside you who understand the particular joys and pressures of the job.

Since my return to full-time work, I’ve become increasingly conscious that my experience wasn’t unusual. I keep meeting youth workers who, in different ways and in very different contexts, describe the same problem. They love young people. They believe deeply in what they’re doing. They may even be surrounded by supportive people. But the actual day-to-day experience of doing youth ministry can still be surprisingly isolated.

So we’ve been thinking about whether we can do something practical about that.

A new workplace for youth workers

At Llandudno Youth for Christ, we have an upstairs room at The Garage which we are turning into a new office and resource space for a few local Christian youth workers. We’re putting some serious investment into making it a genuinely excellent place to work, with proper desks and workstations, a conference table, a growing library of youth ministry and theological resources, equipment, printing facilities, and space for planning, meetings and creative work.

But really, the room isn’t the point.

The hope is that somebody who would otherwise spend Wednesday afternoon preparing a youth group alone at home can come and work alongside two or three other people doing the same sort of thing. Someone can make a coffee, open their laptop and get on with their work, but there are other people in the room when they need to talk something through.

Ideas can be shared without organising a formal meeting, someone can mention a problem they are facing and discover that another youth worker has dealt with something similar, resources can be borrowed rather than bought again, and churches can discover that they are separately trying to solve the same problem, and might be better off solving it together.

Over time, we hope that this sort of proximity will create something much more valuable than a shared office. We hope it creates community, mutual support and joined-up thinking about youth ministry across our area.

And we want to give it away.

(Mock up of the design)

 

Co-working community for youth mission

We aren’t creating a co-working space to rent out to churches, and we absolutely aren’t interested in using it as a way of bringing everybody’s youth ministry under the Youth for Christ banner! We simply have a space that we can offer, and we want to be generous with it.

So local Christian youth workers who share our vision for seeing more young people come to know Jesus will be able to use the space, whether they work for Youth for Christ, for a local church, or for another Christian organisation.

There is something important to us in that. We want to see youth ministry flourish across Llandudno and the surrounding area, not simply our own projects. If a youth worker in another church is better supported and stays in ministry longer, we all benefit. If two churches begin working together because their youth workers happened to spend an afternoon around the same table, we all benefit. If somebody discovers a resource they would never otherwise have found, or gets encouragement on a particularly difficult week, or simply feels a little less alone in what they are doing, then the room will be doing what we built it to do.

Most importantly, if healthier, better-supported, and better-connected youth workers help more young people encounter Jesus, then that is worth investing in.

(current state of the room)

 

Could your church help us be generous to other local churches?

We’ve already committed £2,000 to making this vision a reality. That’s enough for us to do the basics; decorate the room, furnish it and begin turning it into a genuinely useful office and resource space.

But we’d love to do it properly!

Ideally, we’d like to bring in an electrician to add more sockets so the room works well as a shared office, replace the existing lighting with something better suited to a working environment, and provide us with the appropriate electrical safety certification. Those aren’t particularly exciting things to fund, but they would make a significant difference to the quality and usefulness of the space.

There is also an ongoing cost. More people working from The Garage means increased use of printing, internet, refreshments, and other resources. We expect opening up the building in this way to increase our monthly outgoings.

That’s why we’d love to invite local churches to help us make that generosity possible.

If this is something you think your church could get behind?

Would you share this post and the accompanying video with your church leaders? Perhaps you could have a conversation together about whether your church could become a regular giving partner of Llandudno Youth for Christ, supporting our work each month, and helping us continue to provide things like this for the wider church.

Of course, one-off gifts towards creating the space would be enormously appreciated, but regular giving gives us the confidence to be generous for the long term; not simply building a great room, but keeping it available, resourced, and free for those who need it.

Although we’re excited about the office itself, we’re much more excited about what might grow out of it. We want this to be something Llandudno Youth for Christ can gift to the local church as a place to work, certainly, but also a place to share ideas, resources, encouragement and life.

My own experience has taught me how damaging isolation in youth ministry can become. I can’t make sure that another youth worker never goes through what I went through, and a shared office certainly isn’t the answer to every pressure that comes with this work.

But perhaps we can make it a little harder for people to end up carrying it all alone.

And that’s a room worth building.

Jesus is… therefore…

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Sometimes a Redefine night just works.

This week was one of those nights. We had new young people joining us, some familiar faces returning, and a full team of volunteers. It was absolutely brilliant.

We’re continuing our journey through Revelation, and this week we got properly stuck into Revelation 1 and the extraordinary picture it gives us of the Jesus that John saw.

Rather than simply asking “What does this tell us about Jesus?”, we pushed it one step further: Jesus is… therefore…

For example…

If Jesus is powerful, therefore I can bring my prayers to him.

If Jesus is loving, therefore I know that he loves me.

If Jesus speaks the word of God, therefore I can trust what God has said.

If Jesus has conquered death, therefore I don’t need to be afraid.

It led to some great conversations as we tried to move Revelation from being something strange and mysterious on a page to something that actually matters to the way we live. Who Jesus is changes how we understand ourselves, our lives, our fears and our future.

Before we dug into Revealrtion we also had an enormous eight-player Mario Kart session, some increasingly questionable attempts to balance cups and plates, another dip into our Question Box, and plenty of soup and toast to keep everyone going.

And something else exciting is beginning to take shape is that we’re starting to put together a youth worship band. We’re still right at the beginning, but we’re really looking forward to seeing where it goes.

New faces. Old faces. A full team. Games, food, questions, laughter, Scripture and some genuinely deep conversations about Jesus.

A pretty exceptional Redefine night.

Wanted: Cake Bakers!

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Do you bake a decent cake? Would you like that cake to help support local young people? We may have just the job for you.

Twice a month, Reverb Café opens its doors at the Garage, providing a friendly, affordable community café in the heart of Llandudno. It’s run by a wonderful team of volunteers, with young people helping to serve.

Importantly, it involves a lot of cake… and we have a cake emergency!

One of our amazing regular bakers has sadly had to step down, which means we’re looking for a new baker — or a small team of bakers — to join the Reverb cake rota.

The current rota involves providing three cakes roughly once a month. That could be one person making all three, two people splitting them, or even three people each making a cake. We’re very happy for people to team up.

And no, you don’t need to be Bake Off standard.

You can choose what you make. Sponges go down well. Anything involving chocolate tends to disappear suspiciously quickly. Variety is always welcome. The chief qualification is simply being willing to bake something tasty and send it in the direction of hungry café customers.

Reverb Café actually provides around a third of the funds that support the work of Llandudno Youth for Christ. So every Victoria sponge, chocolate cake, or lemon drizzle sold is doing a little bit more than accompanying a cup of tea. It’s helping us continue our work with young people across Llandudno.

Our most immediate need is for cakes on 24 October and 28 November, although we can shuffle the rota around depending on people’s availability.

We’re convinced there must be a few undiscovered bakers hiding in churches around Llandudno. So, if that might be you, or you know someone whose cakes deserve a wider audience, we’d love to hear from you.

Contact our Treasurer and Reverb Café organiser, Chris Condrup, at treasurerllyfc@gmail.com.

Bake cake. Feed people. Support youth work!

There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

Redefine is Back!

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Redefine is back for a new term, and we couldn’t have asked for a better first night.

We had a brilliant group of young people at The Garage, including some new faces joining us for the first time. There were games, food, time just hanging out together, and a really good Bible study with Q&A afterwards.

In other words, a pretty typical Redefine night!

So, what is Redefine?

Redefine is our regular group for secondary school and college-age young people who want to explore the Christian faith more deeply.

It creates space for young people who are interested in Christianity to go further, whether they would confidently call themselves Christians, are still figuring that out, or simply have lots of questions. This means opening the Bible together, talking honestly about what it says, asking difficult questions, and working out what following Jesus might actually look like in everyday life.

And we really do mean asking questionsQ

Young people don’t need to arrive knowing the answers. They don’t need to know their way around a Bible, understand lots of Christian language, or pretend to believe something they don’t. Questions, doubts and disagreements are all welcome. Redefine is a safe place to explore those things together.

More than a Bible study

Surounding our time exploring the Bible, we eat together, play ridiculous games, chat and catch up and over time build a community.

Our aim isn’t simply to give young people more information about Christianity. We want to help them develop a faith they have thought about for themselves: giving them the tools to read the Bible well, wrestle with difficult questions, and explore what it means to know and follow Jesus as individuals and a group.

This term, we’re doing that through the book of Revelation. Dragons, beasts, angels, thrones, mysterious numbers, and the end of the world might not sound like the obvious place to start! But Revelation gives us a fantastic opportunity to learn how the Bible works, how to make sense of difficult passages, and how the whole biblical story fits together.

If our first night back is anything to go by, it should be a great term.

You can find all the Redefine info here.

Could you join the team?

As Redefine continues to grow, we’d really love to add another volunteer to the team. We’re looking for someone who cares about young people, is comfortable sharing and exploring Christian faith with them, and is happy to get stuck into the whole evening; whether that means chatting over food, joining in with games, helping with discussions or simply being another trusted adult in the room. If that sounds like something you might enjoy, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch by emailing us at llandudnoyfc@gmail.com

New faces are always welcome.

We’re looking for a part-time Staff Worker

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As we head into a new term at Llandudno Youth for Christ, we’re still looking for someone to join our team as a part-time Staff Worker.

This is a small, flexible role of 8–12 hours a week, combining hands-on youth work with some administration and communications. It could suit someone looking for a few hours alongside other work or study, or someone wanting to gain more experience in Christian youth work.

The role is paid at the Real Living Wage, includes a pension contribution, and is designed to be developmental, with mentoring and training provided as part of the role.

Most importantly, we’re looking for someone with a heart for young people who wants to play a part in our mission to see young people’s lives changed by Jesus.

Could it be you?

You don’t need to have everything figured out before getting in touch. The exact number of hours is negotiable, and we can be flexible about the start date for the right person.

So if the role sounds interesting but you’re wondering whether it could work around your existing commitments, we’d be very happy to have an informal conversation.

Equally, if it’s not for you but someone immediately comes to mind, we’d love you to send the opportunity their way.

You can find full details about the role, including how to apply, at:

www.llandudnoyfc.com/jointheteam

We’d love to hear from you.

DenFest 2026 – What a Way to Start the Summer!

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Last week we wrapped up the school year with DenFest! Four days of fun, laughter and plenty of opportunities to spend time with young people before everyone disappeared for the summer holidays.

The idea was simple; build a den or put up a tent at home, then join us across the weekend for a programme of events celebrating the start of the summer. It gave us a brilliant chance to keep seeing familiar faces, welcome some new ones, and reconnect with a few young people we hadn’t seen for a while.

We kicked things off by transforming The Garage into a cosy cinema. Bean bags, comfy chairs, hot dogs, popcorn and hot chocolate made for a relaxed evening together and a great start to the weekend.

Saturday morning began with breakfast on Zoom, where we played games, tackled a few quizzes, and, of course, had a look at the impressive dens!

Later that day things became a little more competitive with our Whacky Races evening. Young people and team battled it out in a Blur racing computer tournament then took to our full-size RC car track. There was plenty of friendly rivalry and more than a few dramatic crashes.

Sunday afternoon saw the inevitable water fight. Everyone ended up absolutely soaked, but with the warm weather that wasn’t exactly a problem!

We finished the weekend with one of our favourites; a Mafia Tournament. Complete with costumes, character cards and plenty of dramatic accusations. It was a fantastic way to end DenFest and saw everyone fully embracing the imaginary village of ‘Crooked Falls’ where nothing is quite as it seems!

Looking back, what we’re most thankful for isn’t simply the activities, but the relationships. Events like these create space for conversations that don’t happen easily elsewhere. We loved catching up with young people, meeting parents, chatting with supporters, and continuing to build partnerships with local churches. Those relationships are at the heart of everything we do.

A huge thank you goes to our fantastic volunteer team, who gave their time, energy and enthusiasm throughout the weekend. We simply couldn’t run events like this without you.

We’re also incredibly grateful to Gloddaeth Church and The Lighthouse Community Church for generously hosting some of the events and helping make DenFest possible.

It’s been an amazing way to finish another school year, and we’re already looking forward to everything the new term will bring. Until then, we hope everyone has a fantastic summer!

We’re Looking for a New Staff Worker

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Over the last few years, we’ve been amazed by the opportunities God has opened up for Llandudno Youth for Christ.

From regular schools work and detached sessions, to Redefine, camps, events and everything in between, we’ve been privileged to build relationships with hundreds of young people across our town. Alongside that, our communication with supporters, churches and volunteers has continued to grow.

The challenge is that there’s now more work than one full-time member of staff can realistically do… and after Tim’s health scare last year, this has become even more important.

That’s why we’re excited to announce that we’re recruiting a part-time Staff Worker to join the team from September.

This new role is designed to strengthen what we’re already doing. Around half the time will involve helping behind the scenes with administration and communications, while the other half will involve supporting our youth work in schools, projects and events. Just as importantly, we want this to be a role where someone can grow, receiving mentoring, training and experience in different aspects of Christian youth ministry.

We’re looking for someone who loves Jesus, has a heart for young people, enjoys working as part of a team, and wants to play a part in seeing young people’s lives changed by Him.

The position is for 8–12 hours per week and is paid at the Real Living Wage, with a pension contribution, ongoing training, mentoring and opportunities for development.

Please do pray with us as we seek the right person for this next step in the life of the charity. We believe this could make a significant difference to the ministry over the coming years, and we’re excited to see who God might bring.

Have a look at the job posting by clicking here!

If you know someone who you think would be a great fit, we’d really appreciate you sharing this opportunity with them.

Another big week in local schools

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This week has been one of those weeks that reminds us just how grateful we are for the relationships we’ve been able to build with our local secondary schools.

On Tuesday we had the privilege of running a rewards day for around 50 Year 7 and 8 pupils iside Ysgol Aberconwy. With the help of a fantastic team of volunteers, we transformed the day into a mixture of Nerf Wars, dodgeball, pillow fights, and small-group team-building games. It was incredibly hot, but that certainly didn’t stop the young people throwing themselves into every activity! It was a great atmosphere throughout the day, and we were delighted to hear how pleased the Head of Year was with how everything went.

Then on Thursday we were back at Ysgol Aberconwy for another rewards day, this time with around 40 Year 9 and 10 pupils. We split the group in two, running everything twice so everyone could take part. The sports hall was full of dodgeball, pillow fights again, then we added 4 Square and 9 Square (sport for people who don’t do sport!), before everyone came together for a big quiz to finish the session. As always, the games were only part of the story. The opportunity to spend time chatting with young people, encouraging them, and continuing to build relationships with pupils staff is what makes these days so valuable.

In the middle of the week on Wednesday we were also back at Ysgol John Bright for one of our regular detached lunchtime sessions. We spent time outdoors playing games, hanging out with pupils, and catching up with familiar faces. We also had the chance to check in with one of the Assistant Heads, who was again encouraging about the work we’ve been doing in the school this year.

Looking back, it’s hard not to be thankful for what God has been doing through our schools’ ministry over the past year. We’ve had the opportunity to lead assemblies, take lessons, run projects such as The Influence Project, support Christian Union events, deliver large rewards days like these, and spend time meeting with teachers, pastoral teams, and senior staff.

Each of those opportunities represents something much bigger than an event. They represent trust, partnership, and growing relationships. We are very encouraged by our connections with Ysgol Aberconwy, Ysgol John Bright, and St David’s College, and we’re excited to see where those relationships lead in the coming year.

Thank you again to everyone who volunteers, prays, and supports this important work!

Catching up after a busy stretch

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It’s been a while since the last post on here. I did think about trying to quietly carry on as if no one would notice, but that didn’t feel quite right. So… sorry! It’s not that things have gone quiet. It’s been the opposite, busy busy busy!

Some of our time recently has been spent around church visits, and that’s worked both ways. We’ve been out to churches, but we’ve also had people come to us. One home group came down to the Garage to see what things actually look like on a normal weeknight. Those kinds of visits tend to be less polished than a Sunday slot, but you get to see the mess and have a go at being a young person again!

We also ran our ‘Parenting the Digital Age’ training. We weren’t sure how it would land, but it filled up well and people stayed afterwards to talk, which is usually a pretty good indicator. Most of the conversations were quite specific; phones in bedrooms, group chats going wrong, that sort of thing, rather than abstract worries about “technology”. It felt grounded. We’re really pleased with how it went.

At St. David’s College, we had the chance to do a special session with the Christian Union called ‘Why I’m “still” a Christian’. The title probably gives away the tone. We looked at some of the things that are often assumed to undermine faith (science, suffering, unanswered questions) and tried to take them seriously rather than brushing past them. It wasn’t about winning an argument, but being honest about why faith has stayed, or even deepened, in the middle of those tensions.

Detached work at Ysgol John Bright has been steadily growing. We’ve recently had a new team member join us there, which has made a noticeable difference. More conversations, more continuity, and a bit more energy!

Back at the Garage, Redefine has been going well too. We’ve had a few new faces over this last stretch, which always changes the dynamic slightly. We’ve been working through a series on responding to stress, using stories from the Gospels alongside Psalms and bits of Wisdom Literature. And as always, there have been important moments where something seems to connect.

Behind the scenes, we’ve been working with two Heads of Year at Ysgol Aberconwy to plan rewards days for entire year groups this term. It’s the kind of thing that involves a lot of emails and spreadsheets before anything actually happens, but it’s starting to take shape now.

And on top of that, we’ve been planning our own summer events too. It’s still early enough that they exist mostly as lists and half-formed ideas, but it does look like it could be a good few month.

So that’s where we’ve been. Not absent, just occupied! We’ll try not to leave it so long before the next update—but given how things tend to go, no promises!