Eden Bus on route to St Cleopas

First published on: 14th June 2018

Hello, my name is Kirsty and I am the children’s worker for All Saints church in Kensington, Liverpool. As well as that I work for The Message Trust as the Merseyside Eden Bus manager. The Eden Bus is a double decker bus kitted out with good quality equipment that young people can engage with including a climbing wall.

The Eden bus works in partnership with local churches who share our passion for evangelism that leads to genuine discipleship. The aim of each partnership is to plant and establish a new evangelistic initiative in the local area run by the local team. This could range from a new youth club, youth alpha, to a church plant. So if you want to reach the young people in your community, but not sure how, the Eden Bus is a great resource to do it.

While each partnership looks different, we typically work with a team of 8 local volunteers to run weekly youth sessions for 12 weeks which puts us in contact with about 150 young people, of which 20 will become your core group. After the 12 sessions the bus will leave, however the church will continue with the core group at a location best for them.

Each session lasts 90 minutes and will include a Gospel presentation where the young people have an opportunity to respond. Those that respond are given a new Bible for them to read and explore. In our last project at Dingle, working with St Cleopas church, we saw 15 decisions for Christ. One of the girls who made a decision read the whole of Mark in a week. When I asked her what she thought of Jesus she said “I like him, he is pretty cool.” The church there have continued discipling these young people without the bus, doing outreach in their local park and have seen the same numbers each week.

This is one of many projects that the Eden Bus has launched over the years, not just in Liverpool but in other cities too. The leader of a church in Netherton who used the bus to launch their youth work said “Eden Bus is a great catalyst for launching new youth work and getting to know the community.”

Through our partnership with St Cleopas church, and their sizeable car park, I have managed to arrange a drop in session for churches to come and see the bus. The Eden Bus will be parked there on 25th June from 7-8:30pm. This is your chance to come and see the bus and ask any questions you may have regarding it. You don’t need to book, just turn up between 7-8:30pm. I will be able to give you more information about the bus and how it will work for your specific church.

If you would like to get in contact then my email address is kirsty.jamali@message.org.uk or you can call me on 07969653446.

Looking forward to seeing and hearing from you soon.

Blessings

Kirsty

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