Soul Purpose 2006

From the archives!

Soul Purpose Day 2

Richard Taylor coming to Shrewsbury

This is what we have to look forward to on Friday!

Soul Purpose Day 1

Time to get cracking

Hi everyone
It's been a long time but just wanted to urge everyone to get signed up, get your mates signed up, get your dog signed up, your dad signed up (should dad be in front of the dog?), your mates dad signed up and your mates dads dog.

Basically, we've got alleys to clear, gardens to clear (including one absolute belter), fun days to run, invitations to hand out, pet shows to judge, bouncy castles and playstations, magicians to watch and pigs to eat (if that's your thing).

Toilets have been ordered (you'll be pleased to know), T-shirts, radios, generators, strimmers, BBQs and buses.

We have leaders, associate leaders and helpers, we have cash from before the cuts. We have speaker and worship leaders, we have stories to change the world (our theme), we have everything but we don't have you or probably your mates.

This is my last Soul Purpose and I'd love to go out with a bang, on a real record breaking high. So do me a favour and get signed up, today!

Delegate sign up forms - 2011

Delegate Sign Up Sheet 2011

Small Team Leader forms - 2011

Small Team Leader Sign Up 11

Assistant Leader Sign up form - 2011

Assistant Leader sign up sheet

Soul Purpose 2011 Helper Sign Up form

Helper Sign Up 2011

Soul Purpose Christmas consent form

Christmas Consent Form

Matt Broomfield's talk from SP Launch

For some reason the audio guys didn't manage to get Esther's excellent talk recorded properly, so you'll just have to make do with Matt's

Word from Soul Purpose Launch

It's a while since the launch but I've finally got around to uploading some of the files. Here's the word Lucinda shared at the launch



and this is the Bible passage

Thank you for a Wonderful Christmas

This was a letter sent to the Shropshire Star last week:

"An invitation was given to the Ditherington Darby & Joan club for anyone who was going to be on their own on Christmas Day to join with others for lunch at Sundorne School.
Churches had grouped to arrange the day and what a fantastic time was had. An excellent turkey dinner was cooked and served to about 100 people followed by a choice of sweets and tea or coffee. Santa paid a visit and I have to say I have never seen a more energetic Santa.
Each of us went home with a beautiful gift after singing carols with great gusto. The amount of young people serving and helping was a pleasure to see.
Thank you all.

Val Davey
Shrewsbury"

Good eh?

The reward of kindness

I received a letter today as a thank you for Soul Purpose Christmas. It's ample reward for a day I thoroughly enjoyed. Here it is:

"I felt I wanted to write and say many thanks to you and Soul Purpose and to other kind friends who helped to arrange such a Happy Christmas Day.
I've had ninety-six Christmas' and the one Soul Purpose invited me to was one of the best I wasn't looking forward this year to Christmas without my dear husband but you helped to take some of the sadness away.
I thank you all for giving me a happy joyful time to share with others and for the hard work and hours of preparation to give so many lonely folk such a great time.

A Happy New Year to you all.

God Bless"

I nearly cried.

What is Soul Purpose?

Because I'm not very organised I tend to have about a dozen notebooks and notepads that I write in, because I can't find the previous one when I need it. So I have notes all over the place. Today I cam across these scribblings about Soul Purpose and thought I'd share them with you:

"What is SP? It's an opportunity for young people to be involved in social action in Shrewsbury. It's for the transformation of communities and individuals with the Gospel. It should spread across Shrewsbury > ongoing, creative, dynamic

- It's not "for me" but "with me" help
- It's about hopelessness to hope
- Dark to light
- Chaos to order"

You'll have to excuse the next bit because there's quite a bit of jargon but I like it...

"To build a sense of community and see a shift in mindsets.
To have cross-generational engagement (jargon that means adults and young people!)
Challenges perceptions of the church through the active involvement of church in the community.
Impacting families and individuals."

Sounds OK to me, but what would you add?

Soul Purpose Christmas 2009: Sign up

Christmas Sign Up Sheet 09

Soul Purpose 2009: The Video

Thank you

This letter was published in the Shropshire Star.

"On behalf of all the people at Harlescott Grange, Shrewsbury, I would like to thank all the young people who gave up their Spring Bank Holiday weekend to serve the community here (also at Sundorne and Ditherington).

We admired the way that these young people worked so hard, worked together and so enthusiastically. Their thought and commitment, dedication and love for all the people from the youngest to the oldest, from the most able to the most needy, was wonderfully evident. Something of their Christian teaching and faith being worked out in practice was evident to all.

In this area they cleared Senior Citizens' gardens, led youth drop-ins, organised a Family Fun Day, painted church toilets, cleared graffiti and put PVA glue on a mural, hosted a Hog roast evening, cut grass from front & back garden of a severely disabled lady, cleared a huge amount of blackthorn and other rubbish from a local school and picked up litter and delivered leaflets to a thousand homes.

So much goodwill was generated through their endeavours. In a day when young people often get a bad press, it was thrilling to see another side that does not often hit the headlines. We probably saw around 50 of the 100 young people that were involved during that time. We are sure that the other areas were equally thankful for all that was accomplished.

Thank you too for the leaders of this movement, called 'Soul Purpose' and for the investment of time and energy and sacrificial love that you all gave to this project again. Thank you to the 15 sponsoring church youth groups that were represented.

We believe that much good was accomplished through your endeavours and we trust that many barriers will have come down and many bridges built into our communities through the endeavours of these young people and their enthusiastic efforts.

Roy Whittall, 13, York Road, Harlescott Grange, Shrewsbury, SY! 3RD

Tel. Shrewsbury 462581."

TEENS CONTRIBUTE £300 MILLION A YEAR TO SOCIETY

I read this recently and obviously Soul Purpose is good evidence!

Faith is a significant motivation for voluntary work, says Evangelical Alliance report

Teenagers in England are contributing £300 million each year to the economy, through voluntary work and donations to charity, a report by the Evangelical Alliance has found.

Young People Matter, the report released today with a foreword from HRH The Prince of Wales, surveyed over seven hundred 14-18 year olds and found that 45 percent of young people volunteer at least once a month and 80 percent donate money to charity each month.

Young people who volunteer give on average 3.57 hours a month. When projected across England this is the equivalent of 33,000 full time workers and £210 million a year at minimum wage. According to the report, young people also donate approximately £110 million to charity each year.

Almost 40 percent of the voluntary work carried out by young people takes place through churches or religious organisations and 10 percent of those who declared themselves non-religious still volunteer through a religious organisation.

The report also found that the more active the young person is as a Christian, the more likely they are to volunteer. In the foreword for the report, HRH The Prince of Wales said: “I am deeply impressed by their efforts and these deserve to be recognised more widely,” concluding, “I sincerely hope that young people themselves will be inspired by the findings of this report. He continued: “What is striking, as the report highlights, is the way in which personal faith and religious organisations encourage young people to volunteer.”

Nicole May, 17, from Manchester, serves on the panel of the Manchester City Council Youth Opportunity Fund, which gives young people the chance to engage in positive activities. As part of her role, Nicole helps set up grant criteria, reviews grant applications, trains new panel members and visits beneficiaries. “My youth worker asked me if I wanted to volunteer, and I decided I wanted to give something back to the community, rather than just sitting at home watching TV,” she said. “I am a Christian, and my faith motivates me to volunteer. I am also from the Afro-Caribbean community, and since a lot of young black people get bad press, I wanted to highlight the positive things happening in the community and dispel some of the negative connotations.”

The Alliance’s General Director, Steve Clifford, said: “These results demonstrate what I have seen and known for years; that young people, contrary to the stereotypes, make a massive positive difference in our communities. Far too often they are branded as hoodies or gang members when the real statistics tell a very different story. “I hope this acknowledgement of how many 14-18 year olds are motivated to volunteer by their faith will mean that schools and Government will work with faith groups to encourage this selfless giving.”

The most common reasons for volunteering were wanting to help people (53 percent) and wanting to contribute something to society (43 percent). The most common factors hindering volunteering were lack of time (54 percent) and too much school work (52 percent). 41 percent said that gaining a recognised qualification would encourage them to volunteer.

More Soul Purpose pictures

Some from Mark Hughes on Facebook