HOPE Youth Bedford 

This month marks the last HOPE event of this academic year. I thought, what better time than now to give you all an update on how it has gone this year and what this next event will look like. In case you don’t know: HOPE Youth Bedford is a Bedford-wide event that brings together youth from all over Bedford to come together in a church to worship Jesus and learn more about him.

The last two HOPE events were our biggest events so far. The first one held this academic year was also here at CCB, and the most recent at All Nations. This year has been looking at ‘making disciples’. We aim to better equip our young people with knowledge and strengthen their relationship with Christ while also broadening their understanding of what being a disciple is and what it may entail. We begin the event with games and pizza; we then come together in welcome and a big group game. We will move into worship by our HOPE band; this is always an amazing experience - being able to witness so many young people worship in ways that are comfortable to them, with some exploring new ways they may not have seen before. There is then time where a young person will come up and interview the speaker for the evening; this allows anyone who is not familiar with who is speaking to better understand them and where they may be coming from before they go into their talk. After the talk, we close with another session of worship, always just as amazing as the first!

      

This past year has seen vast growth in HOPE. The number of young people attending has drastically increased; we are now getting over 100 young people in one building to celebrate Christ. We have also had more churches join and be willing to offer their churches as spaces to hold the event, offer themselves to serve in the event and even offer young people to lead interviews with our speakers. We are absolutely thrilled to welcome more and more churches and young people into this space. We will continue to encourage more to come along. We also have a HOPE website; this will make it much easier for young people to get updates and to sign up. We hope having a central hub of information will continue to encourage HOPE’s growth as it becomes more accessible. Please feel free to have a look: hopeyouth.co.uk

 

The next event is here at CCB on the 26th July. If you know any young person who would like to come along, do have a look at the website, and the booking form is open to sign up. We are looking forward to opening our doors to so many young people later this month. Vikki Thomas will talk to us about mission, wrapping up the theme we’ve been looking at this year very nicely. We are also hoping to hear from others, sharing their testimonies about their mission experiences with the young people.


The prayer guidance for this month is for HOPE. We ask that you will keep in mind the event on the 26th June; that young people will feel welcome in our building and can express themselves in however manner they are comfortable with. We also ask that in the weeks leading up, more young people will sign up, that we will continue to see growth in this event, and that more churches can come and attend. We also keep in mind all the team that is making this event possible, giving thanks to those who have helped plan so far and those who are tying up any last details, that those who are preaching, leading, and leading in worship will speak words the Lord has put on their hearts. Also keeping in mind the rest of the team, from all churches, that they will have the wisdom to support and serve this event and all of our young people, whether that be the welcome team, the prayers, the set-up or pack-down team, those on sound and AV, those helping with refreshments, and those supporting their own young people. We are so grateful for HOPE, for what it is and what it is growing into and for all the fruits that we are seeing from it.

 

In case you've missed them, here are our old editions:
May 2026: Youthscape Essentials Course
Apr 2026: Chatting with Hannah?
Mar 2026: Youth Café
Feb 2026: 2025 Wrapped
Dec 2025: Christmas Memories
Nov 2025: What is Youth Alpha?
Oct 2025: Our Youth Weekend Away