The CLAY Team would like to update you about how God is blessing us and the way that the work amongst young people in Doncaster is moving forward.  The autumn term events were successful in terms of the growing confidence of the CLAY Team members to take responsibility for leading the meetings.  The CLAY Ball on 27 December was our most popular Ball ever.  It is always encouraging to have back with us past members who are now studying at Universities in different parts of the country.  Lots of our members brought a number of their friends along, if you would like to see pictures and you are on ‘Facebook' do join the CLAY group and then you will be able to see the fun for yourself.

On Saturday 30 January we held our first event for 2009 and were so encouraged that over 40 young people came along.  The CLAY worship team under Burcin's leadership were very effective in helping us to come together in praise and worship.  This was in itself an answer to prayer because until recently we lacked a lead guitarist.  The young people in the Team are keen to take responsibility for sharing scripture and a message.  This means setting aside time to prepare and to go through things together, many of our Team are studying for AS, A2 or university examinations and working part-time so time management is a challenge for them.  The adult facilitators are really encouraged by the passion and enthusiasm of the young people in the CLAY Team.  With this comes a huge responsibility to nurture and encourage these young Christians, to sensitively support and help them, to be honest in giving feedback that is constructive and serves to build up and not tear down.  Balanced against this is an understanding that for the youngest attendees at CLAY Meetings their attention can lapse and their enjoyment be diminished by less than highly proficient delivery of presentations, drama, worship, games etc! 

We will be taking a group of 28 young people to Soul Survivor at Shepton Mallet in August of this year - the fifth year CLAY has gone to this event.  The Team has aspirations to organise a weekend away for teaching and fellowship.  The CLAY programme now comprises the monthly Saturday evening meeting, plus twice monthly CLAY Team Meetings, these are on the first and third Monday evenings of each month and CLAY Ministry Teams practise sessions on Sunday afternoons once a month - for our musicians, drama team and prayer ministry team to get together for preparation and team building.  It is important to acknowledge that this is possible because of the generosity and good will of Reachout Christian Fellowship who allow us to use Christ Church free of charge on Saturdays and Bentley Baptist Church who also provide a free venue for Sunday afternoon meetings.  The good folk at Reachout are particularly gracious in that with the best will in the world we do not always succeed in leaving their sound equipment set up in precisely the way we found it.  A big thank you to them for their patience!  The CLAY Team also organise a social event during half-term and thanks to some useful connections we use the sports hall at Doncaster College for the Deaf for badminton, table tennis and 5-a side, then the adult facilitators prepare lunch for everyone in the college's training kitchen.  These social events are particularly important for the younger members of CLAY and also to draw in friends as a first step prior to attending on a Saturday. 

Our monthly meetings are held on the last Saturday of the month, so the next one is on 28 February 2009.  The start time has now moved back by 30 minutes to 7:00pm.  We do regularly update our web pages and communicate with CLAY Team Members and CLAY members via Facebook.  If you would like more information please do not hesitate to contact us.  In particular CLAY Team Members are really keen to support young people in churches where there are very few other young people, to introduce them to CLAY because we know that the experience of being in a larger group of Christian young people is especially beneficial to those in smaller youth groups.   

We hope that this update will help to inform your prayers for us.  CLAY has sufficient finances for the events planned over the next 4 months, therefore we are not asking for financial support at the present time.  If you know a young person aged 14 - 21 who would like to get involved in what we are doing please bring them along to a meeting, or let us know so that we are able to contact them.  Please put our meetings on your church newsletters, we can supply posters if you would like one for a notice board. 

Yours in Christ

Facilitators for the CLAY Team