"I've Grown Personally, Spiritually and Relationally"

Elisa Oakes reflects on her year interning at life church:

Reaching the end of this internship year, I can honestly say I've loved it and it has been of immense value to me, growing me personally, relationally, and spiritually. It’s hard to quite put into words the wealth of experiences, knowledge, family, and growth I’ve gained over this year, and if you haven’t experienced it yet, I’m an external processor, so I’ll try and keep the ramblings to a minimum with some key highlights. 

I began this year as someone for whom Life Church was my local Church, I’d grown up a Christian and knew who God was, but wasn’t fully running after his purposes. I attended an Alpha and realised I missed having a personal faith after drifting due to life’s ups and downs, and began to grow closer to him and shift my life to be for his glory. Being the pastor's granddaughter on both sides of the family, I’d grown up with Church literally being family and at times within a family home, and I wanted to find that here too- I got stuck in serving on the tech team and made a good friend as well as lots more familiar faces and people to talk to fairly quickly. Later on, I was invited to join the youth team, and that’s when I really began to feel at home at the Church. I’d go and set up, enjoyed meeting and spending Wednesdays with our fabulous young people, and made some really close friends. 

When the Internship came up, it felt like a fun step. I knew I was going to Uni next year, and I already loved being involved in youth work in the capacity I was, plus there was an opportunity to embark on a discipleship/training programme. 

Straight away, I found going through the Way of Jesus booklets alongside the NEXT training programme a brilliant combo to help me grasp the intentionality of being a disciple of Jesus and to answer the why behind the practices that we incorporate as part of our Sundays and daily moments with God. If you’ve never picked one up, I’d totally recommend it. It's so easy to end up doing the motions of Christian life, but forgetting who we live for, unpacking what it means to live for God is so vital as we seek to shine light into our world. The NEXT discipleship programme I got to be part of has been invaluable to my journey over this year.  I immediately made incredible friendships that have supported me through the year and grown in my knowledge and understanding, but also my passion for God. In April we went on a mission trip to the Hague which was a major highlight of this internship year; I saw God's faithfulness in people's lives and church planting in the Hague, learnt more about and did evangelism on a university campus, delivered a talk on Mission to 30 10-12 year olds,  saw 19 children give their lives to God, and enjoyed his goodness. The programme helped to enhance the work I was doing at Life Church, giving purpose and meaning, and helping me to become part of the wider Newground family.

I've also thoroughly enjoyed getting to be involved in the behind-the-scenes of Church life a bit more, helping with events such as the church camp, where I got to create some children's activity packs. Similarly, getting more stuck in with the youth work- helping to plan our weekly meetings, delivering gospel messages, running games and activities have all been great experiences, growing my skills and relationships with our young people. Earlier in the year I planned and ran a youth alpha, welcoming around 15 young people in each week, many who haven't attended Church in their lives, it was so powerful seeing the Holy Spirit open up conversations and we say him move amongst them on our Youth Alpha day where we learnt about the Holy Spirit, worshipped together and got to pray with almost all of the over 20 young people we had. The youth alpha was such a success amongst the youth, and they've even asked us to run another one. Perhaps the most valuable work for myself that I've done has been starting a small group for some of our older youth girls where we have chatted through big questions, explored the Christian faith and how to live it out, celebrated one of the girls baptism, shared hard moments and doubts in the face of grief and pain and grown as family to each other. We are so blessed as a church to have so many wonderful young people, and I would strongly encourage you to get involved with some of the youth work. This is a generation that is hungry for more, searching for truth, and hallelujah, that many are finding it in Jesus. 

What a blessing this year has been, many memories and friendships made, lots of fun had and learning more about our saviour, getting to know his call on my life and growing in my faith in him. I’m so thankful for all those who have invested in me through prayer, encouragement, and time. Whatever season of life you find yourself in, may I encourage you to keep running after Jesus, he promises life and life to the full.