We believe God is the author of this story, it’s all for His glory.
Awaken and the early worship nights were envisioned in 2015 while some of our team were visiting a city’s student worship night.
After some years of praying, the doors opened in the Spring of 2018 as a group of young adults from 6 different churches were stirred by God in the Taunton area to do a similar thing. They started to pray for Young Adults across the region.
Taunton has no university and the surrounding areas are rural. In a city it’s a different story, but in Taunton and the South West generally there are many lonely young adults scattered among the churches. Once they reach 18 they are generally too old for their church’s youth group and this is a make or break age. More than ever, they need a community, especially in the loneliest generation ever to be on the planet (not helped by social media)! It’s of note that there has been a decade shift in the UK culture with young adults. Moving out of home, getting a job, marriage etc is happening now around the age of 30, and that’s a huge change we need to think about culturally. It also has some awesome potential; what would happen if the young adults of this generation were mobilised to serve before they have too many commitments?
It’s not really healthy if one church in your town or city has young adults and the others have none, but what happens if these Awaken gatherings encouraged, released, commissioned them back to the church full of faith?
Now is the time to awaken and strengthen. Young adults need to know they are not alone and be encouraged to pursue an eternal calling.
Awaken’s first worship night was in September 2018 with over 15 churches represented. Now there are over 100 young adults in the community across many churches, our team and trustees work hard to put on events throughout the year as we feel led by Jesus. We also network and support various new young adult communities and movements throughout the South West and Beyond.
We provide everything free of charge wherever possible, please pray that God will provide, as He has up to this point. If you feel prompted to give, please get in touch or donate to our charity bank account.
Account Name: AWAKEN
Sort Code: 08-92-99
Account Number: 67215184
Over 99% of Young Adults/Students are not connected to a Christian Community.
FusionMovement
Sam is our chair of trustees and lives by faith, working many hours behind the scenes for AWAKEN and other ministries across the town. Since surrendering his full time employment in 2018 God has faithfully provided all his needs you can find out about supporting him on his stewardship link: www.stewardship.org.uk/partners/sam_burton