This article has been written by youth at Stowmarket Corps, including: Leanne Steggall, Jason Ling, Jeremy Ling, Michael Baker and Claire Baker.

The planning for our corps Youth Sunday was lacking ideas and inspiration, until March 20th, Shepherd’s Bush. Before we knew anything about ALOVE we had been praying for some direction and purpose for the youth at Stowmarket. God answered our prayers through ALOVE, this gives us the purpose to develop our corps, build on our strengths, provide relevant worship for young people and get back to the roots of William Booth’s Army.

With our Youth Sunday just 2 weeks after “…Story?” it was the perfect opportunity to launch ALOVE at our corps. Our meeting was under-prepared but over-prayed! It began by an introduction to the theme of the meeting “Making an impact for Christ through the way we live our lives”. We then gave a brief introduction to ALOVE using a presentation from the website and also the video on the CD-ROM, which made quite an impact!

The structure for our meeting was based around the 4 essentials: Worship, Mission, Social Action and Discipleship. For explained each one and how we could relate it to our corps. A whole number of ideas and activities featured in this discussion.


Worship and Mission

For worship and mission, we discussed what worship means to ALOVE and it’s meaning in the Bible, followed by a time of praise. A prayer wall was constructed and members of the congregation wrote up their prayers the future of the Stowmarket corps. People also thought about how they could serve God by serving their friends, family or community. Many people did this, especially the younger element of the corps who really challenged us with their willingness to serve others.

Some of the mission activities are being funded by an idea that involves selling rubber ducks for £1.50. The aim is for people to take photos of their duck in different situations. On the Finals night, people will pay to submit photos into 5 categories and the winner of each will receive a prize.

The categories are:
• Celeb Duck – Duck pictured with a famous person.
• Daredevil Duck – Most courageous duck.
• Culture Duck – Duck pictured in most interesting location.
• Michael Palin Duck – Duck pictured in most inhospitable place.
• Funny Duck – Most humorous duck.


Social Action

As well as sending off 80 postcard petitions to Tessa Jowell about the draft gambling bill, a member of the youth gave a testimony about the need for social action. She underlined the aim of ALOVE to get stuck into our communities, just like William Booth did all those years ago; the only difference is that the problems are different.


Discipleship

It was underlined that through community we might empower one another to spiritually re-build our church. A small group of our young people shared how they have gathered together in prayer to develop one another as Christians.

We discussed the important role of discipleship at Stowmarket - we have huge potential, a vast range of ages, new facilities and are a growing community. Through discipleship we can develop one another to spread God’s word in our town.

The evening was certainly filled with great ideas, inspiration and personal testimony. One older person challenged the corps for the need to support the youth in what we were trying to do and that everyone has the chance to play a key role in the development of the corps and God’s kingdom in Stowmarket.

The meeting was summed up by Gav – a member of the youth team, who shared what ALOVE means to Stowmarket. He highlighted that you can replace each of the essentials with a single word or phrase:

Worship	=	ALOVE for God.
Discipleship	=	ALOVE for Jesus, his teaching, his example, and a desire to become more like him.
Mission	=	ALOVE for others, an unconditional love putting the needs of others before our own.
Social Action	=	ALOVE for the marginalized; those rejected by society, those without a voice - a love for the unloved.