Saint Laurence is a church in the heart of Reading with a particular vision for unchurched young people. In essence, we are a multi-generational community (a community for all ages) that lives out the good news of the kingdom with and among the unchurched young people of the town. To put this another way, youth work is not a department or stream of what we do, rather we desire to be shaped as church with unchurched young people at the centre. In reality, we do all the normal kinds of stuff that you might expect: open club, Bible studies, fun activities, meals, residentials, worship and prayer etc. etc. all of these we seek to do with young people, not ‘to’ them, or ‘for’ them, but ‘with’ them.
The young people are not our project, they are the treasure of our community. Underpinning everything we do is our desire to be God’s church. We have found that it can mean giving in ways that we never imagined we had the capacity for. But as we give ourselves away, we have also discovered a deep joy. And we know that this is just the beginning of His work in and through us, as the community of Saint Laurence. Jesus is able to do far more than we could ever ask for, or even imagine. So we encourage one another to keep fully leaning into Him.
To read our potted history, click on the button below.