Something New is a community of young adults based at Liverpool Cathedral.
In 2015, we (Andy & Nic) asked our neighbour (Josh) to join us in praying for God’s Spirit to move amongst the young adults in Liverpool. After two and a half years of praying, building community and doing evangelism, Something New has now developed into a small but growing community, focussed on courage, kindness and (of course) Jesus.
The heart behind planting Something New has been to be obedient to God, in reaching out to those who are ‘off the map’ of the church, in order to build a new community of disciples. Consequently, the team have tried to follow that ordering of things: we began with a year of prayer, followed by a year of prayer and mission, followed by a year of prayer, mission and discipleship.
On Sunday nights the Christians who are part of the community gather for worship in the Cathedral. Afterwards, everyone heads across the road to cook some pizzas in the community’s pizza oven (handily located in Andy and Nic’s garden). This is the opportunity for the wider community of neighbours, friends, enemies, random people they’ve just met etc. to come together and enjoy themselves.
This pattern allows the Christians who are already part of the community to be encouraged -immediately before they serve and impact the wider community. Equally, those who don’t know Jesus are able to enjoy hospitality and friendship, but with the option to come earlier the next week – to explore the worshipping life of the community as well.
We know that even Pizza Ovens are no good without prayer, so the community also keep a regular pattern of weekly prayer gatherings and quarterly prayer weekends, to undergird everything else we do!
Things do change quickly for new congregations, but we are optimistic for the year ahead, and furiously planning our next steps.
Please join us, therefore, in praying that our community is able to:
- Become more courageous in mission
- Engage with more first year students
- Grow in faith and number
- Host a weekend retreat for students
- Develop new, younger leaders
By Andy Dykes