Matt Cook is the Children and Youth worker for Harvington Youth Project and has been in post around seven months. Harvington village is located four miles north of Evesham. St James the Great is part of the ARCH benefice. The church has a small congregation on Sundays, however they work together with the Baptist church as the steering group for Harvington’s thriving youth project which has been running for three decades and has 30-40 young people from the village attending every week.
Harvington Youth Project is open to all families in the village and provides mid-week faith-based youth provision during term time. Matt runs groups three nights a week for different ages covering 7 – 18 years old, grouped into first, middle and high school groups. They all run for up to an hour and a half and only charge a nominal fee of £1.
Matt grew up in a Christian family and attended a Baptist church. Both his parents were actively involved in the life of the church, with his mum running one of the children’s groups.
Matt has a degree in Theology from Ridley Hall College, Cambridge. He secured his first paid role eight years ago and since then has worked in children’s and youth ministry for Methodist and Anglican churches as well as a community church. He also worked for a faith-based children and young people’s charity called Red Balloon Foundation and most recently as Sports Minister in the Diocese of Norwich.
Matt is the only paid worker at the Harvington youth project so he really values being part of the diocesan children, youth and families’ ministry network, facilitated by diocesan Programme Lead for Children and Young People, Simon Hill. Matt said: “It’s always nice to be reminded there is wider work going on and a co-ordinated effort across the Diocese to raise engagement with children and young people. It’s been really helpful for working out our aims and direction.”
In all the groups every week there is a bible story and discussion. Currently they are exploring the life of Jesus together, taking Christmas as the starting point and Easter as the end point.
Matt said: “It’s very hard to follow someone if you don’t know who they are, so we’re going through the whole of Jesus’ life, looking at all the difficulties he faced and the trials and temptations he overcame. Hopefully at the end of it, the young people can make an informed decision about whether Jesus is someone they want to dedicate their lives to.”
Reflecting on his own journey to faith, Matt said: “My family would always go to the New Wine summer conferences. New Wine was certainly a huge part of why I made the church my life. It was also how I got into children and youth work; in my mid-teens I started volunteering helping the 10-11s group. Thats where I realised it’s both something I really enjoy and something I’m good at and I’ve never looked back! There’s nothing else I’ve ever wanted to do! I still go to New Wine and volunteer there. Post pandemic I’ve been involved in running the 5-7s group.”
Matt feels there were also positive role models at his church that influenced him. He said: “The youth worker at my childhood church had so many different roles I couldn’t possibly name them all and most of them he wasn’t paid for. He gave up so much of his time and energy to running the youth group just because there wasn’t anyone else to do it, and we wouldn’t have had anything without his efforts. I really looked up to him.”
Matt knows what a difference volunteers can make and is very grateful to his team of volunteers at Harvington Youth Project.
He said: “I have an incredible team of very dedicated volunteers and it’s thanks to their support that Harvington Youth Project is a safe space for our young people.”
Matt added: I always want to give every child and young person the best experience possible, so that they go forwards into adult life feeling that the church is somewhere they can always turn to. I want them to think and remember that ‘the youth group was always there for me when I needed it’ or ‘the people at the church were always kind to me’. That’s so important.”
To explore the possibility of having paid children and youth work support in your parish, please contact Simon Hill, diocesan Programme Lead: Children, Young People and Families on shill@cofe-worcester.org.uk.
