Nathan Shipton started a new role as Youth Pastor for the Malvern Chase team in April 2024 bringing with him a fresh vision and passion for connecting with 11–18 year olds that has already made a difference, as he helps them explore their faith and connection with God at a deeper level.
Former Engineer Nathan feels like he’s learnt a lot from his first year as an employed youth pastor, trying a number of different approaches.
He said:
“At the start I had lots of different ideas about all the exciting activities we could do, some of which worked and some which didn’t, which caused me to reflect on my own faith journey. I was raised in a Christian family but what led me to make my own commitment to God aged 11 or 12, was having people I liked and trusted at church that I could talk to and ask questions.”
“I had a re-think and found it’s worked well to make that the starting point and then build activities around it."
Nathan’s highlights from the last year include setting up a mid-week group called ‘Further’, a bible discovery study group that meets every week for the 10-14 age group.
He said:
“Further is working really well. The young people are keen to ask questions on the bible and are building community and reflecting together on what they are reading in the text, and how to apply this to their own lives.”
"We held a youth weekend away as well which helped bring the group closer together as it allowed plenty of time for longer conversations. Just having time and to sit and eat and chat together is so important.”
He added:
“I also feel God is working through our Pathfinders group on a Sunday morning. We do various activities, a lot of it is about being creative and having fun but we always link it back to the bible and to God’s message.”
“I wanted to create something that the young people would feel confident inviting their friends to and it’s definitely growing organically in that way.”
"I’ve also found the support of the diocesan network really helpful. Being new to this sector and having total responsibility for the 11-18 year old age group, it’s been so helpful to connect with others in a similar role across the Diocese to find out how they’re doing things and what’s working for them."
It was God that brought Nathan to St Andrew’s Church. He had been working as an Manufacturing Engineer in Hereford and moved to Malvern around five years ago to take up another similar role. Nathan got into youth work organically by getting involved at the church he attended where he grew up in Ross and got involved again whilst attending a Pentecostal church in Malvern, as he knew how to utilise online technology to continue to engage with young people during the pandemic.
He said:
“Along with one of the youth leaders, we used the computer game ‘Minecraft’ to virtually meet with the young people and utilised a separate group chat app so we could talk to each other. We set them individual and group building tasks based on passages of the bible and used it as a way to check in on them and get them chatting with us and each other. It was a really good way to engage with that particular group of young people and truly ‘meet them where they were’.”
He added:
“However, you don’t have to understand technology to engage young people. It’s finding the time and space to chat to them.”
Nathan continued volunteering and during that time had a dream where God spoke to him, calling him to ministry. He enrolled at Regents Theological College in Malvern and through study and prayer discerned that this calling was to a different church. Nathan attended ‘Early Birds’ at St Andrew’s in the Malvern Chase Team, which he felt was ‘just perfect’ for him and his family; then found God gently nudging him to apply for the Youth Pastor role.
Nathan now works across the three churches that make up the Malvern Chase team; All Saints Malvern Wells & Wyche, St. Mary's Pickersleigh and St Andrew's in Malvern, which has the biggest congregation and over a hundred under 18s on their books.
Nathan concluded:
“This first year has been a steep learning curve in some respects but I’ve had good feedback recently from one of the parents who felt that although her son was happy to attend church youth groups previously, he wasn’t really taking it in. She feels he is engaging much better now. Numbers are also up to around 36 so it feels like it’s all heading in the right direction.”
