We are delighted to announce that we have appointed Jessica (Jessy) Price as our NWMA Youth Mission Enabler. She will take up the post on 1 May 2022, initially for three years.
Jessy’s background is in higher education. She worked for three years as a teaching assistant at Cornell University in the USA, where she led the Graduate Christian Fellowship, before returning to the UK to work as a tutor for children and young people from KS2 up to university master’s level.
At the same time, she has been serving as a pastoral assistant at Cirencester Baptist Church where she has established and led a successful singles ministry for adults in their 20s and 30s as well as working with children and youth and exercising a well-regarded adult preaching and teaching ministry at CBC and in rural churches around the Cotswolds. She has been involved in providing one-to-one mentoring and pastoral support to teenagers and young adults, and for the last year has been placement supervisor for CBC’s ministry intern as well as encouraging other young people to exercise leadership gifts. She has co-led on Alpha courses and in discipleship groups for new believers and has served on the chaplaincy team for the Royal Agricultural University.
In NWMA, Jessy has been helping to lead worship at Wild Church, which she regards as her ‘home congregation’ within the Mission Area. We are planning that she should be commissioned into her new role as Youth Mission Enabler at the Wild Church service at 3pm on 8 May 2022 in Cricklade. (Details to be confirmed – see https://www.wildchurch.net/events for updates). Please join us then if you are able.
Jessy says:
“I am excited to be joining NWMA as Youth Mission Enabler for the youth mission we are calling NWMA: Youth. By collaborating on this project, churches in NWMA are opening up possibilities for youth across North Wiltshire to socialise together, hear culturally relevant Christian teaching, and receive training in Christian leadership. Over the next three years I will be developing NWMA’s internship scheme with SWYM, running social and evangelistic events under the banner of NWMA: Youth, and seeking to find ways to equip and empower our existing youth leaders and volunteers. I have been really encouraged by the appetite to see young people won for God’s kingdom shown by congregations in NWMA and believe that this investment will bear much fruit.
“As I have been preparing to take on this role, I have been encouraged by this verse from Isaiah 45:
I will give you hidden treasures,
Isaiah 45.3
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the Lord,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
“I believe that the young people of NWMA are our hidden treasures. Please join me in praying for them as we embark on this new phase of the NWMA journey.”
Jessy’s appointment heralds the start of an exciting new phase in our strategy for reinvigorating youth ministry and mission in North Wiltshire, and we warmly welcome her and pray for her as she starts in this challenging role.