At Sutton Vineyard we have so many amazing stories of God moving in people’s lives to serve our community and develop as individuals.
One of those people is Tom, who serves as a leader in our Youth ministry.
Our Senior Pastor Julian spoke to Tom about focus, the joy of serving and how his faith has developed in his everyday life:
Julian: Good morning! How are you doing?
Tom: Good. Yeah. Good.
Julian: So tell us your name and where you come from?
Tom: My name's Tom. I come from Croydon.
Members of the congregation cheer
Okay, good. Yeah, we like that
Julian: Did someone just boo?
Tom: It's not that bad!
Julian: We can pray for him afterwards. It's okay. But you love the Lord though, so it's all good.
So Tom, what are some of the things that the Lord has stirred in you recently?
Tom: So I had quite a tricky 2023 for a few different reasons. My faith was tested in lots of different ways that I hadn't been tested before and perhaps I hadn't expected to be.
There was something that we did as a small group at the start of last year, which was to find a word for our year. And for me that word was focus. It wasn't immediately obvious at the start how that was going to be relevant, but over the course of the year I came to realise that having the focus on God with all the other stuff that was going on around me was really important.
So yeah it was really hard at times, hard to be proactive in that.
Julian: I love that you start with a word. We did a straw poll just after New Year's on resolutions, and only two people raised their hands. And so this word of the year that's carrying you through is something that God's kind of unsettled in you, that you need to actually draw down your attention to Focus.
Tom: Yeah. Well, the thing I realised was that I wasn't always particularly focused, and it's quite hard to be proactive in that. Simple things, prayer, reading the Bible, even coming to church and being in spaces like this, having that as a focal point of your life is not always easy.
Julian: No, Absolutely.
One of the ways you serve is by leading our young people on our youth team. What inspires you most about serving our young people? How is the Lord growing you through serving them?
Tom: So when I was youth age, I had some brilliant youth leaders and was really blessed in that.
So that gives me a lot of the motivation to serve in youth. But having been around the church for a while, I'm sure some people might be able to empathise, you can get bad habits creeping in. You can maybe get a bit weary. The energy levels can drop. But being around the youth is amazing. The energy, the optimism, the positivity that some of them have and their desire to sort of act out their faith is is really amazing.
It's a real privilege. I'd really encourage it.
Julian: Can I ask you, do you understand all of the phrases they use? Because I was a youth pastor for many years and I thought it would never happen. And it's happened.
Tom: Haha, no!
Julian: Right, so we're in the same boat. We don't feel left out! And yet you can still serve our young people.
Tom: Embrace it, embrace it.
Julian: In what ways have you experienced spiritual growth through your working with our young people?
Tom: It's a great team to serve on. There are some phenomenal youth leaders. When you serve on Youth, you spend a lot of time around the leaders on the camps like DTI (Dreaming the Impossible), on Friday Nights, at Youth Small Group. And so I learn a lot from the leaders as well and how they approach things. When you have a responsibility to teach people about faith, Church, God, Jesus, all of those things, the challenge that I find is being in a place where I can communicate that clearly and understand that. It makes me realise the simplicity of a lot of the things we do at Church. We sit there and we really overcomplicate the foundations that we all know we should have enough faith that we sometimes neglect.
Julian: So as we as we look at the way we serve, one of the things we do as a church is we come in, we get built up in the faith and then we also give out of what gifts and talents the Lord has given us. But obviously committing to serve and going the way that you are is a bit of a time commitment in a variety of ways, because, for instance, you know, it's not just on Sundays, is it? How do you balance that commitment to growing in your faith, serving our young people and maintaining a positive presence as you go about your daily work as well?
Tom: Yeah. that's a huge thing for me. I think it's really important to have spaces in the Church that you give to that maybe draw on your energy levels and youth is that. It's great, but it can be tiring.
But also having spaces that you can learn from and grow in. And so small groups are great and I really appreciate the community that you have in that and the learning that you can get from that.
And I think that's really important in a work setting. I work in the civil service, so it's not always easy to share about your personal life, faith or otherwise. I have the odd conversation. I had a conversation with a guy last summer after DTI, and found out that he also serves as a youth leader in a church, I didn't even know he went to church! So it was really nice to have that community with someone to sort of support me.
But what I do try to do in the work setting, if I can't talk about my faith because it just doesn't come up so much as, is think of what I can control. I can control how I act and try to apply the sort of principles that Jesus taught us to have in work.
That's honesty, integrity, kindness, how you treat people.
I try to bring that in where I can.
Julian: And what I love about that is this if you call it, there's three aspects here where Tom is a part of our church. You're serving our young people, but also that's a catalyst for conversation in your everyday life. All of these things play together in helping extend the table in different ways because you're serving here in what you’re familiar with on a Sunday. But actually it has an impact on all areas of your life.
Thank you for sharing!
If you’re looking to find out more about serving on any of our Church teams, visit our Join a Team page or email hannah.miles@suttonvineyard.org for more information!