Swindon Youth for Christ (BIOS SPORTS Project)

Swindon Youth for Christ is the longest consecutive running Youth for Christ centre in in the UK. We have various streams to our work that aims to offer faith to individuals throughout their formative years from ages 5-20. All our work aims to be in partnership with Churches right across Swindon so that when young people come to faith, there is a church community in their immediate location with effective discipleship programs. The different avenues of our work ranges from primary schools, secondary schools and sports/detached ministry. Our sports ministry is called BIOS SPORTS, which is a development of a project called BIOS. BIOS was a £60,000 initivative between the police and Swindon Youth for Christ which aimed to tackle the growing anti-social behaviour issues amoungst young people in the town. This project was undertaken through a mobile youth club and now after 6 years we have taken the direction to transition it to BIOS SPORTS. Now after a years worth of worker investment and in influx of £17,500 grants the project has its own deisgnated vehicle, branded uniforms, sports equipment, mobile sound system and all-weaither provision for throughout the year.

BIOS SPORTS is about helping Churches engage with their local communities through the medium of sport. Faith and values are communicated through a unique blend of conversation and sport. Each session includes coaching, conversation, refreshments, and time for relationships to be built. After 6-10 weeks (depending on the location) there is a specific opportunity to a fuller gospel talk within the session. The vision is that this project will help Swindon Churches engage with people groups in their communities who would not naturally enter a church building. The project works with groups of churches in the geographical locations of Swindon to provide "sports hubs". These sports hubs welcome young people to a space in the community to play sports style games and learn communities values. The values that are shared are biblically based, and encourage individuals to think deeper than the sport they are simply playing. From time to time, each of the sports hubs come together to compete in Swindon wide sports competitions that may engage 150 individuals at once.

Swindon has the best of both worlds. It is an urban town however within 15 mins you have the tranquillity of the countryside. With an population of approx. 225,000 of which 56,000 are children and young people, Swindon is one of the fastest growing towns in the UK. With 120 churches, 10 secondary schools, a variety of ethnicities, and multitude of professional sports arenas, this is a town that doesn't sit still. The churches have a growing unity and as a group we are seeing blessing as we increasingly work together. Despite not being a university town, there is a growing group of young Christian professional's who gather for faith and fellowship each month, where any 20 year old would struggle not to find community.

Largely youth work however this may stretch down to ages 9 depending who is within the community or out on the street.