Welcome to this Project L resource!

At its meeting in May 2004, General Synod / Te Hinota Whanui agreed unanimously to set aside the liturgical year from Advent 2005 – Advent 2006 as a "Year of Youth" to celebrate the place and role of youth ministry in the life of the Church.

At the meeting of the T3 Youth Executive earlier this year renamed the Year of Youth as Youth Yeah! Youth Yeah is an opportunity for our church to:

• Recognise and celebrate young people and all they do.
• Find ways of making young people and our work among them more visible.
• Name the ministry among young people as one of our priorities
• Consider how well that priority is reflected on our allocation of people and financial resources
• Address issues relevant to young people e.g. student loans
• Create changes in the church structure.

Project L is one of the ways we want to celebrate Youth Yeah! Project L is about making Anglican liturgy youth-friendly. As such it is one of our most urgent projects and is a central component of what we at Toru are offering.  Project L is designed to develop and produce liturgical resources designed specifically for the youth and young adult ministry context of Aotearoa-New Zealand and Polynesia. As part of this groups of young people from all three Tikanga have been invited to write a collect for every Sunday of Youth Yeah that reflects a youth perspective. It is hoped that these collects will help the wider church to celebrate Youth Yeah!

These collects will often use language that we would not usually use. Sometimes the theology will be different from ours. You are invited to use these collects as written to experience something of what young people across our church offer. The collects reflect their concerns and enthusiasms. They reflect their passion for God.

You are also invited to pray for the group that wrote the collect during your intercessions. Most groups have provided a description of their group, including their dreams and hopes, and what they would like prayer for. In this way we will all become a lot more aware of what is happening among young people, and we can join with them in praying for each of those ministries.

More resources will become available as the year continues. These will be made available during Youth Yeah on the Toru website: http://www.toru.org.nz/.  Enjoy using these offerings from the young people of our church!

Arohanui,

John Hebenton

Project Director
Toru – The Anglican Centre for Youth Ministry