A Tuesday in the Life of Nathan Milnes
(This article was taken from the Autumn/Winter ’09 issue of flow Magazine.)
Manchester born and bred, Nathan Milnes has been part of The Message team for seven years, working first as Eden Team Leader in Failsworth and now leading our outreach in schools.
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7.30am
Early start today… we’ve got Blush, LZ7 and In Yer Face all in schools across Manchester this week. I arrive at a high school to check in with LZ7 and to meet the link teacher. Our church contact is also around all this week, helping establish a really strong relationship with the school. The sound check goes OK and after a few small tweaks to the timetable, I head off.
9am
Back to the office in time for Staff Prayers. I love this part of the job – what other job starts the day with prayer?
10am
Time to check emails, return a couple of phone calls and log on to Facebook. This isn’t a chance to check my own page (well maybe a cheeky peek!) but to check all the bands’ pages – it’s a great way for us to keep in touch and answer questions from past school weeks. We also use Facebook to continue follow-up with young people and encourage them to get along to church.
11am
Update meeting with Alan Saunders. Alan and I work closely together on finding local churches that want to do mission in their local high school. Our goal is to run every schools week as a partnership with a church because they are absolutely vital in providing prayer, follow-up and finance.
Alan tells me he has met with a local church leader who is excited about a possible schools week but they are struggling with one aspect: it’s likely to cost £1,500 and they can’t afford to pay for it. We agree to go back to them and say that we’ll find a way to make it work: the opportunity for mission is too good to let it pass by. We’ll say to them to raise what they can and we will underwrite the rest.
12.30pm
Head off to Starbucks to meet up with a local youth leader to catch up with them and find out what’s going on within their church and youth ministry. I try to meet with youth leaders across the city as much as possible.
2pm
Find a quiet space in the office (not easy to be honest!) to do some prep for a church I’m speaking at on Sunday. When a church decides to partner with us on a schools week we’re committed to helping the whole church buy into the vision of a schools week and pray for it. I will be preaching about mission and the call we have to tell people about Jesus.
4pm
Get on the phone to find out numbers for an upcoming curry night for youth leaders. We do these quarterly for youth leaders in the area to network and get some quality input that will benefit them and their ministry. It is a fact that all youth leaders love a good curry.
5.15pm
Snatch a few minutes off before the evening gets going.
6.30pm
Arrive at Costa Coffee. Tonight we’re doing the second part of a four week follow-up course for young people who became Christians at a recent Unleashed gig nearby. We like to do these at neutral venues like coffee shops where kids can feel relaxed. We always do it in partnership with the local church. We talk through the programme and the team prays together.
7.30pm
About forty young people have arrived and are sipping drinks and chatting. The programme kicks off, led by the local youth leaders and with contributions from the Message team. The girls are particularly excited that a couple of guys from LZ7 have put in an appearance!
Tonight we’re looking at more of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and how to live as a Christian. You can tell that the young people are really responding to the talk and building quality relationships with the youth leaders. At the end of the four weeks we hope that most of the young people will feel really at home with the local church and become members of the youth group.
9pm
The young people have gone so there’s just time for a quick debrief about the evening and to share encouraging stories from our small groups. We then pray for the young people and do the job that everyone loves… pack-down!
9.30pm
The day is done and I’m on my way home.
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Get The Message in your school
You’re only one call away from having one of our bands or theatre company coming to your local high school. If you’re a church, please contact Alan Saunders. For schools, contact Nathan Milnes. Or call 0161 946 2300.
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