You can watch a sixty-minute video of Shane answering questions at the Eden Formation event over on the Eden Network website. Enjoy!

Message HQ hosted team leaders and church partners from as far away as London and Newcastle, for a day spent together hearing from National Director Matt Wilson and special guest Shane Claiborne (pictured right).

‘It was a huge day of partnership – of meeting one another, encouraging and praying for each other, and hearing ideas,’ said Matt.

‘Everyone there has invited Eden into partnership with them at the local level to move forward their with their work with young people in some of the nation’s most challenging high-density, high-population neighbourhoods.’

Strategic leaders travelled from as far afield as London, Newcastle, Middlesborough, Bradford, Sheffield and Humberside to be part of the day.

With less far to go were those from Eden’s birthplace, Greater Manchester. In the last year, five new projects have launched in Manchester, bringing the total to 11. New since May 2009 are partnerships in Westwood and Limeside in Oldham; Leigh; Gorton and Eccles.

It was a real milestone moment for Eden,’ reflects Matt. ‘It’s so important to us that we are creating Eden partnerships, not Eden projects. Eden works with, for and through local church and relationship is at the heart of it – we are journeying together.

‘There was a lot of warmth and a great buzz generated in the room among those who share a heart for the least, the last and the lost.’

You can watch a sixty-minute interview with Shane Claiborne on the Eden Network website.

***

London is one of the world’s most popular tourist cities but my time in London hasn’t involved the usual sightseeing. Instead I’ve been well off the beaten track exploring London’s many council estates – places you’ll never see in the travel brochures.

The differences between Urban Manchester and Urban London include both the obvious and the subtle. Urban London estates are more obvious on the landscape – tall, concrete, fortress-like, and often very compact, unlike Manchester’s endless sprawls of low-rise council semi-D’s and terraces.

Another curiosity to me is the way that the London estates often sit side by side with rows of pricey gentrified houses. The most striking symbol of this wealth–poverty divide has to be the East End communities along the Dockland Light Railway where overcrowded council flats are overshadowed by the glittering towers of Canary Wharf.

In the face of extreme overcrowding and huge ethnic diversity, establishing Eden teams in London is a big challenge. Your prayers are needed on both these fronts. Because living in the community is central to the way Eden goes about its ministry, we need to see some real breakthroughs in the provision of property.

We need divine favour with local councils, housing associations and private landlords if we’re to find homes for all our workers. We also need to get our recruitment message through to non-white church networks if our teams are to reflect the diversity present in the communities they are serving.

All the signs are that God is making a way where there was no way – which is exactly what we’re believing for!

If you want to become part of the adventure in London, or want to get a ticket for the launch celebration on March 18, visit www.eden-network.org.uk/london

Eden that first aired on national TV over Christmas is now available to view online.

‘Eden: A Story of Hope’ can be viewed for free via the Eden Network website.

The 25-minute film traces the history of Eden and how it has impacted the lives of the young people living in partner communities, together with Eden’s vision for the future. It features interviews with Eden workers, and National Director Matt Wilson (pictured).

The Eden Network is a series of community-based partnerships which aim to improve the lives of young people living in the most deprived communities in the nation.

There are currently 10 partnerships running across Greater Manchester, with youth workers moving into each community and working with local churches and organisations to provide activities and a ‘safe place’ for young people to hang out.

New partnerships are also being set up in other parts of the UK including Sheffield and London, marking the start of nine Eden ‘hubs’ in the most deprived areas across the nation.

story of Eden on national TV this Christmas.

UCB TV will show the 30-minute documentary about Eden titled ‘Eden: A Story of Hope’ twice over the Christmas period, on Sunday December 27 at 9pm, and on Wednesday December 30 at 7.30pm,

The programme traces the history of Eden and how it has impacted the lives of the young people living in partner communities, together with Eden’s vision for the future. It features interviews with Eden workers, and National Director Matt Wilson (pictured).

The Eden Network is a series of community-based partnerships which aim to improve the lives of young people living in the most deprived communities in the nation. 

There are currently 10 partnerships running across Greater Manchester, with youth workers moving into each community and working with local churches and organisations to provide activities and a ‘safe place’ for young people to hang out.

New partnerships are also being set up in other parts of the UK including Sheffield and London, marking the start of nine Eden ‘hubs’ in the most deprived areas across the nation.

Watch the documentary on UCB TV, Sky Channel 586 or via UCB’s website.

Broadcast Times: Sunday December 27 at 9pm, and Wednesday December 30 at 7.30pm.

***

Do I feel like a missionary? No, not really – I just live here.’

Twenty-one year old Harriet Atkins makes the challenge of living on Eden in one of the nation’s most needy estates sound like the most natural thing in the world.

But her journey from a middle-class home in one of the nicer parts of Manchester proves that this is a woman
sent by God and called for a purpose.

‘I grew up in a Christian home but to be honest I felt like God was passing me by. I knew he was the reason I’d had a great childhood but I didn’t have an understanding of who he was to me. ‘One day a person I really admired asked me, “Have you got a relationship with God?” That was where my journey with Him started.’

After feeling God speaking to her at a Planet Life event as a teenager, Harriet was accepted to the Genetik youth training course at 18.

‘Genetik was the most amazing time of my life – understanding the promises God had made over my life, getting to know the Holy Spirit, learning my Bible – I couldn’t get enough of it.’

As a passionate Genetik graduate, her skills in youth work were quickly in demand at her parents’ church.

‘It was a nice middle class area so the kids who had been brought up in nice Christian homes were really engaged. But the ones who were either rebelling or hadn’t been brought up in such great homes seemed to be neglected. I found my heart was broken for these girls.’

Harriet began a small prayer group in her basement with three of the girls. Before long this became six.

‘Because I was only a couple of years older than them, the issues they were going through were the same ones I had gone though and had seen breakthrough in. My heart ached when I heard them say things like “God does things for other people but not for me.” That is exactly how I used to feel.’

During this time it became clear to Harriet what God wanted from her life:

‘Being in a youth group, working with the hard-to-reach ones made me realise what I was supposed to be doing: realising potential in young people.’

Harriet’s involvement with Eden Harpurhey came through a chance conversation with then team leader Lucy Smith. As she described her heart for mentoring young girls, it became obvious that she was a perfect fit for a new role as a mentoring coordinator.

‘Studies have shown that mentoring is the number one need in Harpurhey for young people. There are so few role models for the kids who have been left behind.’

Harriet fell in love with Harpurhey’s people, the community, the church and the way Eden functioned as part of the church.

‘The Eden team in Harpurhey “do” church. Before, I thought you “went to church”. But they live church out in community with the people, the kids, the families.’

Harriet’s work is a crucial part of the Eden team on the streets of Harpurhey. With the team, she interacts with dozens of young people on a weekly basis from detached work on the streets, a drop-in centre run in partnership with the local Lighthouse Group centre, and one-on-one discipleship and prayer with young people.

‘We work with a lot of young girls who have no self-esteem whatsoever. One girl in particular we’ve really seen blossom. She had been told all her life she looked like a man which was patently not true. Yet whenever I saw her she was covered up head to toe in baggy tracksuits. Over weeks and months, we gradually got her to realise that she is in fact beautiful and to understand that her identity doesn’t have to lie in covering herself up. It was about getting her to a place where she had heard and she knew that she was totally loved by God.

‘We helped her make a ‘God wall’ which she plastered with scripture and God’s promises to her. On a particularly low day, she took it all down saying she no longer believed any of it. One of the other young people came in and said “Don’t you dare take that down”, and read them all back to her, one by one. Her confidence has gone up ten-fold. Educationally, she’s doing really well. She passed her exams and got a fantastic job she loves. Everyone she knows is just overwhelmed with the change they’ve seen in her. God wants to do that kind of transformation every day.’

How does she feel about living in one of the most deprived parts of the UK where health is poor, unemployment is high and police sirens are part of the ambient noise?

‘There are some people who say to me, “How is it living in Chavland?” which is a common view. And it’s funny listening to other Christians talk about their problems and thinking, “You have no idea!” But I’ve never once felt unsafe. I know we have a massive God. It’s home.

‘Eden is great because it gives people a format for how to live as a Christian on an estate among people who are broken. I just feel like if Jesus were walking around now, this is where he would be living.  He wouldn’t be living there as a mentoring coordinator, he’d literally be just living there, being light in the community and doing life with people. That’s Eden.’

Find out more about Eden at the Eden Network website.

As National Director of the Eden Network, Matt will oversee the growth and development of Eden, including the implementation of eight city ‘hubs’ to coordinate the rolling out of many more new Eden partnerships across the nation.

In September this year, Matt and his family will move to London with a view to setting up the first hub outside of Manchester in the nation’s capital.

Explaining the vision for London, Matt says: ‘By autumn 2010 a London City Director will have been handed responsibility for the London network and six new plants will have commenced, each with a full time leader and contextualized mission strategy to work out.

‘Ultimately the vision is to see potentially dozens of Edens all over the Greater London conurbation positively impacting tens of thousands of unreached youth with the gospel in word and deed.’

Matt has been part of the Eden movement since its inception, overseeing its development for the last six years.  He will remain closely involved with the Message as a part of the Executive Team travelling up to Manchester on a regular basis.

Message CEO Andy Hawthorne comments, ‘Right now we’re in one of those crystal clear “if-we-don’t-go-for-it-we’re-being-disobedient” seasons with the national vision for Eden. I am absolutely convinced that God is behind us and that this is the right time to roll out new Eden projects up and down the UK as well as doubling the number here in Manchester.

‘That’s why it’s a joy to be sending Matt and Grace to start the London ‘Eden hub’ in September and to start planning for another eight hubs around the nation.

‘We have been brought back to those early promises from Psalm 37 as we dream big for Eden: I’m convinced he promised that the “righteousness of the cause will shine like the noonday sun” and that we will ‘inherit a land’ through this long-term incarnational work on the toughest estates.’