CompassionArt & Deanery Youth Service (2)

Hilary, Katharine & Hannah preparing for the service

Cafe Church at the Deanery Youth Service

The Deanery Youth Service

Hannah & Katharine with the healed heart

Hilary, Hannah & Katharine with the healed heart

The Deanery Youth Service

Sticking post-it prayers on the healed heart

Enjoying the biscuits, sweets & strawberries

Huw icing his biscuit

At the altar rail receiving a heart

At the altar rail receiving a heart

At the altar rail receiving a heart

Father Ben & dog after receiving a heart


Games in the hall after the service



Games in the hall after the service

Young people from St John's led a Deanery Youth Service this evening using materials from CompassionArt and thereby raising money for projects addressing poverty. The service that they had prepared and led was greatly appreciated and very creative.

Set up in a Cafe Church style, each table had a section of a broken heart. On each table, people listed on their piece of broken heart things that cause hearts to be broken in our world. Each table then brought their piece of the heart forward and pinned them onto a board to form a complete heart. Each person then wrote a prayer on a heart-shaped post-it and stuck their prayer on the healed heart.

We also iced a biscuit with a heart and ate it, together with love hearts and strawberries, as a sign of taking Jesus’ compassion into our lives. Finally, we knelt at the altar rail holding out your hands and had hearts drawn on our palms as a sign of our willingness to share Jesus’ compassion with others.

We ended with the following prayer:

Christ’s food in our souls, our food shared like his. Christ’s life in our hands, our lives shaped by his. Christ’s love in our hearts, our love warmed through his. Christ’s peace on our path, our path following his. We are sent out to live and work to his praise and glory, in the name of Christ, we go. Amen.

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CompassionArt - There Is Always A Song.

CompassionArt & Deanery Youth Service

In January 2008 twelve of the best-known writers in the gospel/Christian music scene - Michael W. Smith, Darlene Zschech, Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, Paul Baloche, Israel Houghton, Graham Kendrick, Steven Curtis-Chapman, Andy Park, Stu Garrard, Martin Smith – got together in Scotland to spend the week writing songs that could impact on issues of poverty in some of the poorest parts of the world on a long-term basis. They wanted to be people that can make a change rather than just singing about it.

As a result CompassionArt was born, a charity dedicated to seeing works of art generate income for the poorest of the poor. When we sing a song in church it actually makes money. A royalty is paid to CCLI – the global body that oversees the process. They take out a small percentage to cover their administration costs and then pass the remainder of the royalty on to the songwriter's publisher who take a cut themselves and then pass what remains to the writer of the song who then splits it with a management team. But everyone involved in these songs from writers to publishers, managers to the team at CCLI have waived all their rights and allowed CompassionArt to own the copyrights. So the songs that were written in Scotland are now owned by the charity meaning that every penny will come to it and the trust will own these copyrights forever.

Our young people at St Johns Seven Kings heard about CompassionArt during a Youth Group session about Christian music and decided that they wanted to base a Deanery Youth Service on its work and music. They have come up with some great ideas for leading prayer and worship and their service will be held at St John’s on Sunday 5th July at 5.00pm.

By supporting our young people and coming to this service you can help CompassionArt support projects restoring choice and hope to people's lives. CompassionArt is a charity that joins the dots between art and poverty. It raises money to help breathe life into the poorest communities, restoring hope and igniting justice.

They provide funding to projects working with children in Uganda – some of whom have already endured the brutality of life as a child soldier – as well as children of sex workers in Indian slums. There are homeless shelters in the middle of wealthy western cities and orphanages in the middle of developing nations that are helped financially - as a result of the sale of CompassionArt albums, songs and books - all of them breathing hope back into lives that have been conditioned to believe that life may never get any better.

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CompassionArt - Friend Of The Poor.