OK Club
The Oxford Kilburn Youth Trust (OK Club) is an independent charity, social enterprise, and charitable company, sometimes working in partnership. It offers clubs and activities, group work and mentoring, street and schools outreach, youth action and projects across a wide range of interests and skills, as well as accommodation for its volunteer staff from around the UK and abroad. We work with young people at their own pace, starting 'where they are', with a welcoming, safe, reliable, flexible and holistic approach, regularly attracting new young people. We run within a Christian framework, and are keen to provide opportunities to explore issues of faith. We welcome and respect all people of all backgrounds and faiths, so we do not expect or pressurise young people to have a particular faith, yet the Club is keen to share the Christian faith with any and all young people who express an interest in it, and to put its Christian faith into practice, and put it to work in the local community.
UK
The OK Club aims to support local families by helping young people to grow as individuals, in groups and as members of society. As a Christian organisation, we are keen to provide opportunities to explore issues of faith, and we welcome and respect all people of all backgrounds and faiths. So we do not expect or pressurise young people to have a particular faith, yet the OK Club is keen to share the Christian faith with any and all young people who express an interest in it, and to put its Christian faith into practice in the local community.
There is only one God who made everything, but we can understand Him in three different ways: as our Father; as someone we can know as a human being; and as someone who helps us with our everyday lives:
1. God is a completely good and loving Father for all of us, even when we do not live how He wants us to live. God is love. We can rely on Him for all we really need. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He wants us to know Him, now and always.
2. God is someone we can know through Jesus. Christians call Him the Son of God. Jesus shows us what God is like, how He wants us to live, and how to have a good relationship with Him.
Jesus was bullied and tortured to death on a wooden cross because of the deeply challenging things He said and did. On the Cross He made it possible for us to be forgiven, and opened the way for us to enjoy a new life with God. By being raised to life, Jesus has showing that nothing, not even death, need worry us. Jesus enables us to have a good relationship with God. Even when we do things He does not like, God has promised to forgive us, if we ask and are sorry. He can also help us forgive other people when they do things we do not like, or hurt us.
3. God carries on speaking to us through the Bible, and inspires us through His Holy Spirit to become more and more like Jesus. The people who follow Jesus are the Church, and God helps us to continue his work, live life to the full, and to share, both now and always, in His eternal kingdom.
The Bible says that, when Jesus was young, He "grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men" (Luke 2:52). Similarly, we also want to help young people now to grow and to become mature in every way, and to have good relationships with other people, and especially with God.
We believe this is good news for everyone, and are happy to share it with anyone who wants to know more.
