The Cardinal Newman School in Hove, which hosted the Brighton Celebrate weekend in July (12th-13th), is reputedly the biggest Catholic secondary in Western Europe, with 2,100 pupils and 250 staff. There is the usual challenge facing all Catholic secondary schools of pupil Mass attendance.

Over the last five years however, the school has seen the birth of some effective initiatives to evangelise staff and pupils. This began in 2003 when a team from Kintbury retreat centre in Berkshire, helped the school organise a mission. The main fruit of this was the empowering of a small team of sixth formers to go on mission themselves and share their faith at one of the local Catholic primary schools. This has continued to happen and a sixth form team goes into one of the 12 feeder primary schools for a one day mission every year.

Dominic Dring, who has been chaplain at the school for the last two years, comments, “Last year we sent 40 sixth formers to St Mary Magdalene’s primary school where they ran a whole day programme for the school with groups of sixth formers working with each class.”

Chris Matus, 18, one of the students comments: ‘At the Primary schools we have had the opportunity of giving the children an experience of the living gospel. Through games, prayer and praise, art activities and sharing our testimonies, the children saw that God wants a personal relationship with them and that a relationship with God can be lively and life giving. It has been a great boost to my personal faith journey.’

This autumn the vision is even bigger. Dominic is hoping to recruit about a third of the sixth form to help animate a week- long mission in the school. These pupils will be given the responsibility of working with a form group and animating sessions with discussion and prayer. Chris Matus continues: ‘The primary school children were so open to what we have to share with them. It’s going to be different at our own school. Jesus said a prophet is never accepted in his own town - well we’re not exactly prophets but it’s going to be challenging. I’m really looking forward to experiencing a movement of faith and Spirit through the whole school. All students and staff will be given the opportunity to know God better. I know that all of us who will be leading will have a really strong experience. Those who are on the sidelines of faith and church will have an opportunity to ‘get onto the pitch’ and experience the gospel as a living reality - not just teaching and church services. This is Christianity in action!’

The theme of the week is John 10:10 “Have Life to the Full”. Dominic comments, “I feel it is important to emphasise that this means not a life that you create yourself but the life that is given to us from Jesus. During the week the students will unpack this scripture in different ways. The core will be the gospel message of incarnation, salvation and a personal invitation to respond to Christ, and looking at what is distinctive about life through Jesus as opposed to society’s view of the fullness of life.”
He adds, “One of the difficulties we have in the school is trying to create an atmosphere where people feel they can pray naturally and comfortably. Hopefully the mission will give us all greater confidence to pray and explore our faith together.’

A group of 20 pupils, who will act as the core team, have already gone away on a weekend training course and come back very enthusiastic. Dominic hopes their enthusiasm will rub off on the others yet to be recruited. He also hopes they will be interested in exploring faith questions with their peers and, because they will be leading the sessions and prayers with the younger pupils, in the process some will be touched themselves.

YMT, the Youth Ministry Team led by Fr Dermott Donnelly from the Hexham and Newcastle diocese, will work at the school to help them lead the mission and will do a session for each year group. The school mission aims to bring together the wider Christian community. To this end for the pupils there will be 40 different workshops running each day during the mission week, drawing on the expertise of the various local churches and parents of the students.

Workshops will endeavour to meet people where they are and provide a range of options including art in liturgy, prayer, social justice, relationships and lifestyles and church teaching. Evening workshops will be open to those outside the school. Each day the morning prayer session will be led by a different denomination reflecting the richness of traditions comprising the school community.

Local worship leaders and Christian musicians from the Brighton & Hove area will be working together over the coming months to mentor several of the school music groups and bands. These bands will learn about the principles of music in worship and be encouraged to develop a repertoire of songs which they will perform at a Worship Event on the last night of the Mission week following a celebration of the Mass by Bishop Kieran Conry. Dominic comments, “I am really excited about it, and what could happen, so please pray that the Holy Spirit does great things.”

For further details of the mission see www.cncs.co.uk