I had always assumed that leadership wasn\u2019t really for me. It had never even crossed my mind as a possibility that I could be a leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But after being persuaded to join the Onelife Learning Community (the precursor to the School of Leadership) I found myself part of a group who had a higher expectation of what God might want to do in and through us. That we didn\u2019t need to wait until we had the position or title to start influencing for the kingdom of God, we could do it right then in our classes and in our families. The lessons I learnt from my time as part of that course are ones that have stuck with me \u2013 character-first leadership and the importance of integrity in all areas of a leader\u2019s life are ideas that will stay with me forever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obviously, my involvement with Onelife didn\u2019t end with the OLC, I volunteered at the conferences when I was at university in Glasgow, and after I finished my degree I moved to London to intern with the Onelife team for a year. That one year somehow turned into five years as part of the team!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has been a busy few years, with conferences and residentials, starting courses and releasing resources, but it has been an absolute privilege to serve the vision of Onelife. Every time I have seen a young person have that moment of realisation that I had, about being called to lead and influence for Jesus, I am blown away by the kindness of God, that he\u2019s let me play a part in the vision of raising up people who love him to impact and change our society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is bittersweet to be leaving the Onelife team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will always believe wholeheartedly in the vision of Onelife and I\u2019m immensely grateful that I\u2019ve been able to shape some of what Onelife does. I\u2019m taking so much with me as I step into the next season of my life, and as my husband and I move to Ecuador to volunteer at a foster home. I could write a book on all the things that I\u2019ve learnt in these last five years but a few of my takeaways that I\u2019m bringing into this next season are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These are lessons that I\u2019ve seen lived out both through the unseen choices in the Onelife team and also through the lives of those we\u2019ve worked with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I reflect on my journey with Onelife, one of the things that sticks out to me is how important it is that youth workers are equipped to invite their young people on a journey of leadership and discipleship that many would otherwise discount themselves from. If it wasn\u2019t for a youth worker who had been inspired by the same vision to raise up young leaders, I might not have been on this adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m so excited to see where God takes Onelife in these next few years and I\u2019m looking forward to taking back my role as a keen volunteer when we return from our travels!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read Helen's Onelife Story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thirteencreative.co.uk\/onelife25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}