Sarajayne: All my life I’ve tried lots of different roles and jobs, and I like to do lots of different things. I like cooking, I like teaching people about health, I like teaching them about budgeting. But CAP life skills brings everything together that I’ve already learned, and I love watching people’s faces light up and the lightbulb moment when they get it. And then when you hear them telling their friends about it and everybody just, can learn new skills – I love it.
I’m Sarajayne and I’m the Life Skills Manager here at Kings Church, Bolton. It can be quite a daunting task to get people to come to life skills in the first place. But here at Kings Church, we actually have The Message Grocery Shop. And as long as some of our volunteers go and spend some time in the grocery shop, we get excited and tell them that we’ve got this course they can come on. They’re usually quite excited to want to come and see what it’s all about.
The majority of people that we see come through life skills have got no church background at all and they might not really have heard about Jesus. And it’s absolutely amazing with life skills, because very gradually and gently over the weeks, we can introduce Jesus to them.
Kieron: When my wife was on the life skills course, she would come back every week and she would talk about what they’d talked about. All these little tips, these little tricks, just to help you budget, help you save money.
So the next time they did life skills I signed up. It was great, I met some great people. I made some good friendships. I learned more and more about saving money.
Sarajayne: Life skills has a different topic that it talks about every single week and it can teach them how to love and care for people, how to deal with their anger, how to deal with forgiving people, even. And some of the tools that we’re given within life skills, they’re just brilliant because we can have little role-plays and acting sessions and at the end of it they’re like, ‘Wow, I didn’t even think of it like that’. So it’s brilliant that life skills, we can start to unpack some of the things that are going on.
The way that I approach one-to-one coaching in life skills is different for every single person. We look at the members that come and see what their needs are. One of the befrienders might go and take them for a coffee, one member. Another member, we might sit with them and just talk to them in a coffee break. And it’s different, tailored to every person.
If you’re thinking about whether you want to bring life skills into your church, then I absolutely say, ‘Please do!’ CAP is wonderful and they will support you. You become a partnership with CAP. You’ve got an Area Manager. Mine’s called Dave and he’s absolutely fantastic. And he’s at the end of the phone all the time to help. We have a hub, a support hub where a few of us meet every three months as well, from other churches in the local area. So you never feel like you’re on your own.
It’s lovely to see fruit from the life skills. From the very beginning, from people coming very nervous and very anxious, not really knowing what it’s all about, to then start in their own walk with Jesus and becoming part of the community within church. It’s absolutely incredible and if it hadn’t have been for life skills, Kieron probably wouldn’t have ever been on the journey he’s gone on.
Kieron: During the life skills, I finally built up the courage to maybe try church – it was an idea. And it’s all down to life skills. The life skills helped us financially and then led me to church, it led me to Jesus.
Sarajayne: I think I’ve found the perfect job now, I know I’ve got to fifty, but, life skills is just incredible. I love the fact that it brings so many different things I’ve done in the past – the cooking, teaching people to cook, teaching people about health, teaching people about budgeting, and life skills is the perfect course that rolls all that into one. Well, it’s just the best thing I’ve ever done.
