Our journey

With You has many champions and, because of the collaborative way of working, With You works with and alongside many people. Ian Souter, a now retired Methodist Minister, has a unique perspective. He was there at the beginning, and this is how he sees it:

‘The City of Bath hosts something like 25,000 students. That is an amazing population and around 10 years ago the Methodist Church, in and around the city, decided that it had to stop simply caring only for the 'resident' Bathonians, and had to enhance its care for and witness to this amazingly varied group of people in both universities.  A student chaplain was appointed, but with a less focus on the institution and more on the student population.  This demanded a different way of working than traditional university chaplaincy.  

The chaplain would still be a presence on the two campuses, but would spend most of their time in the communities where students live day by day.  The chaplain would be around in the places where students shop and meet and drink coffee and eat Chinese and all the rest.  In 2017 Karen came to Bath and set up home in Oldfield Park, and simply shared in the space that was the students' home during term time and, for some, in the holidays.  

The model of chaplaincy was to be that of Jesus who came and lived where we are.  Alongside this, we also planned a community of Christian students sharing their life together at Chapel House in Walcot and that has been an amazing and fruitful place that varied from year to year.  

The whole model of chaplaincy is around the idea of With You - with you as Jesus comes and lives with us; with you as we live together in community, with you as Karen and others live with the student community.  

When this all started the Methodist community had an idea of what a 'student' chaplaincy would look like.  Much of it has been fulfilled (and often goes beyond what we expected) but there are always surprises and the journey has taken some surprising twists but always it seems to be leading to the right place.’

Karen, With You’s Chaplain to Students, works on the ground everyday alongside students, and shares this perspective:

‘Students experience might include lectures, deadlines, clubs and societies, social events, new friends, part-time jobs, time in the library, drinking coffee, beer or bubble tea.  However, a big part of student life, beyond the first year, is living in a student house or purpose built accommodation in the city.  In this part of student life they will have neighbours, shop for food, do the recycling, hang out in the park, and like the rest of us, get to grips with balancing all the things they need to do.

Life is full of surprises and spiritual and emotional experiences, relationship building and breakdown, questions about life and the universe can happen anywhere.  Important life moments don’t wait for us to be in a ancient building or a lecture theatre, they happen in our everyday lives.

With You is a project that recognises that though it’s important to have a chaplaincy presence on campuses and within institutions, there is also a need for a neighbourhood style of chaplaincy, with volunteers willing to walk with students in their ordinary lives, offering listening and encouragement and helping to connect people with one another.’

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