Gorleston Church packed for Life ‘24 events

St Mary Magdalene Church hosted three events with speaker Nate Morgan Locke, attracting a total of over 200 people. The Gorleston events took place as part of Life ’24 – a week of events taking place across Norfolk. 

The NightLife youth event, Quiz, Chips and Chat evening, and the Bridge lunch at St Mary Magdalene Church, Gorleston were all full to capacity as Nate Morgan Locke spoke about life and faith to those present, most of whom aren’t church attendees.

NightLife attracted over 50 young people from Gorleston plus nearly 30 from other parts of Norfolk. They were able to enjoy hot dogs, a variety of milkshakes (the unanimous favourite being Oreo flavour), inflatable whack-a-mole, cage football and a variety of board games and Xbox / Wii games. Part way through the evening everyone gathered in the hall to hear from Nate. 80 young people listened attentively as he spoke about how social media companies compete for our unending attention in order to make profit, but that true life is only found when we fix our eyes on Jesus. Many of the young people present took the opportunity to follow up with Nate afterwards about what they had heard.

Nate also spoke at The Bridge which is a regular free lunch held at St Mary Magdalene for those from the local community and serving 50-60 each week, and that evening at a Quiz, Chips and Chat event organised by the church. Over a hundred people attended the quiz, many of whom were invited by friends. After a fish and chip supper (provided from a fish and chip van in the church car park) and a challenging quiz hosted by Rev Matthew Price, vicar at St Mary Magdalene Church, and the church’s volunteers coordinator, Sarah Simmons, Nate spoke about ruckenfigur art and making a choice to follow Jesus.

Rev Price said “it has been a real joy to have Nate and his team with us this week. I have been delighted to see how he has been able to engage different audiences with the message about finding hope in Jesus. We are excited to see how the seeds that have been sown might grow in the weeks and months to come.

“Over the coming weeks we will be running two follow up courses – Hope Explored on Tuesday evenings and The Four Points course on Tuesday lunchtimes – and we’re praying that many of our guests will decide to come to one of those courses to find out more about following Jesus.”

Alongside the events in Gorleston, Nate also spoke at events hosted by St Helen’s Church in Costessy, Holy Trinity Church and City Gates Church in Norwich and Diss Baptist Church.

Nate is creative director for Speak Life, whose vision is to “re-evangelise church and world through captivating, Christ-centred communication.” You can read more about their work and resources on their website: https://speaklife.org.uk/ 



Photos of Nate speaking at NightLife above, and the Quiz, Chips and Chat evening right, courtesy of Rev Matthew Price