We seek to see a transformed community where young people are empowered to reach their full potential.

In 2014 Ben Rowe began serving as Youth Pastor at Elizabeth Church of Christ, South Australia. During his first few years of ministry he felt a prompting from God to explore his work out in the community – extending his time in schools, at skate parks and being present outside the church. One Thursday night, Ben was at Elizabeth City Centre and noticed the amount of young people congregating not to shop, but purely just to do life together and be in a sense of community. After witnessing a theft by a young lad, his eyes were opened to not only the brokenness that was around him, but the potential he believed God had for these young people. Without having anything constructive to do, he saw young people engaging in destructive activities and anti-social behaviour.

Compelled, he made a phone call to Elizabeth City Centre, spoke with centre management and shared his heart. It was agreed that Ben could bring himself and a few other volunteers from his youth group to the centre on a Thursday night. Since then, Ben and a team of volunteers from local churches have fostered strong relations with the centre management, security team & council resulting in the birth of Streetlight.

More than 50 volunteers have been trained from over 20 different churches, seeing Streetlight operate and thrive at the centre since 2016. They connect regularly with young people at 3 main locations; Elizabeth City Centre, Elizabeth Skate Park, Colonnades. Our team have also participated in local council events, high school wellbeing days and other community and church events.

In 2019, Ben & his wife Anni took a step of faith and left their youth pastor job to tackle Streetlight full-time as urban missionaries, raising their full-time income to support their family as well as the work of Streetlight. Two more missionaries have joined the team as the ministry expands and new initiatives are pioneered, which include Street Eats (an at home cooking initiative tackling food insecurity during covid lockdowns), and Street Art (an art therapy initiative).

Streetlight seeks to unite volunteers from local churches to take action in their community. Raising awareness of the vulnerable young people in the community, and mobilising support to take action in becoming a part of their story.

Through partnerships with local churches, organisations, businesses, councils, services and schools we raise finance, awareness and mobilise prayer and volunteers to achieve our goal of seeing communities transformed where young people are empowered to reach their potential.