• Acts as a local base for multiple DY placements 
• Provides oversight, training delivery, and pastoral support to students and Placement Churches 
• Partners with New Wine in leadership development 

• Multiply and develop leaders in your region 
• Raise up leaders for church plants and future ministry (ordained, employed, or volunteer) 
• Embed a youth perspective within your team and culture 
• Help young people see they can lead 
• Strengthen your church’s discipleship culture 
• Create capacity when other volunteers aren’t available 
• Invest in younger leaders—it’s life-giving and strategic 
• Play your part in the renewal of the Church across the UK 

Having DY students embedded within our church community has been transformative. Their passion, creativity, and servant-hearted approach have brought fresh energy to our ministry, strengthened our connection with the local community, and enabled us to extend our impact far beyond what we could have achieved on our own. It’s also been a fantastic opportunity for us to invest in the lives of these young people, seeing them flourish and develop in their own skills has been wonderfully rewarding. We are so excited, already to be seeing some of the fruit in the young people’s lives coming into their lives, well after their time with us.
– Senior Leadership Team, Portsmouth Hub 

Discerning your church’s role in raising up young leaders locally. 

Not every church is called to be a Hub. The role of a Hub Church is both strategic and sacrificial. It requires vision, leadership capacity, and a commitment to serving other churches in your area. 

This section is designed to help you prayerfully explore whether your church is best placed to take on the responsibility of leading a Hub, or whether you might be better positioned to support a nearby Hub by becoming a Placement Church or partnering in another way. 

To partner in hosting a Discipleship Year Hub, we ask that churches share New Wine’s evangelical foundations. New Wine is a member of the Evangelical Alliance (EA), expressed through membership of the EA. 

These aren’t a pass/fail test—they’re here to help you reflect on your church’s current life, calling, and capacity. These questions are for you, not for us, and wedon’t need to see your answers! It’s simply a tool to help you prayerfully discern whether becoming a Hub is the right next step for your church in this season. 

1. Do we have a heart and track record in training and releasing young leaders? 
2. Is there a senior staff member with the capacity to lead the Hub vision (e.g., to get it off the ground, and oversee a Hub Leader)? 
3. Are we already practicing strong safeguarding and governance? 
4. Do we have existing or potential connections with Placement Churches in our area? To start to assess what size your Hub might be aiming for based on your current connections, please use the Reach Assessment. 
5. Do we have the administrative and relational capacity to support multiple placement churches each year? 
6. Do we have the theological capacity to host and deliver high quality training days? 
7. Do we have the financial resources to back a Hub?
   • We generally encourage this as a three-year project from starting out to sustainability.  Key costs to consider:  
     • Hub Leader salary (budget for a minimum of 1.5 days per week), or a significant volunteer who could offer this time consistently. 
     • Capacity for the Hub Leader to join on the residentials (3 Days in November, 5 Days in April or May). 
     • Accommodation for the number of students you intend to host yourselves, if you’re planning to provide this. 
     • Room costs, speaker travel, and trips out. 

It may be that, as you reflect on these questions, you recognise that another New Wine church in your area is better positioned to lead a Discipleship Year Hub. If that’s the case, we encourage you to reach out and explore working together. 

Two strong churches pulling in the same direction often leads to a healthier, faster-growing Hub—and a greater impact across the region. 

The Discipleship Year operates on a shared funding model between students, Hubs, and Placement Churches. 

Each student pays a fee which is split 50/50 between New Wine and the Hub. For current fees please speak to the New Wine Discipleship Year team. 

The New Wine portion covers: 

• Two residential gatherings (currently one in the UK and one abroad, e.g. Spain) 
• Tickets for the New Wine Leadership Conference 
• Access to New Wine Online resources 
• A team ticket for the New Wine Summer Festival 
• Administrative overheads and direct support for Hubs 

The Hub portion (50% of the fee per student): 

This funding granted to the Hub contributes towards: 

• Delivery of training days 
• Pastoral and leadership oversight 
• Administrative support and resources 

In addition to the student fee, each Placement Church is expected to contribute an agreed fee per student. You can get the up-to-date figures from the New Wine Discipleship Year team. This helps cover the wider costs of running the programme at a local level. All the monies are collected centrally by New Wine and then a grant per student (50% student share + placement contribution) will be paid to the Hub Church in three instalments across each year.  

If you are an Anglican Church and thinking about accessing the MES scheme as a potential source of funding and capacity to widen the impact of your ministry then please talk to us about how this works financially. There are a number of Hubs that do this, and it works well, however we won’t put all the details here for brevity.