Online Group FAQs

Interest Groups exist within our online community and create a place for young people to gather around a common hobby, enjoying time together and exploring the Christian faith. Through praying together, and and spending time together, young people are invited to discover who Jesus is and His significance in our lives.

They take the form of a video call on Discord.

Discord is a popular platform for gamers which incorporates some games and elements from social media apps. It has now grown far beyond its initial concept as a gamer platform. An SU Scotland community exists on Discord which allows a variety of young people to interact using text, voice and video chat, and by posting images or ideas; this is moderated by SU Scotland volunteers and is operated securely. Groups will run for approximately 90 minutes, but members on Discord are free to post/communicate any time while the community is open. Discord is open from 4pm to 9:30pm, Monday to Friday, currently.

The video games sector is fast moving, but some games stick around for many years. We will aim to play a variety of games and genres, focused on multiplayer games where we can all have fun together. While we want to explore new games, we do anticipate that we will become entirely led by the group themselves as they request their favourites.

As the age range for all our online gaming groups is 13+, we will not play any games rated higher than PEGI 12.

The Team Leader for Online Groups is Andrew Stothard, our Digital Youth Work Lead. A team of volunteers host the groups themselves. All our volunteers here are keen gamers and understand the gaming subculture (for the gaming groups) or have an active interest in the specialist group they volunteer in. Most are also involved in in-person volunteering with SU Scotland.

We require consent for all young people joining our online community and renew this on a yearly basis. All joiners to Discord are verified and allocated permissions based on the group they are part of. Although we don’t require video to be on for an entire call, if a young person is not comfortable with having it on, we will require it to be switched on for a quick identity check at the start of a call.

Only SU Scotland verified and scheduled staff and volunteers can join the call as an adult. The identity of all participants needs to be verified for everyone’s safety. If you are in the same room as your child when they are on a call, we ask that you do not participate in any way.

Absolutely! Anyone over 13 and up to S6 is welcome to join our Discord server and groups once they are out of the initial launch phase - they don't need to have a church background, or have prior experience with SU Scotland. We do need parental consent for every young person so this form should be completed.