In the rural parish of All Souls, North Warwickshire, Michelle Withey runs a weekly Youth Group for young people called Youth 139. It started in September 2022 from scratch when Michelle saw a need for youth ministry at All Souls and in the community. She worked with one of the CofE Birmingham Mission Support team for advice on starting and running a Youth Group, how to develop a discipleship journey for young people, and looked for volunteers with a heart for youth ministry and mission.
A year on, Youth 139 is thriving with 30-40 regular attendees and meets each Thursday evening. The Youth Group is named after Psalm 139: 13-14, which speaks about the care and attention which God makes us individually.
Michelle says, “The idea to set up a Youth Club came to me about two years ago and it was very much God inspired! There was very little for the young people to do in our village and some of the children just wanted somewhere safe to hang out.
We try to provide a good range of activities that meet the needs of the young people. There are groups who have formed based around their interests, such as sport, art and crafts, cooking and technology. Many of the children use it as a base in which to catch up with their friends who they would not see regularly otherwise. And we have a lovely group of volunteers who help us to achieve this.”
Michelle is a Project Leader providing a pastoral service and attendance monitoring at a Primary School, and had no formal Youth Worker training, so engaged with Flex, an online series of Youth Work training resources on the CofeB Pathways Learning Platform.
In the urban parish of Ascension, Stirchley, there is an established Pineapple Youth Project which is run in partnership with Riverside Church in South Birmingham. How did the group get their name? Ascension is in Pineapple Grove, and so Pineapple Youth Project was born.
Ellie Dattani is Ascension’s Youth and Families Worker, and the young people come from many different backgrounds and for many, it is their only contact with church.
They run Youth Zone, a youth group for 11-14s, who meet for games such as Xbox One, table tennis, table football, craft and creative workshops like baking and photography, as well as learning life skills like first aid. Recently, the group had a weekend away in the Brecon Beacons, and previously have had a Staycation weekend at Ascension Church, camping in the garden.
They have been running Youth Alpha ahead of the main YouthZone sessions, which is an opportunity to eat pizza and talk about some of the 'big questions' about life and allows the young people to explore faith. Pineapple Rules Football is the term time football session for boys and girls aged 7-15 with all skills and abilities run at the local park.
With Ellie’s support, YouthZone has also been instrumental in helping to grow youth leaders at Ascension Church.
If you would like to find out more about running a Youth Group or have questions about training resources in Children and Families ministry, you can speak to Emma Sargeant, Growing Younger Adviser in the Mission Support team at CofE Birmingham: emmas@cofebirmingham.com.