“Our mistake turned into one of the most important parts of our holiday club - it’s been there ever since!”
In one of our early holiday clubs we put the wrong time on the flyer, cutting the club short by 30 minutes! In a panic I added a label to each flyer saying the whole family could join in for the final 30 minutes. Jump forward twelve years and this year we saw 280 children come through our doors for holiday club. They make crafts and play games in their age groups. Then they come together for the main stage programme featuring messy challenges, singing and Bible teaching and then for the last 30 minutes we open the doors and parents, grandparents and siblings pile in for family time. Our ‘mistake’ turned into one of the most important parts of holiday club and it has been there ever since!
During family time we play a game show, do a drama and the kids share what they’ve been doing. I invite staff members on stage so adults know what else they could get involved with and can get to know them. We invite them to the Sunday service and see many coming because they are now comfortable in the church building. We link everything in holiday club into our midweek children’s groups. Our three age groups at holiday club mirror our three clubs. They have the same names and leaders and adults get to know who will be looking after their children and what to expect if they come throughout the year. For our church, holiday club is the springboard into a whole year of children’s ministry and for that to succeed we need to involve families straight away!
James is children and families worker at Highfields Church in Cardiff.
“Sport is great for young people to invite friends to”
A leader at Harborne Urban Saints worked at Birmingham University and came up with the idea of an afternoon when young people could experience different sports at the university sports centre. The three-hour slot is divided into four sessions and the young people choose four different sports from swimming, basketball, unihoc, football, squash, racquetball, table tennis, short tennis, badminton, volleyball and aerobics. The afternoon is designed to allow young people of all abilities to enjoy themselves and take part. It is not competitive and all of the sports equipment is provided. It is a great time for leaders to get to know the young people better, for the young people to feel part of something bigger (we can have up to 150 taking part) and for them to enjoy themselves and try out sports they may not have done before. The sports afternoon is a great opportunity for young people who regularly attend Urban Saints groups to bring their friends and encourage them to come along to other activities.
Andy is a volunteer for Urban Saints in Solihull.
“Summer is an ideal opportunity for young people to bless others”
For the past two summers we’ve run a ‘festival at home’ for our young people, a small, intimate family event called Belfrey Youth Fest. Our youth centre is transformed into a mini showground and we put up marquees, camp in the church, have people from church cook us meals, and young people and speakers deliver talks and seminars.
Between the morning and evening worship and teaching our young people wanted to bless local people and share something of God’s love by serving our community. We worked with a local charity who arranged numerous projects, from preparing baby bundles (creating hampers to bless in-need families with new-borns) to decorating people’s houses. A touching memory was seeing the delight on the face of a young girl when we finished painting her bedroom her favourite colour - pink!
Summer is an ideal opportunity, when things feel like they slow down, for young people to share something of themselves to bless others. Sharing God’s love in practical ways opens eyes and hearts to the gospel of Jesus.
Lee is head of youth and children’s work at The Belfrey in York.
“I dusted off the cobwebs from my ballet days and put on a musical!”
When my husband and I stepped in to lead the church youth group we were keen to throw all we had into it, but little did I realise it would involve dusting off the cobwebs of my ballet days for one of the popular features in the annual youth schedule! The musical-in-a-week began two years ago with the previous youth worker. The first was a colourful performance of Joseph and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat, with Beauty and the beast the year after (you must apply for a license to perform an existing musical). This year we’ll put on another production with children and young people from our church, as well as some from surrounding churches and various invited friends. They’ll join us for five days of dancing, acting, singing, set design, daily prayer and reflection.
Recreating musicals is a great way for young people to work together and have fun in a faith environment.
Maria is a volunteer youth worker at Christ the Prince of Peace Catholic Church in Weybridge.
“We work with families who can’t afford trips or childcare”
Over the last 20 years, Rugby Youth for Christ has run ‘Go 4 It’, a summer activity week. The four-day programme includes swimming, ice skating, cinema, bowling and trips to theme parks or adventure centres. There is an optional youth club in the evenings and a party at the end of the week where we share Jesus and pray for them. The week is primarily aimed at young people we work with on a regular basis through schools, and youth work. We work with many youngsters who wouldn’t be able to afford these activities, and for families struggling to afford childcare over the holidays; this is an amazing opportunity to serve our local community. A team of trained and widely experienced youth workers help, not just in practical ways, but through encouraging and building confidence. We decided not to do half-term holiday clubs as that’s when many kids visit their mum or (usually) dad. Over the years, we have tried to subsidise the cost by applying for grants and fundraising. In recent years, this has proved more difficult as those same pots of money don’t exist anymore.
Introducing young people to Jesus in the midst of an ever-changing culture is always our primary goal. Where staying indoors looking at iPads and TVs is the default setting for most teenagers, Go 4 It offers something different. Some may even see it as ‘good old fashion youth work’!
Iain is director of Rugby Youth for Christ.
“One of the kids set up his own holiday club at home”
My family have never been involved with church but I remember going to holiday clubs. At our church, we hadn’t had a holiday club since I was a child so I thought it would be a good idea to do one! We advertised within church as well as on local Facebook groups and in the community and ran our first one in May 2016. We had around 35 children, including many we had never met before. We ran our next one in October and had some new faces. We start each day with a story around our theme and the children choose their own crafts - from making snakes and animal masks, to decorating paper people and gingerbread men.
We have games, songs and a little break. This year we will run an Easter holiday club with a special Messy Church on the Saturday. Our summer holiday club will end with a family trip on the Saturday. We really value getting to know families and see informal family events as the way to bridge the gap between someone dropping their children off and coming to church themselves. We only run holiday club for part of a week as we understand that people’s time is precious and asking people to volunteer for a week can be difficult.
We have started to see more links forming between Girls’ Brigade, Boys’ Brigade and holiday clubs. One lady from church came to a holiday club with her grandson. When he found out we weren’t doing one in February half-term he set up holiday club in her house across two rooms, on the story of creation with a drink and biscuit because that’s how we did it! What a great way to hear the good news spreading and people taking God back into their homes!
Rachel is Girls’ Brigade’s regional team leader for South Wales.
“We turned our church into a science lab”
Banchory Ternan East Church has a long history of holiday clubs for local children. They usually operate in the summer holidays, on weekday mornings with a celebratory BBQ on the Saturday. One year we did a science stream where the whole room was set up like a science lab and the children did experiments relating to our Bible verses. They performed experiments about light relating to, “I am the light of the world” and made perfume when we spoke about sensing God through smell. We even incorporated creative prayer through balloons; the children put prayers in balloons, filled them with helium and then sent them up to God.
The BBQ is a great way to celebrate the children’s efforts and showcase their work, inviting families to be involved and see what their children have done. Our holiday clubs are a fun and creative way to share God with the people in our communities.
Michelle is children’s coordinator at Banchory Ternan East Church in Scotland.
“At holiday club this year we’ll explore emotions, mindfulness and first aid”
The evaluation forms from last year’s holiday club highlighted an interest in sport. It is important to us as a church to not only look at the physical needs of children and young people but to engage, develop and support the whole person emotionally, mentally and spiritually, so this year’s holiday club, called ‘It’s all about us’, will offer a range of activities. We hope these will help youngsters explore positive life choices and learn new skills while building friendships in a safe and caring environment. Sport will include football, golf and circuit training, while first aid will teach how we can care for others. We will explore emotions through drama and drumming, and through mindfulness sessions we will encourage children to focus on the present moment, reconnecting with sounds, smells, sight and taste through games and exercise. We will also take time to discuss internet safety and staying safe and we’ll come together every day to prepare and eat a healthy lunch.
Our Christian message of love and understanding underpins all of our work and our holiday club is open to any young person, whatever their faith. We have found that children continue to attend church groups like youth club and singing.
Beverley is children’s, youth and family worker at St Andrew’s Roundhay United Reformed Church in Leeds.
“We started a holiday club with a café”
In December 2005 I started as youth worker at Cathcart Baptist Church and a month later met the elder responsible for children and youth at Cathcart Trinity Church of Scotland. A shared vision to communicate the good news of Jesus to children and young people led us to work together with a team of volunteers on a holiday club which included an evening youth café. With the involvement of Cathcart United Free Church, Cathcart Youth Ministry Partnership (CYMP) was created in 2007. Three individuals from each church make up the board of trustees.
The holiday club has now expanded to include a café for parents and carers. We run a sports club for young people called LightSpeed, which has continued during term time. The café is also part of a monthly children’s event and last September we had 22 young people from the youth café attend Youth Alpha. We will be running our first ever Easter holiday club this year!
Holiday club is integral to CYMP. Reaching, discipling and equipping children and young people are our main objectives. We are incredibly thankful for all that God has done and continues to do through partnership working. As Psalm 133 says: “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”
Cara is senior development worker at CYMP in Glasgow.
