We have a two Youth House Groups for children in Years 7-11 and 11-16.  The groups meet weekly during term time although the younger group are likely to move to a fortnightly schedule after Easter 2008.

When the older group originally formed we took the children away for a weekend to the Yorkshire Dales, giving children and leaders an opportunity to get to know one another and form effective relationships.  In a similar way the children in our younger youth cell attended the October youth weekends away in 2006 & 2007 forming these relationships.  The intention is for each group to remain together as a single unit and for a new housegroup to be formed once sufficient of our younger children reach school years 5-7.  We also envisage the older children taking a more active mentoring role by this time.

THE VISION FOR YOUTH HOUSEGROUP

For the children:

• For each child to grow into a deeper relationship with God the Father, develop a personal passion for Jesus and know the power of the Holy Spirit working in his/her life.
• For each child within Housegroup to encounter Jesus in every meeting and grow spiritually into a strong Christian "oak tree".
• For each child to find Housegroup a place to relax, meet with God and meet with fellow Christian friends.
• For each child to have the opportunity to share pray and care for the other children.
• For all children to be discipled from the "same loaf" as the adults, just broken down into smaller pieces to make it easier for them to "digest".
• For each child to discover their own faith through discussion, bible study and mutual mentoring.
• For the children of the eldest housegroup to act as mentors to the children in the younger housegroup.
• For each child to be and feel safe and secure within his/her group.
• For each child to have leaders that they can talk with and trust.

For the families:

• For the families of the children to be made welcome by the leaders and given clear information about the groups activities.

For the leaders:

• For each leader to feel positive and confident in his/her role.
• For each leader to feel supported and encouraged.
• For each leader to be clear on all systems, structures, ethos and vision.

We will seek to meet this vision as a Housegroup team through:

• Plenty of prayer!
• Fortnightly meetings, which are well prepared and carefully led so that the leaders are facilitating the discussions of the children.
• Providing a safe and secure environment that encourages the children to share, pray and mentor each other.
• Providing an annual weekend away for the children to have a lengthier focussed time together.
• Making ourselves available for children to talk to.
• Good communication between leaders.
• Effective training for leaders and assistants.