Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick
Our Youth Group meets on a Sunday after evening service in Church House between 7.30 - 9pm (term time only).
In November 2007 we re started our Youth club, with two leaders and two young people! But with faith and hope, we continued and by Christmas we had 7! Hopefully more will join us and we shall continue to grow in faith and friendship!
Every evening we have music, food and games, a chance to talk, have fun, dance and sing. Pete and I are really beginning to get to know the young people and appreciate our time with them. This is place where we hope that the members will become to feel valued and special. Already we have taken lead roles in services and hopefully will be leading family services too soon! We have more activities planned including craft evenings, games evenings, and in the summer will be going canoeing, with a qualified instructor. So if you want to know more and feel you would like to join us, please contact Gina ………………………. We would all love to see you!
We have now been holding Family services at St. Mary’s on a regular basis for 10 years! I find it hard to believe that from those very first small beginnings we have grown onto a major Church Service once a month (9.30 am on the first Sunday of the month). We regularly have a congregation of about 80 or more adults and children, including, Guides and Brownies, and The Colts Choir, who make a valuable contribution to our worship. It pleases me that many of our congregation come along with out children; because they find our more relaxed style of worship helpful. We are always developing the services, and offer different styles of leadership, from Vaughan, myself and other adults who feel that they can take over this important role, and most importantly, the children themselves, from Sunday School and the Guides.
In February 2007 we held our first Family Communion Service within the Family Service and it was so powerful to have a congregation of about 120 joining us, to worship God, for many it was probably their first time taking part in such a service, as Vaughan said at the beginning of the service – “there is only one person who knows how this is going to work today- God”- Well it certainly worked!
I am amazed by the fact that children aged from the age of 3 and 4 have the confidence to speak out loud in front of a full church because that is what they want to do, share their faith with others. Every Christmas the children and young people visit Park View Nursing home to share the Christmas story through reading, songs and drama and then on Christmas Eve lead the Crib service for well over 500 people. What a way of sharing their faith with so many! Please come and join us!
Catherine is our leader together with parents and young people who help. if you have any questions about St Mary’s Sunday School, please email:
We meet in term time during the 10.30 Eucharist service. Whilst the first hymn is sung we line up and lead out to Church House where our activities take place. We greet each other and then take turns to share our news – things we’ve been doing during the week or anything we want to share with our friends. This is important as it helps us to be patient and listen carefully whilst others are speaking and it is good to share with each other.
We usually have a story or talk about the topic we are working on. Recently we have learned about the saints. We found out their names and discovered the important things they did. All of the children had lovely ideas about taking care of each other and being kind and helpful in all we do and say. We led a Family Service and shared what we had learned.
After the story we do our craft activity. We might draw or make models or work on a special project.
The final part of our meeting is spent singing and sometimes we play a game. One particular game involves finding words on smal
l cards hidden around the room, which, when placed in the correct order, help us to remember words from the Bible, for example, “I will be with you always”. We say a prayer and then line up to go back to church singing our special Sunday school song, “I will make you fishers of men”.
As well as our weekly meetings we take part by reading and helping Vaughan and Gina in the Family Services and other special celebrations such as Mothering Sunday.
In September, for Harvest Festival, we bake bread in the Rectory kitchen with David Benson. Some of the bread is used for the Communion and we share some after church.
We take part in the Nativity Service on Christmas Eve with Gina leading us. We usually organise a pantomime visit. We also take the Nativity service to Park View Residential Home and the residents have been thrilled with seeing us in our lovely costumes – Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus and all the shepherds, angels, kings and star. This is a very important activity where we can share with the wider community in our parish.
Holy Week sees us enjoying very special activities. On Good Friday we start with crafts and the creation of the Easter garden in church, organised by Mandy. We then share in the first part of the ‘Three Hours’ led by Vaughan. We stay in church for the Easter day service.
We have a longer break during the school summer holidays and return in September to commence enjoying, once again, the times of sharing and learning together.
Pete Southey, one of our leaders, is going back to Israel and the Occupied Territories in the summer, to work in Princess Basma Centre with the Charity Highway Projects. http://www.highway-projects.org/
This is his reflection after last year's trip...........
Having returned from Jerusalem in July 2008 I have been reflecting on the experience, which was as life changing for me as I hope it was to the children and staff at the Princess Basma Cetre for Disabled Children. For the first three days we were able to get used to being in Israel, and we stayed in Jericho and were able to visit some holy sites: the Dead Sea, Masada and Bethlehem, and walk through the Wilderness. This was an amazing experience and enabled us all to get to know each other better.
We stayed on the Via Delarosa, at the Ecco Home Guest House, which is within the Old City Walls near the Damascus Gate and its "sook" (bazaars). From the terraces which look over the Temple area with the Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall and the Holy Sepulchre, we enjoyed a magnificent view over all the Old City and the hills surrounding Jerusalem.
We started work on the Monday and we spent the week helping the staff at Princess Basma Centre with developing the children's physical skills, helping with their art and craft activities, and helping the parents learn new skills to help develop their children's social skills. As a man in this environment the mums were very surprised that I would play with their children and join in with the activities, even though I could not speak their language and I was not of the same religion. They were surprised that I was qualified in childcare as this was not something that they expected.
I was honoured to be allowed to join in a hydro therapy session as I had been told that it was unlikely that they would allow a man into the pool with the women and children. We took the children on two trips, on to the local park and one to a Water Park in Tel Aviv. It was a very hot day and the children and mums had a fantastic time in the pool, splashing me and then swimming away. I felt deeply moved that they felt comfotable to do this with me, even though they were unused to being in such a situation. The water park visit gave thewm all a chance to play - opportunities that we take for granted.
Unfortunately not as many children and mums were able to attend the Little Hands Summer Camp as they were not allowed to pass through the checkpoints with their documents, but I know that I made a difference to all those who were allowed to come. They did not realise that as a group of people we had funded our own travel in many ways, including sponsorship, and we had given up our holidays to come. They were amazed that we had given up so much to support them. I would like to thank once again all those groups and individuals who have supported my fund raising.
During the two weeks we developed relationships with staff, children and parents, even though we could not always understand each other, and when we left we were each given an individual plate to show their appreciation of what we had done.
I felt happy that I had helped the children and parents learn something new, and helped support the staff in what they were doing. They know that a group will return to help them every year, and it is something for them to look forward to. I am looking forward to hopefully returning in 2009 to continue to develop the relationships even further, as I also learnt a lot about myself and found the whole experience amazing. It has helped me develop my own child care practice AND I even got to ride on a camel!
