Community Youth – ‘Young and Free’

At Watford Community Church we are passionate about encouraging and inspiring young people to live life to the full. Our vision is to reach out, train and equip young people to reach their full potential. Therefore we have a youth service for all those in secondary school, years 7 to 13, which we call Community Youth (CY for short). In this setting we have found fresh expression for our vision in the phrase ‘young and free’.

Community Youth offer up a range of activities on Fridays and Sundays and on other days that are special occasions known as CY trips. These events are displayed on a Friday CY rota, or Sunday CY Rota, which can be found/downloaded online from the Watford Community Church’s Community Youth Website. They include the times, whereabouts and money needed for each session.

CY Fridays

This group runs every Friday apart from school holidays for years 7 to 13. They usually run between 7pm and 9pm but are known for changing times depending on what activity has been set. Young people are expected to pay £1 for each session unless stated otherwise in the CY rota. This is to cover refreshments and any other costs. Any profit made will be put into the CY budget which will be invested back into the young people. They are encouraged to bring their friends and when they do, their friend has their first session free of charge.
CY Fridays are dedicated to help encourage young people to grow good, strong wholesome friendships amongst their peers as well as with the CY leaders. We do this by facilitating a safe environment for young people to do all sorts of activities. A variety of some of these activities are listed below;

  • Messy Games (involving flour, water and eggs)
  • Ball Games (rounders, dodgeball and throwing games)
  • Adapted games (big Pictionary, crazy Uno and, film Charades)
  • Film Nights (Projected on a big screen, popcorn included)

Usually once a month we have a CY outing, where young people get to go do a special activity together or go for a meal. We do not yet provide transport to our outings, so a parent or career is expected to drop off and pick up their son/daughter. A list of some of the places we have gone to are below;

  • Hollywood bowl
  • Nandos
  • Top Golf 
  • Pizza Express
  • Cinema
  • Pizza Hut
  • Quazar 
  • McDonalds

All our CY Leaders are CRB checked, have taken a 3 week course learning about the vision and values of Watford Community Church, attend a safeguarding awareness day and have an informal interview with myself. Certain members including myself are trained first aiders and also have undergone some fire protection training. On-going training is something Watford Community Church is committed to provide for our CY leaders as well.

CY Sundays

We have two separate groups that run twice on Sundays. They are Pride ONE for years 7 to 9 and Pride TWO for years 10 to 13. They are part of the Watford Community Church Sunday morning celebrations and therefore coincide the church service times. The first session for the Pride groups is 9.40am and the second session of the Pride groups is 11.55am. Each session lasts 45 minutes. Pride is aimed at teaching young people the Bible in a fun, relevant and fresh way which they could apply to their own lives. Therefore the session will include some scripture, discussion and prayer alongside games and prize giving. Refreshments are also available at these sessions. They are free of charge.

CY Trips

Taking young people away for a few days is a great way to strengthen and increase their friendship building (as well as give you some space). At Community Youth we plan to do a midyear off site residential trip around the February Half Term. We also usually attend a young people’s summer camp that attracts over 10,000 of them every year, called Soul Survivor Camp. This is a Christian organised event, where there are morning and evening celebrations, which includes live worship, prayer and inspirational talks. On top of this there are loads of activities to get involved with. CY trips always seems to be memorable occasions for all young people who get involved.