The Youth Bus is out and about in Warwick bringing youth ministry to young people on their doorstep, as Church is up from the pew and missionally out next door to you! This is a partnership between Thrive and the Warwick Team of Churches, supported by the King Henry VIII Charitable Fund. We are very excited to share God’s love and deliver 21st century youth work through the newly branded bus. The bus is for young people in Warwick, and beyond, to spend time with friends and to hear stories of hope and life through Jesus. It is designed to reach, serve, and love young people in the town. T ..read more

We were absolutely thrilled to be joined by about 150 people from 16 churches for a weekend full of fun and good memories. It was amazing to have lots of young people come from across Thrive’s region: Leamington, Warwick, Coventry and beyond! Everything felt a lot larger, and it was a delight to have so many young people eager to embrace the opportunity of the Basecamp weekend. One of the young people, Hannah found “it was so much fun, and I enjoyed meeting people from so many different churches”. Over the course of the weekend there was a mixture of activities for the young people to enjoy ..read more

Do you have Year 5 & 6 children in your church and worry how to hold onto them before they reach secondary school age? Particularly for children in Year 6, the final year at primary school, they can quickly begin to feel too old for the children’s work and wish that they were older.  Yet they are still too young for secondary school. St Peter’s Church in Wellesbourne started a club targeted for those children, to give them something exciting just for them, enabling the children to come together for pizza and games with a clear focus on the Bible and time to pray, which helps them to g ..read more

One of the challenges in starting a youth ministry is engaging with young people who are not yet part of a church family. Scripture Union has a statistic that 95% of young people have no contact with the Church. So how do we introduce young people to church and, more importantly, to Jesus?   “Do not forget to do good and to share with others”. Hebrews 13:16. Thrive is partnering with Christians from local churches including Leamington Baptist Church to reach out to young people in their communities simply by giving out refreshments as a gift to those who pass their church front doors as ..read more

On Saturday 16th September local youth groups and young Christians from 17 different churches got together at St Paul’s Church, Warwick for Base, our BBQ & worship evening. It was amazing to have young people gathered from Leamington, Warwick, Coventry and wider the wider area. There was a fantastic buzz and a great atmosphere as God’s people got together, united in faith and friendship. Everyone arrived at the beautiful church grounds where they were greeted and directed by volunteers in our brand-new high visibility Thrive jackets! It was good to welcome each person, as they arrived, whe ..read more

The Thrive Puppet Team started in the summer of 2021. When it was set up, we were searching for young people to come and join the team from various churches and backgrounds. Our aim was to reach young people that were perhaps struggling in some way either with mental health or had just found lockdown challenging and maybe needed something new to help build them up, teach them new skills and encourage them. Fiona Stutton, Thrive’s Children’s Ministry Adviser said, “It’s a real privilege to be working with such a great team of young people, training them up in new skills, helping to make a diffe ..read more

It was great to see lots of children come together, from all over our area, to connect and worship God. There were 67 children, 19 young leaders (teenagers), and 32 leaders coming from across 14 churches. As people entered the event, they gathered in their church groups, aided by large signs so they knew where to sit. The afternoon began with games which went down a storm! The event was organised by Thrive’s Children’s Ministry Adviser, Fiona Stutton, who said: “My ultimate highlight of Thrive Juniors was seeing so many leaders from a great number of our local churches commit to bringing thei ..read more

After three long years of not being able to gather it was brilliant to be able to be together again in person. Youth leaders from 12 different churches bought over 90 young people together with the intention of investing time in their youth group. The weekend started with the Thrive team organising games on the Friday night to get everyone mixing and breaking the ice! It set a good atmosphere for the weekend – that it was about young people having fun together, finding out about faith and cheering each other on, with support from their youth leaders. Feedback from one of the youth leaders, Liz ..read more

Our Youth Mission Enablers, James and Ryan, joined the Thrive staff team in September’21. Since that time, we have been purposefully trying to get alongside churches across the area to help them start new initiatives to connect and reach young people in their community. Fiona, our Children’s Ministry Adviser, has been doing this in regard to primary school aged children, as well as helping churches to launch new Messy Church events. 2022 was definitely a very busy year for the team but are we making a difference to the churches we serve and, most importantly, the children and young people that ..read more

We had our annual one-day training conference, which was attended by over 30 children’s and youth leaders from the local area who met and gathered from 14 different churches. It was great to see the churches raring with a readiness to train and further equip themselves in their ministries. The programme consisted of workshops, mingling, and teaching, looking at Paul’s leadership in Philippians and how we can model ourselves on Christ’s virtues and leadership. Everything was centred around the Lord and ways in which we can keep our focus upon him whilst at the same time also leading others to h ..read more