Most of our leadership team have a background in education and consequently place a high priority on the provision we make for the children in our care. We are rightly proud of the quality of our children’s ministry team and make sure they are properly resourced enabling them to continue to do an excellent job.

Crèche

Our crèche provision has just been restructured by a church member who until recently was the Manager of a highly successful Christian nursery in Chesterfield. The children can play happily, while being introduced to the love of God through simple action songs and using story bags containing items relating to a bible story. A lovely relaxed time for them to enjoy.

J Team

While the adults receive some teaching up in the Ballroom the primary age children are welcome to come and join the J Team in the Function Room. They will have lots of fun together with stories, games and crafts but they will also be hearing Bible teaching and be encouraged to develop in their own relationship with God.

Powergang

Younger teens can be part of the Powergang. They will have just as much fun as the younger children but will deal with the more challenging issues of faith that they face every day and be encouraged to grow into their individual gifting.

Holiday Clubs

Over the last 30 years we have regularly run holiday clubs in Alfreton and Chesterfield which are well attended. It’s a mix of games, stories, songs, dancing, quizzes and crafts always with a gospel message as our focus for these events is those children who do not usually come to church.

Cool After School Club

For many years Martyn has run a successful weekly after school club in an Alfreton junior school. The club has a capacity of 30 and it is not unusual for there to be a waiting list. The sessions are a mix of bible stories, activities and visitors to talk about the Police, Fire Service, RNLI and the children respond well to the time invested in them.

Focus Bible Week

This is an annual bible week away for 9-13 year olds with older children able to volunteer to work as teen servers. Martyn & Gill have been part of the leadership team from the start and many of our youngsters have begun attending as delegates, grown up to be teen servers and now help out as adult leaders. We have NLC volunteers in the kitchens preparing food, in the music group leading the worship, doing workshops, as small group leaders taking bible studies, teaching and of course cleaning toilets! For the younger children it’s a fantastic time to enjoy God with your friends, to be yourself in worship and to deepen your relationship with God. It’s wild and wacky and loads of fun!

Friday Night Youth Club

Chesterfield Street Pastors responded to a request from our partners in Community Safety to see if we could do anything to help with a town centre problem involving young people. Large numbers were congregating in the bus shelters and whilst, for the most part they were doing nothing wrong, the sheer number of them was intimidating to others waiting for buses. They were in turn becoming a target for some unsavoury characters which also put them at risk.

Street Pastors began patrolling and litter picking around the area and if opportunity arose invited the young people back to the safety of Grace Chapel for hot drinks and some sandwiches. There was a positive response and we now regularly get young people turning up on a Friday night.

NLC has involvement through members of the street pastors team and also in volunteers who regularly form part of the back up team working back at Grace Chapel.

Community YoungStars

This is another youth project that has come out of our involvement in Christians Together for Chesterfield and with the Community Safety Partnership in Chesterfield. YoungStars is a 6 week summer holiday play scheme which offers free activities to primary age children each morning and for those 8yrs+ in the afternoon. There was also a Youth Club on the Friday night and a mobile unit that took activities out into local parks.

We have had NLC volunteers working all through the summer with this scheme which has been a life-saver to some low income families in the area whose children have been virtually every day. It has been great to have the opportunity to establish relationships with these children and their families which we hope to continue to build on in the future.