Teenage life is complicated. Growing pressures from school and peer groups, added to the emotional and physical stress of transitioning to adulthood, can make teenagers difficult to engage. But we try our best!

We aim for our regular services to be accessible to teenagers from Year 9 upwards. To help our young people feel St Nicholas is their church, we actively encourage them to take on roles of responsibility within services. Our teenagers play music and sing with the music group and some of our best audio-visual technicians are under 18.

Summer Camps

At St Nicholas we strongly encourage teenagers to go on Christian youth ‘camps’ or residential holidays.

There are a huge variety of Christian residential holidays running throughout the school holidays. Some ‘camps’ have a specific activity theme (e.g. football, music) and many do not involve any actual camping.

The PCC has set aside money to subsidise the cost of attending a camp.

These holidays are a real lifeline for many teenage Christians, who battle daily against pressure from friends who do not believe in Jesus and do not want to live His way. It can be a liberating experience to feel in the majority (for once!) when you want to talk about Jesus and what it means to follow Him. Making a good friend ‘on camp’ can be a source of great strength and encouragement later, once life returns to normal and following Jesus is definitely ‘not cool‘.

If you’re looking for a camp, we recommend you try www.ventures.org.uk. (Ventures & Falcons are overseen by CPAS. You can see photos from their camps on Twitter @CPASVentures)