Be encouraged by stories from parishes across Derbyshire and see how you can pray for children, young people, families, schools, and church communities across the Diocese of Derby.
If you have any quesions regarding resources or funding mentioned in the below stories, get in touch at GrowingYounger@derby.anglican.org
04.08.2025 - Interview with Revd James Lee from the North Wingfield Team
Q: Hi James, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
James: My name is Revd James Lee and since last September, I’ve been Team Vicar in the North Wingfield Team, which is a team of five churches just south of Chesterfield.
Q: What was your motivation for starting your new service?
James: Of our five churches, four meet on Sunday mornings, but St Barnabas Danesmoor has been a small afternoon congregation for many years, meeting at 5pm. Soon after I started I had a strong sense that there was a brilliant opportunity here for a family-friendly afternoon service for the many families who access the St Barnabas Centre throughout the week. I found that others I spoke to felt the same – and the scale of opportunity was confirmed by seeing 92 people (including nearly 50 children) come to our Christingle service last December.
And so a small team of us began working to launching this new service, which we decided to move to 4pm (as a better time for families) and call ‘St Barnabas@4’.
Q: What does the service look like now?
James: We launched St Barnabas@4 in February and it’s been a fun roller-coaster ride ever since. If you were to walk in on a Sunday, you’d find us sat round tables in a relaxed style, with paper for drawing/doodling covering each table, with pens, fidget toys and a craft available, as well a play area at the back.
But as you stay, you’ll find that we seek to incorporate many of the normal parts of a regular service – songs, confession, Bible reading, prayers and a short talk – but with a very clear communication that it is ok for children to make noise, run around and play. This has been the most frequent comment from parents – that they’ve been able to come and relax and enjoy it, because they’re not constantly stressing about the noise their child is/could make.
Q: How have you seen your ministry grow? What do you think was the catalyst for this?
James: We were blown away by having 71 people there on our first week, though I was always aware that ‘regular numbers’ would likely fall off from that. We’ve settled into an average of around 40-45 people each week, about half of whom are children, which is great.
But more than just numbers, it’s been really exciting to see a sense of community and belonging begin to grow – we’ve recently seen our first baptism, with interest in thanksgiving services too. We’re looking to grow our team as well, encouraging people to consider how they might be able to get involved.
As to a catalyst for growth – I think the excellent connections developed over many years at the St Barnabas Centre have been a big part of it, as well as the importance of sharing food together at 5pm each week too! It’s been really encouraging to see people start to invite their own families and friends to come along too!
Q: What is your recent success?
James: Aside from the blessing of having a baptism a few weeks ago, we’ve had some big highlights over recent months, particularly having a live donkey (and a horse) with us on Palm Sunday and having a big Easter Party with over 100 people coming along!
Q: How has this impacted your wider church community?
James: It’s been an encouragement within our Team of church to see so many children and young people coming along, with St Barnabas going from our smallest congregation to nearly the largest, and is helping us think through what more we can be doing to engage with children and young people across the team.
It’s also given us a closer connection point between the brilliant work of the team at the St Barnabas Centre, and all they do for the community, and St Barnabas Church.
Q: Do you have plans going forward for your current ministry, or anything new starting?
James: My key watchword for St Barnabas@4 is ‘sustainable’ – it’d be very easy to come in, do a flashy new thing and then fizzle out after six months, but we’re determined to build something stable and faithful to last for many years to come – still looking to make things good quality and staying fresh, without going in for gimmicks etc.
Our focus at present is building something to last, though we are always considering how to adapt and make things better. Our hope is, in time, to introduce a simple celebration of communion, and explore whether those who attend might be interested in a smaller bible study group. There’s lots of other possibilities too – the challenge is being patient to see what God is calling us into next!
Q: What has challenged you or your team, or continues to challenge you?
James: One of the challenges has been starting with a relatively small team, without a long lead-in time before we launched. But alongside that, it’s been encouraging to see people getting involved in helping out in lots of different ways too.
Also, building community takes time! Many of those who come along have little history of attending church and there are weeks where the number of people there fluctuates a lot, which is normal – I have to keep reminding myself not to judge things solely on numbers!
Q: How would you encourage churches who are thinking of starting out with a children’s or youth ministry?
James: I would encourage all churches to have ‘Growing Younger’ as a key part of your discussions at PCC and as a church team – to think through what will best enable you to reach children and young people in your area.
Also, have courage to try things! We had no idea how things would go with St Barnabas@4, no idea if anyone would turn up, but we felt this was the opportunity God was leading us towards – so we went for it!
Q: We would love to pray for you, what specifics can we pray for?
James: Please do pray for us as we continue to get established, for God to be at work to bring more people along, as well as building us into a loving, caring, welcoming community of people who are getting to know Jesus better together.
Please pray as well for us to continue to find creative and engaging ways to help both adults and young people to be engaging with God’s Word, and to be able to build something that is sustainable for the long term.
