As well as being the Vicar of Saint Mary's, Janice heads up Widnes Deanery Youth Church. When challenges to summarise Ignite in a hundred words or less, this is what she wrote:-

The Widnes Deanery Youth Church known as “Ignite” was set up 5 years ago with volunteer youth leaders, to meet the needs of young Christians who need a space where they can explore the Christian faith together.

The vision for Ignite was born from a simple prayer “Lord show us your heart for the youth of our town”

The age group is 11-18 years.

We meet on Sunday evenings from 6pm – 8.30 pm during school term time.

We serve the whole of Widnes deanery, so we tend to meet at various churches in the town, we do not have our own building.

The team of volunteer Youth Leaders is headed up by Rev Janice Collier, Youth Minister and Vicar of St Mary Hale with Halebank.

We are a Youth Church, not an open Youth Club.

We aim to enable young people to grow in their faith, using fun, food, creative worship and an informal teaching style.

The Deanery Mission Planning process helped the churches to see the need for future planning and provision in the future if Ignite was going to be sustained. Thus the vision for Janice Collier’s post emerged during the 2004 Deanery mission planning process.

A key factor is that the clergy in the Deanery know trust each other, this is a key factoring enabling us to share the leadership, money and vision together.

We have a budget, each church in the deanery contributes £50 per year for Ignite running costs. One Vicar said “It’s the best £50 we spend all year”

If you want any more information about Ignite do not hesistate to contact Janice via our 'Contacts' page.