Fun ways to welcome children into church
25 September 2009
Is your church reaching out to children and young people? Here are just a few examples of projects running across the Diocese to inspire you.
Families are being invited to have a greater involvement in the life of Holy Epiphany Church, Bournemouth. Growing numbers of pre-school children have been coming to its crèche on a Sunday morning and the church has worked to maintain relationships with those who have been baptised there. The church is looking at new ways to encourage children and recently organised a party to bring together baptism families with pre-school children, the parents and toddler group from the church hall and other children in the congregation. The party included a talk, craft and musical activities, and a puppet show to explain the Christian message to this young audience.
Lynley Wilkes, who is responsible for children and youth work at Holy Epiphany Church, said: “We need to reach out and encourage the younger children into our church. Many of our children have in the past come through our choir and links with the local Church of England school and we have missed the younger children in our parish. We feel this is a very important part of the church growth to encourage younger families, to see whole families grow in knowing Christ and to help them have a solid foundation of faith from an early age.”
As part of its Parish Vision, All Saints’ Church, in Eastleigh, held a Teddy Bear Picnic. Parishioners invited families with children who had been baptised in the church during 2007 to come along to the event. The teddy bears and their families joined in with an energetic Hokey-Cokey before going home to bed!
In Alton, years 5 & 6 at St Lawrence C of E School took part in a project entitled 'Flour Babies'. It was based on a book written by Anne Fine, and involved the children looking after a bag of flour as a baby for a week. The pupils dressed, looked after, weighed and found babysitters for their 'flour babies' when they were unable to be with them. Some of the ‘flour babies’ were even brought into school by buggy. The week long project ended with a ‘baptism’ service for 54 flour babies at St Lawrence’s Church, conducted by Revd Andrew Micklefield. One of the children said: “We had our flour babies baptised and we had all chosen godparents for them. “Ermantrude was baptised. After that I proudly stuck Ermantrude’s baptism certificate in my baby book.” The project gave pupils the chance to learn about a baptism service and what it means, as well as exploring their local church in new ways.
The Discipleship children and youth team for the Diocese are able to offer advice and support to churches in the Diocese. They can be contacted on 01962 737322.