Friday 2 November 2007
ABLAZE!
Child Friendly Churches
B.O.G.O.F.
B.O.G.O.F. YOUTH - for a limited period - buy one get one free on Youth.
(Adverts for vacancies, actually - but hey! who's interested in the small print.
Children at Communion
Friday 31 August 2007
BEING A CHILD-FRIENDLY CHURCH
Many churches in the Diocese of Carlisle have small congregations, and few if any children coming regularly to their Sunday services. All of us though would want to feel that we are ‘child-friendly’, so that if a new family, or grandchildren, or visitors turn up it will be a good experience for them.
So here are ten top tips for helping your church be child-friendly, prepared by our archdeaconry under-5s advisors. They are there to help you, and their contact details are below too.
· A warm welcome (with a smile!) by person handing out books to families with small children, perhaps advising them of the best place to sit, how to find the toilet, etc.
· A welcome also by the vicar/worship leader at the beginning of the service when children are present, mentioning that children are most welcome and parents should feel free to move around the church with babies and small children.
· Pew bags are helpful for under 5s. These are given out on arrival and should contain 2/3 bible story board books, soft toys, large crayons and paper or ‘etch a sketch’, duplo, etc.
· ‘Play Church’ bags can be popular, with small figures of a Vicar, a holy table with chalice and paten, a pulpit and Bible, etc. You can add miniature coloured hangings for each of the seasons. A children’s service book or ‘cube’ could also go in the bag.
· If space is available, a carpeted area is useful for a Children’s Corner, containing books, soft toys, and a low table with paper or photocopied bible story pictures to colour with crayons.
· Pew bags and a children’s corner will need tidying and maintaining after the service ready for use the following week. You need to be aware of risks and hazards – no pins!
· If refreshments are served after the service, make sure that juice and biscuits are available for children.
· Consider starting a mid-week Pram Service or Parent and Toddler Group for under-5s and their parents/carers with the support of the Mothers’ Union Bursary Fund. Your archdeaconry under-5s advisors will be able to help you get started.
· Baptisms are a great opportunity to get to know young families in your parish and to invite them to pram services, etc.
· Widely advertise special child friendly services in your parish (e.g. Christingle, Mothering Sunday, family services and pram services) through posters/invitations at school, nursery, library, shops, etc.
For further help and support please contact:
Archdeaconry of West Cumberland – Norma Hughes – Tel: 019467 25366
Archdeaconry of Carlisle – Katherine May – Tel: 01768 890365
Archdeaconry of Westmorland & Furness – Susan Bailey – Tel: 015395 36261
Thursday 9 August 2007
Play and Pray
Tuesday 17 July 2007
Youth Mission Links
I'm just reading 'Young People and
www.servantevangelism.com
Resources for streetwork and service
www.relevantmagazine.com
How faith can be relevant: see God, Life and Progressive Culture sections
www.churchnext.net
Tribal Training network
www.churcharmy.org.uk
See links to what the Church Army supports
www.soulsurvivor.com
Esp links to Soul in the City and The Noise
www.agape.org.uk
Includes training resources
www.message.org.uk
The Message Trust
www.alphacourse.org
Youth Alpha
www.boys-brigade.org.uk
www.girlsbrigadeew.org.uk
www.clcgb.org.uk
That's the C of E based Church Lads' and Church Girls' Brigades
www.scouts.org.uk
www.girlguiding.org.uk
www.aircadets.org
www.armycadets.com
www.sea-cadets.org
www.24hourfamine.org.uk
World Vision's 24 Hour Famine
www.yfc.co.uk
Youth for Christ: look out for the labyrinth kit.
www.youthworker.co.uk
www.freshexpressions.org.uk
www.emergingchurch.info
www.salvationarmy.org.uk/alove
www.christianvocations.org
Publishers of the annual Short Term Service Directory of gap year opportunities.
www.scriptureunion.org.uk/re-source/
Resources for Christian groups in secondary schools
www.assemblies.org
Resources and outlines for both primary and secondary
www.nightclubchaplain.co.uk
http://jonnybaker.blogs.com
Good links for club chaplaincy and emerging church
www.peacemakers.tv
Feed the Minds site with good resources
www.cms-shop.org.uk
For their 'Dialogue Pack' for supporting Christians in understanding and relating to Muslims
www.interfaith.org.uk
For their 'Connect Pack'
www.arocha.org
The Christian environmental organisation
www.conservation.org
Conservation International: leading research info
www.climatewire.org
Latest eco news
www.good-energy.co.uk
Renewably generated electricity and energy saving
www.climatestewards.org.uk
www.climatecare.org
Both about being carbon neutral
youth.tearfund.org
Sites aimed at young people with information and motivation about fair trade
More general sites on fair trade and justice
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Links to Children's Work Resources
| HOORAY for Manchester Diocese who have a super web-page at http://www.manchester.anglican.org/children_links.asp that links out to some good sites. As of now the links are as follows: |
| Baker Ross Bible Reading Fellowship Churches' Child Protection Advisory Service Church House Bookshop Children at Worship: Congregations in Bloom Children's Ministry Christian Aid The National Church of England website The website for CORE training package Church Pastoral Aid Society Children in URBan Situations Early Education Ecclesiastical Group Insurance Godly Play Hi Kidz Cyber Club The National Society Positive Parenting Roods On the Web Scripture Union St. Deny's Bookshop Resources for Christian Teachers Through the Roof Wesley Owen Bookshops |
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Sunday 3 June 2007
Re-ordered Church
Wednesday 30 May 2007
CY course- a youth version of Christianity Explored
Friday 25 May 2007
Welcome again!
Tuesday 22 May 2007
School Sunday
Friday 18 May 2007
Recommendations to Bishop’s Council
1) Evaluate the transferability of the Liverpool Child-Friendly Church Award scheme
2) Audit where there are family-friendly congregations at present, and recommend places where existing congregations could realistically be challenged/enabled to do better, and where consideration should be given to planting Fresh Expression congregations because there is no other suitable provision in the area.
3) Commission a single-sheet guide for low/no-children churches on developing a strategy for relating to children (eg signposting to churches where there is provision; having story bags/liturgy boxes/play table and standby helpers)
Supporting work with 5s-11s in our churches
4) Archdeaconry volunteer 5s-11s champions/ consultants to be recruited to parallel the under 5s system, to be trained & resourced via the Resource Centre, and networked to NISCU, SU etc etc with a brief to encourage after-school clubs with a strategy to link them on to older groups (eg Youth Alpha) to set up a discipleship stream.
5) Encourage spread of Godly Play into churches by recruiting a trained volunteer with that vision.
6) Spread good practice of how schools and churches can interlock their activity by eg holding services and events on each other’s premises, having broader contact than Vicar-Headteacher link.
Resourcing and supporting (clergy re) youth work in parishes
7) Conduct further research with clergy to identify what sort of support and resource they are looking for.
8) Ask the Youth Officer to prepare a report on what resources (equipment, his time in terms of what other work would not be done, leadership needs) would be required to achieve the objective of a youth congregation in each market town.
9) Encourage Deanery Mission and Pastoral Committees to consider allocating stipendiary time to promotion of youth ministry/congregations in their areas when looking at their deployment plans.
Thursday 17 May 2007
Christian Life and Children
Wednesday 16 May 2007
'No one size fits all'
Church challenged to re-think the way it engages with young people
Three books launched by the Church of England this week give an honest appraisal of how the Church relates to young people through worship and mission today. They offer valuable insights into how churches might begin the process of assessing and developing their ministry with young people.
As a response to the Church of England's National Youth Strategy, Good News for Young People, in 2002, two of the new books focus on the tough questions facing the Church as it meets the challenge of relating the gospel in fresh and appealing ways to young people.
Young People and Mission – edited by youth ministry specialists Alison and David Booker – gathers together contributions on a number of practical areas of mission, as well as provocative reflections on the tensions that continually need to be addressed by those engaged in youth work. The book draws on the experiences of writers with a range of experience in working with young people, to explore issues such as:
How Christian youth subculture can distance young people from the Church
Whether 'mass action mission events' are effective in engaging individuals with a sustainable foundation for a growing faith
Helping young Christians understand other faiths and the implications of living as Christian in a multi-faith society
The challenges and benefits of working alongside uniformed organisations such as Scouts, Guides and the Boys' and Girls' Brigades.
Taking another of the National Youth Strategy's themes as its cue, Young People and Worship, edited by Mark Montgomery, calls on churches to rethink the way that they engage young people in worship. Stressing the fact that there is no 'one size fits all' way of involving young people in the liturgical life of the church, the book covers creative approaches to worship and wider issues of spirituality through contributions from a range of youth work specialists.
The importance of providing prayer and Bible study that resonates with young people's own experiences and stimulates their imagination is highlighted, as is the need for 'all-age worship' to be based on a participatory approach rather than seen an opportunity to simply 'entertain' younger members of the congregation.
"The authors take youth culture seriously but at the same time recognize that young people do not want to dumb down God and be patronized with gimmicks. This book encourages new attitudes to young people and to worshipping God, with fresh motivation to see it work. It is my hope and prayer that its suggestions will be taken on board," says the Rt Revd Roger Sainsbury, Chair of the National Youth Agency and the Centre for Youth Ministry.
Third in the trio, Mission-shaped Youth collects together stories of people and projects that are responding to the call to mission made in the landmark Mission-shaped Church report. These case studies – ranging from monthly worship events organised by a group of churches, to church youth workers employed in secondary schools – are used to draw out some of the key challenges and encouragement for the wider Church, as well as offering inspiration for churches seeking to develop their work with young people both inside and outside the Church building.
In the book, the Rt Revd Graham Cray, Bishop of Maidstone and chair of the working party that wrote Mission-shaped Church, urges churches to intersect with today's young people in their daily lives and culture – and not just see mission with young people as being all about evangelism. He identifies seven essential features of youth ministry today, writing that 'mission-shaped' youth work should be relational, incarnational, long-term, and should recognise the importance of discipleship and worship as key elements. Chris Russell, vicar of St Laurence, Reading, summarises this analysis in describing three 'pivots' around which 'youth-mission-shaped church' grows: the importance of worship, of fostering a sense of community belonging, and about creating a community of disciples seeking to follow Jesus in their everyday life.
The Rt Revd Lindsay Urwin, Bishop of Horsham, believes Mission-shaped Youth represents a significant contribution to the Church's resources for those engaging in youth ministry: "This book is full of wisdom and experience. I hope it will engender a new courage and a new generosity to re-make our structures and worship opportunities so as to gather up young people 'that none be lost'."
Mission-shaped Youth – rethinking young people and church (ISBN 978-07151-4082-6) is priced £7.99; Young People and Mission – a practical guide (ISBN 978-07151-4060-4) and Young People and Worship – a practical guide (ISBN 978-07151-4057-4) are both priced £11.99.
Wednesday 9 May 2007
Blooming Children
childern's workers. They publish it on the web, so you can benefit too.
Issue 8 is at
http://www.blackburn.anglican.org/children/200703issue8.pdf.
Tuesday 1 May 2007
0:-) or "Squiggle" (if you want to pronounce it)
Hi, I've been told by my father to post something...so I thought that I might as well talk about 0:-), the Fresh Expressions worship that I am involved with. We meet twice a month: on the first saturday of the month we meet in the Tithe Barn (Carlisle) for full worship, and then on the third saturday of the month we meet in St Cuthbert's Vestry (Carlisle) for cafe worship. We also run a yearly event called Ablaze, which is often an all-night event with workshops, worship, bands, open-mic and food, and tries to include people from all over.
We have a website which can tell you about everything we do, including a forum for Young People, a podcast to subscribe to, and information about CDYC (Carlisle Diocese Youth Council). The URL is http://www.ablaze.org.uk/.
We also have a band that leads worship at most 0:-)s and Ablazes, as well as at events to which we are invited. At the moment I'm a part of this band and run our Myspace, which I try to keep up to date with what we're doing. The URL for that is http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=44944661.
Finally for now, we often prepare short dramas and talks for 0:-), some of which get filmed and then posted up on YouTube under our profile name "SquiggleCarlisle". The URL is http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=SquiggleCarlisle but for those of you who've never even heard of YouTube, let alone know how to navigate it, here's a few of our videos so far:
This was Ben Mattinson's talk at the 2007 Easter 0:-).
This was a short drama about Septimus, the Roman Centurion, and his witness to the Resurrection, which we performed at the 2007 Easter 0:-).
Finally, this was a spoof of Ardman Animation's 'Creature Comforts' , which was about prayer, that we showed at a cafe worship 0:-).
Young bellringers
Actually it was the children's club getting going - and ringing the bell is a big draw.
You could make quite a thing of it for younger people...
An Edwardian Childhood
Now if that happens to you, you can react in one of two ways if you ever go to church again. You can celebrate your escape, and be the chief plotter in helping new youngsters have a good time. Or you can resent enormously the fact that others are being allowed to get away with what you never could.
Of course it's more complicated than that, but it might be interesting, if you want to move forward with children's provision in your church, to get the older members talking about what it was like when they were young...
What is Godly Play?
Godly Play is a method of telling Bible stories, or presenting parables or lessons about religious traditions.
It invites listeners into the stories and encourages them to connect the stories with personal experience.
Godly Play is a non-coercive way to encourage children to move into larger dimensions of belief and faith, through wondering questions and open-ended response time.
It is a way of preparing children to join in the worship and life of their congregations as they develop a deeper understanding of stories, symbols and rites.
Godly Play is one of several variations of the Montessori tradition of religious education and has been developed in the United States by Dr Jerome Berryman.
Useful Links
Godly Play UKThe Website of Godly Play in the UK
The Center for the Theology of ChildhoodThis is the home of Godly Play in the USA. You will find information about Godly Play worldwide here and articles by Jerome Berryman, the founder of Godly Play.
The staff of our Education Department run regular introductory and training days in Godly Play.
A story from Calthwaite
This is the local story that made it into Rural Children, Rural Church.
Sunday was not the right day to run a children's club for 5-11-year-olds, so the Rainbow Club has been moved to the Saturday afternoon before the monthly Family Communion the following day. The club frequently includes a Godly Play story, and always features a Godly Play Feast, which makes very good links with the service of Holy Communion. At the club, children are allocated tasks to undertake at the service next day. Ringing the bell is particularly popular, but they also give out books, take up the elements for the Communion, and the older ones may be asked to read a lesson. Some 15 children attend the club and a handful of families come to the Family Communion, with many more for special occasions. The confirmation class also makes use of Godly Play in its preparation.
The parish also runs an activity day in the local primary school, which attracts some 35 children during Holy Week. This sometimes includes sharing a Passover Meal. Good Friday is marked by a three-mile walk, folllowing a portable cross, along the back lanes to the largest church in the benefice for a service.
Parents have been gradually drawn into the church's activities, so that now the church is mainly run by people in their forties, although the church officers are older.
Saturday 21 April 2007
A Cunning Christingle Plan
So - one local church shifted its Christingle to the end of the school day. The children were ferried, with the school's kind co-operation, down to church for a super service, and the parents had to come and ransom them back from church... No, I made that last bit up, but obviously it made it much easier for the parents to come and join in, - and they did.
Just another aspect of changing the mindset from in-drag to out-reach. Put things on at times and places that work for those you hope will be there. It makes sense.
Read all about it: Church House Publishing goes into overdrive
Mission-shaped Children by Margaret Withers (CHP 2006) challenges us to place younger people centre stage and arrange some of our ways of being church round their needs rather than vice-versa. DT's take: let's BAN all talk of getting children into church. Instead - what we can do to meet children where they are and help them move to where God is calling them to be, along their journey of life into Him.
Mission-shaped and Rural by Sally Gaze (CHP 2006) is in the same series, and takes the rural dimension of mission seriously, like it says on the tin. There's not a great deal on C&YP, but like Presence and Seeds in Holy Ground it helps to get the juices going about how mission and rural can fit together and not be mutually exclusive ideas.
Rural Children, Rural Church: Mission Opportunities in the Countryside by Rona Orme (CHP 2007) goes the extra mile and does give real-life and workable ideas for working with children in a rural setting. They should be good, because Rona is an old friend of ours and asked us to help some Cumbrian churches supply them! There's quite a bit on working with the church and agricultural year that links well with the grown-up liturgical stiff in Times and Seasons. Don't expect the ethos to be always the same as that of Margaret Withers - read both and decide which works for you.
Not Just Sunday: Setting up and Running Mid-Week Clubs for Children is by Margaret Withers again (CHP 2002). A theme of hers, which quite a few churches I know in Cumbria have found to be true for them, is that it's easier to get a gathering of children together after school mid-week than on Sunday, when numbers can be tiny and very variable, and volunteers less willing too to miss 'their' service. In an ideal world of course we want it all: the full age-range in church on Sunday (especially in our larger churches), at least some provision ('Play Church Bags') on Sunday for visiting/occasional children (have 'child-ready' members of the congregation who spot the need and respond), and a larger, more open gathering probably midweek when we hope for a good crowd including children of non-attending families. Start where you can.
Now watch out for
Children and Bereavement Wendy Duffy
Special Children, Special Needs Simon Bass
Where Two or Three Margaret Withers
all also published by CHP.
Tuesday 17 April 2007
Good ideas at Masham
Now here was a very nice way to help those with young children feel welcome in the church. "We welcome people of all ages to St Mary's Church. Please do not worry if babies or small children are not quiet or move around." The hooverer inside told us that that's how children were, all part of the package.
And we liked the name of their children's group. There is a small church school next door and the kids go over there to meet. On the outside wall of the school is an illuminatable sign like the candle on the poster!
Friday 6 April 2007
Welcome to CYOOB
We're trying it out as a way for everyone connected with youthwork and work with children in Carlisle Diocese to read up on the latest thoughts, ideas and news.
Have your say too! Tell the story of great stuff that's happened down your way! Let everyone know about the great stuff coming up! Or where to find great stuff on the web, or wherever. Just email your info to David Thomson and he'll put it up. Or talk to him nicely and he'll set you up to do it directly.
Use it!