Methodist Children

Perhaps you are looking for something new to do in your church or circuit that will enable children and families to be more central to your church life. We have heard about two exciting programmes - one from a local church and one that has spread from an Anglican diocese across the country. Read all about them and then you might want to adapt them for your own use.

From Fulwood Methodist Church has come the innovative and exciting children's family challenge. About their programme they said -
" The base is to be found in the promises which are made in the baptismal service. Look at these not so much as promises but as challenges. The presence of the child causes the Church to be challenged to assist him or her to grow into the life of the Church: the Church in turn then challenges the child (and his/her family) to participate in a number of ways which will help them to achieve that growth. The challenge goes in two directions at the same time!
The first thing we did, after raising the idea with one or two of the church leaders, was to discuss it with the children themselves. The opportunity was taken to talk over our thoughts with a slightly older group of young people in the senior group in Junior Church. They encouraged us to keep going and were only critical of the suggestion that this was for younger children! That may still be an issue for the future! Nevertheless we decided to move ahead to plan something for the 3 – 10 age range. Younger children were always welcome and older ones could help us to plan and run the scheme!"

A Craft evening where we prepared the Church for the Palm Sunday service with the disciples and Jesus all being life-size outlines of the children, and the crowd being dressed in today’s fashion (with mobile phone cameras of course). 20 or so children took part and were helped by adults up to the age of 85.
One of the Church’s fund raising activities, a sponsored walk in the local park, became an FC2 event. Children were challenged to come along wearing a t-shirt to say what they liked about church. We saw this as a way introducing the children to evangelism.
A Saturday morning ramble (with some members of the adult rambling group) on a beautiful summer morning in the Ribble Valley. About 40 people came along and we saw some families (friends of children mainly) for the first time. Children were challenged not only to ramble but afterwards to draw a picture of what they had seen.
The Church picnic became an FC2 event and it was combined with a ‘bring-a-friend to church’ day. Numbers who did the latter were small but more came to the picnic.
We held a ‘fun with plants’ afternoon. Flower arrangements were made and great fun was had with making small jungles in which the children could hide dinosaurs and other animals.
A small group of children are working now with the choir to learn a suitable anthem to sing at the harvest service.
All the adults were challenged by the children to grow a sunflower for harvest – we will see what we see!

The Child Friendly Church Award scheme was created after the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool carried out a review of its life and work. The resulting report made a keynote recommendation that parishes ‘welcome and integrate children and their families into the worshipping life of their church.' Their conclusion was that it is desirable that churches advertise to the community that they take the provision for the young seriously. Churches inviting children in this way should provide a quality service which should be accountable to the church leadership and meet with certain set criteria. A new scheme has been introduced to encourage churches to put children and families on their agendas, to work towards certain targets and obtain a certificate and an award to be displayed as appropriate.

A Child Protection Policy is in place, being implemented, and regularly reviewed.
The church buildings offer a safe environment.
On-going training and support for leaders is in place.
There is provision for children's and youth nurturing groups (0-18 yrs).
There are opportunities for children and young people to be included in child friendly church services.
Suitable materials for under 5's are available in church
There are opportunities for the voices of under 18's to be heard
Feedback is obtained from children and young people.
There is a vision for Youth and Children's Work

Churches who wish to apply for the award have to fill in an Assessment Pack and then submit it to the Diocesan Children's Adviser. Our friends in the URC have picked this up and also run the scheme through their Synod Youth and Children's Work Trainers.

Perhaps this is something you could do in your Circuit or as a District initiative. If you wish to talk to us about being involved in this with you please get in touch with us at children@methodistchurch.org.uk

You can download all the forms related to Child Friendly Church from the Diocese of Liverpool website - click here for the 2007 updated material.