Last Thursday Diane Healey and I attended the first of a number of meets for children's workers organised by the 2 youth advisers for the dioceses of St Albans and Bedford. This was for our area covering a couple of deaneries (the group structure next up from a parish for those who aren't familiar with the jargon). We heard a catalogue of stories from churches with no proper facilities for running Sunday schools (operating behind a curtain at the back of a church during the service, or in a hall the other side of an A road), shortage of adult leaders, shortage of children -a Sunday school run for 4 children once a month.
Which rather put us on the spot because our children's work (called Special Branch rather than Sunday school) has had a steady supply of children and leaders for the last 15 years. We've rarely had less than 10 children and numbers have gone past 20. Apparently this is out of the ordinary. At least for a congregation with an electoral roll (membership) just over 100. And let's not forget that we have had healthy numbers 10-20 of teenagers during that time as well. Plus a creche team. And Diane and I were surprised - we had no idea that as a church we had been so blessed. We struggle sometimes to find leaders but our regular team comprises 4 leaders and 4 helpers.
We were asked what we attributed this to. And all I could think of was the child friendly attitude of the congregation. We have got used to children (of all ages!) wandering around the church during the services. And we have had frequent reports that one of the reasons families coming to a service at St Cuthberts for the first time like it is that they don't need to worry about controling their childrens' behaviour or risking stares and glares. It also leads to the children feeling relaxed because they aren't being expected to sit in rows and to do as they are told. It doesn't mean that our services are chaotic - relaxed more like.
Some churches are going to struggle with this - feeling that children should be trained to prepare for a lifetime of churchgoing and you don't do this by letting them do their own thing. My counter to this would be that our responsibility to them is to bring them up in the faith and this is very much more than churchgoing. Churchgoing in our lifetime has already changed markedly - with many people not attending twice a Sunday or even once a week. It is likely to change even more in the next 30 years. We cannot make service attendance the goal of Christian education. When they reach adulthood our children will discover that gathering together with other Christians around the Eucharist and the regular teaching programme is essential to keeping their faith on track. But it isn't the point of the exercise. Following Jesus is. And that is what we have to teach our children and young people.
Adulthood isn't the point either. It was Jesus himself who said If you don't accept the kingdom of God like a child - you'll never get in.
1 comment:
Great feed back John. It is good to hear that St Cuthbert's is doing so well when it come to families.
It is certainly a reason why we stayed at the church as our children grew up.
Ian .A
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