children Archives - Page 2 of 4

Sidewalk

Inspired by a year working with Metro Ministries in New York, Barry and Camilla Johnston are connecting with non-churched children and youth in their area by going to where they are.

Every Saturday for eight months of the year (spring/summer/autumn), they take their yellow Sidewalk van to the same local park where local children gather to play. The team run an hour of activities that include songs, games, a memory verse, a drama based on a Bible story, three object lessons and a life lesson (cartoon story tying it all together). Though aimed at the children, parents and older siblings tend to watch from the back. Some are increasingly helping in minor roles and making suggestions of what would make it better.

For all the children they befriend, appropriate longer-term discipleship of those who want to know more about the Christian faith is one that the Sidewalk community takes responsibility for. They make regular visits to the families of the children that come and are starting to look to establishing a community house as a base for some who are involved.

The Sidewalk community who facilitate this ministry meet weekly for food and fun. They meet in the park to continue to build relationships with families there and then gather in a team member's home. In terms of the fresh expressions journey, they are now preparing for the stage of what kind of worship will sustain them. What kind of deeper spiritual disciplines or input is appropriate for the community that is made up of seasoned Christians, new Christians and not yet Christians that all play a part in making Sidewalk happen?

Being a multi-cultural area, they have found many of the kids coming to Sidewalk are from Muslim families. As cross-cultural mission engagement with Muslim children and their families is not common, there are limited resources available for this kind of ministry. Therefore, they are pioneering something very precious and learning as they go.

Space4Me

Playtime at Philadelphia is for mums of children under 5 in Sheffield that has evolved out of a flourishing mother and toddler ministry of a large church.

St Thomas' Philadelphia has three well-established Playtime groups meeting on different days of the week. Due to their popularity, the larger numbers mean that opportunities for prayer and discussion with those interested in finding out more about the Christian faith is limited.

In January 2009, Space4Me was begun as a joint venture between Playtime and Restore (the church's ministry to vulnerable people). Space4Me is aimed at women who are interested in exploring more about God but struggle to 'fit' into a usual church setting. Meeting weekly in term time, those with children are able to drop them at the crèche provided and enjoy an hour and a half exploring self-esteem through spirituality together. It is deliberately kept small to enable friendships to deepen and discussions to take place.

After an opening prayer, the group eat lunch together. This is followed by a craft activity on a theme relating to self-identity/esteem (through card-making, treasure box, jewellery-making, clay, photo frames) and chat. The group then turns to sharing time with the offer of prayer for those who would like it. To finish, there is 15 minutes of gentle input on a Christian theme relating to how God sees and values them. Mums and their children meet up once a term to have celebration time together.

Mini Mass

A eucharistic midweek congregation in suburban North Ascot in Berkshire aimed primarily at under 5s and their families. This fresh expression of church, called Mini Mass, meets on a Tuesday morning at 9.30am after the school run. Meeting in the Chapel of St Mary and St John, chairs are arranged in a horseshoe shape with a small altar at the open end.

Adults and children are all welcomed by name by means of a song. A Bible story is told either from a picture book or acted out using Godly Play methods. All are then asked to share something they are thankful for and something they would like prayer for; the intercessions follow, again in the form of a simple song. The group is then led in a eucharistic prayer, including short sung responses by the parish clergy or occasionally by one of two mums who have permission from the Bishop to officiate at a communion by extension service. This leads into communion. After a prayer of dismissal, tea, coffee and biscuits are served in the adjoining hall.

It's not just mums – grandmothers and child-minders attend, and occasionally a few dads. In addition, a few other adults attend, some who find work patterns make attending Sunday congregations difficult, as well as others whose discipline includes a daily eucharist. Older children also attend out of term time. Mini Mass is run by the mums themselves who review its effectiveness on an ongoing basis.

The vicar believes that one real strength of Mini Mass is that it has proved for some to be a gentle way 'into the church' or 'back into the church'. One ongoing concern is that for some it has proved to be merely a cul-de-sac, with a service designed for children being the only act of worship for a few of the adults. While some reflection on how to move beyond this is required, Mini Mass remains one of the important opportunities for outreach, service and pastoral care offered by the parish of All Saints.

These reflections of the parish illustrate one of the dilemmas of church for under 5s. Who is being discipled in this context and what does discipleship mean? What is the long term strategy for helping young children grow up in the Christian faith?

St Thomas the Apostle, Groombridge

St Thomas the Apostle, Groombridge – an Anglican church on the Sussex/Kent border – would describe itself as 'a Eucharistic parish', says minister Tony Fiddian-Green.

Communion services take place twice every Sunday. Four or five times a year a 'café Eucharist' replaces the main morning service, and Tony is also involved in a Eucharist with the church school.

Tony prepares the children for this termly event with three preceding classes, during which they trace the practice of Eucharistic fellowship back to the Exodus, through to the Upper Room in Acts and on to the parish.

Every time we do it we recapture the stories, and they do remember,

he says of the children.

At each service the children are involved with the prayers, readings, candles, banners, drama and music and the offertory, which includes a basket of cracker biscuits or matzo bread, chosen because of the biblical references to 'thin' bread.

'We have a celebration of the Lord's resurrection every time we practice the Eucharist. We get together, remember Jesus, and break bread.'

However, not all the school children are confirmed.

Having a school Eucharist would be bewildering for pupils who learn about it and then can't receive,

Tony says. So while those are who are confirmed receive, children who are not leave with the gift of a portion of blessed bread and a carton of juice.

This is an idea inspired by the Orthodox tradition where believers receive communion rarely, and after much personal preparation, but may leave a service with blessed bread on ordinary occasions.

Then there is the Café Eucharist to which the normal congregation is encouraged to invite their neighbours.

It's a fellowship breakfast really, with the breaking of bread in the middle,

explains Tony.

Non-churchgoers come to these services, held in the church hall, as well as the usual congregation of up to 100, which means that as many as 130 people can be present.

Tables for eight are laid with cloths and flowers for a simple breakfast of croissants and rolls. The service includes a two or three minute talk and the consecration of the elements with the words of institution. The bread and wine are passed round the tables from person to person.

Those who come often say they didn't know church could be like this,

Tony says.

We have a celebration of the Lord's resurrection every time we practice the Eucharist. We get together, remember Jesus, and break bread.

Early Bird

When Victor Howlett began his curacy in 1997 in a market town in Wiltshire, he found that families were not coming to church.

Realising that it might take more than the four years of his training period to make existing church worship more family friendly, he decided to create a special service. On approaching the staff team he discovered a free half hour on Sunday mornings from 9am, after the 8 o'clock service and before choir practice, which he decided to call Early Bird.

Still unclear himself about what Early Bird would be, he invited a small team from the existing congregations to join him in visiting local children's groups with an invitation to church.

Posters were placed in shop windows for a monthly service, a method still used today.

Ten minutes before the first Early Bird service was due to begin, no one was in sight.

Then we heard the first buggy coming up the drive,

Victor says. That first half hour attracted 60 people, two thirds of whom were new to church.

It gradually developed into a service appropriate for 0-8 year-olds,

Victor says.

Always dads came rather than mums, which was unusual. They also automatically sat at the front!

By the time Victor left, a regular congregation of 40-50 was gathering once a month and continues to meet some years on.

The service is 'very unchurchy', with no candles, hymn books or robes. Songs of no more than two verses are sung from a book of six coloured sheets and announced according to colour. If one proves unpopular, it is replaced.

'Because it caters for children, the parents are pleased, but it also offers community.'

The service is 'always', Victor stresses, based on a Bible story.

If it goes well, we tell it again.

This spontaneity is important for success, Victor believes, something which sticking to a monthly rather than weekly programme encourages. Coffee is served afterwards and as people leave they are handed an invitation to the following month's service, which is always on the second Sunday since this never clashes with school holidays. Even if this Sunday falls on a festival such as Easter, it still happens. Children are texted or emailed between services to keep in touch.

It keeps working,

says Victor, who is now in his third parish and still repeating the Early Bird model, albeit under the name Jump Start Sunday. In the meantime, ten other Early Bird services have sprung up over the diocese (Bristol) and news of another in Berkshire and two in Wales has reached Victor, who occasionally gets

phone calls from the grapevine asking for advice.

Not all are called Early Bird, but all follow the original premise and emphasise that these services are church in themselves for the mostly fathers and children who attend, with some families choosing to come 'fully into the life of the church'.

We make a virtue of being early and design it for children and parents,

he says.

They know it's only half an hour and we describe it as 'the best way to start Sunday'. Because it caters for children, the parents are pleased, but it also offers community.

New Horizons Christian Fellowship

New Horizons in Hemel Hempstead was featured on the first Fresh Expressions DVD (expressions: the dvd – 1). They provided much in the way of social action. Have things changed since then? Pastor Arno Steen Andreasen tells of the current state of play.

We are very much moving ahead even in these difficult times. Our Sunday worship service takes place at Woodhall Farm Community Centre and New Horizons is now offering CAP debt counselling, two Sure Start Children's Centres covering over 1,500 families, the Ignite special needs school, an international degree programme, management of a community centre and support for an orphanage in India where we have also started two churches. We have another church in Sri Lanka and we will be starting a human rights project there in April.

The last few years have also seen us providing:

adult learning to 500 people a year, including offenders and people with learning difficulties/disabilities;

accelerate youth leadership training;

DreamKeepers mentoring programme for primary children with behaviour problems.

The development of emerging church, fluid church or fresh expressions of church language means that Christians sometimes lose sight of what church is all about. For me it's crucial that we constantly look to Acts 2:42-47. Some people describe what they're doing in a community as being radical but I see many of those things – such as having a meal together – as an expression of mission, not church.

The other concern I have is that the poor and vulnerable need structure to make sure that they have access to discipleship, training, etc. If things are too fluid, they easily lose out. I might have the inner strength to take the initiative in order to learn, develop and train but not everybody is proactive like that. We need to make sure we cater for the people who do not so easily take the initiative or have the drive to move forward in faith and life.

If churches get involved in social action, as we do, people need to make a decision as to whether they want to be able to evangelise directly or not. If they receive public funding, then they are restricted in what they can do and how they do it. If they want full freedom, then they need to self-fund it or have individual donors. If they receive grants, even from Christian grant makers, they typically will have to do some monitoring or have some objectives that fit the funder.

I want to be part of a fresh expression of church in some respects but we are also quite old-fashioned in the way we approach things because we base our understanding of church on Acts 2. One chap wanted to come here on a placement because he had seen it as a fresh expression, but when we explained that a lot of what we did could be seen as traditional he didn't want the placement at all. We are a fresh expression with an old gospel.

I think it is important to have a clear picture of what church is all about. New expressions of church could easily be used by people who do not like accountability and just want to do their own thing. There are a lot of powerful initiatives around, but do they carry the Spirit of Christ? We try with our staff team to discern how we should work with people and which methods to use. We will then discard even powerful methods if we do not think they fit the Spirit of Jesus.

I think it is easy to copy structures when we learn about each other's projects but it is the values behind the structures that are important. We had this discussion when we started the churches in India and Sri Lanka. They asked us if they also had to sit around tables and have breakfast at their Sunday services as we do. My response was that it is not the structure/style that is important but the value behind the structure. The value is fellowship and they need to find ways to implement that in their services.

Our work has been recognised by the local authority and we were asked to extend that work into a different borough but we said no because we didn't have a church in that area. Our community work flows from church and not the other way round; an incarnational ministry must mean we are right here, on the spot. I don't have a local connection there. It would be all too easy for us to become a high quality social provider rather than an expression of church.

I was also asked if New Horizons could start things in nine districts across Hertfordshire, as well as our own. They would have covered the whole of the county. The projects had funding put aside for them and it was all very tempting because the tendency is to think, 'I could reach an extra 500 or 1,000 people by doing one such project or another' but the fact is that you're not reaching them because you are not reaching them for church.

We need people to fall in love with the local church, for it to be the most exciting and supportive of places. As part of that, I have been really impressed by Christians Against Poverty and its debt counselling service because they don't start something unless it's part and parcel of the local church. They become an empowering ministry within it.

If you have the backing of a traditional church or denomination and are looking to develop new ways of being church in a community, the most important thing to slot into place is the funding and the awareness of how that funding stream will affect what you do.

I will always be 'grilled' as a church leader when I apply for funding. I do not think that is right but it is what I have had to get used to and learn to accept. There are always some outside funders who don't want anything to do with church but I can point to the quality reports from independent assessors and relevant bodies which prove that we are good at what we do. I have evidence to show that we are more diverse, that we have the biggest reach and so on. I would not get involved in setting up new projects if I did not keep on fighting for them – even if I am rejected by funders.

United Media Church

United Media Church in Kingswood recognises that people learn and engage in different ways. Adrian Wyatt explains why they describe themselves as 'the same, but different'.

In our Gloucestershire village, children and young people from the age of nine had become disenfranchised by the traditional Sunday church 'model' of doing things.

I became part-time pastor at Kingswood Congregational Church in May last year and I wanted to find out why the traditional Sunday School wasn't bringing in the children as it used to do. We are a church of about 30 adults and some research was urgently needed as to where all the children of that age group had gone. We found out by taking the remaining handful of youngsters to McDonalds and asked them, 'Why?', 'What sort of church would you like?' 'What do you like doing?' The answers revolved around eating, films and computer games.

In February we launched a Monday church just for them. United Media Church uses film clips and computer games to teach the gospel message fortnightly on Monday evenings. These meetings, which include a short prayer time and all-important food, take place in an informal 'café church' environment. A variety of films are used and the same format has encouraged some to return to Sunday church as well.

We started the Sunday venture by watching Shrek the movie. That gave us the opportunity to discuss things like Do appearances matter? What makes good friendships? What makes a good king? Other topics on a Monday include what we learned from sport, Finding Nemo, Avatar, The Simpsons, and Friends. It really helps to keep us on our toes because they can choose to stop the film at any point and we then step in to give 15 minutes of Biblical teaching based on what they've seen and heard.

Part of my professional background is as a drug educator and some of our discussions have tackled substance abuse, alcohol and smoking but there is also a lot of fun. Plans for the coming months include a technology 'fast' for 20 hours when they will go without mobile phones and iPods etc.

We now regularly attract up to 16 young people from the ages of 9 to 13, most of whom have been brought along by someone else in the group. That's very good news in that most of those children have not previously had a link with any sort of church at all but the challenge is that we outgrew our original room at Kingswood; it was simply too small for what we were doing.

We could have moved into the church hall but we felt that using the hall takes away from the special atmosphere of the place. In saying that we've now moved into the main church building because there is a big screen and a TV in the vestry room which means that some of the group can be watching a film while others are playing games or using the Nintendo Wii. We try to ensure that the film and the games reflect the same theme.

They are exploring their faith and the world around them in new ways and it includes things like supporting a youth project and families in Kenya, and sponsoring a child. They have raised quite a bit of money for their charity projects, a sleepover in the church raised more than £600. This is a way of being 'church' that our young people asked for. They also give into a collection every week because the adults do that in the main church and it's important to be reminded that we are part of something much bigger.

We have also started to develop a version of Messy Church and café church for those who would not come to inherited church and who are even put off by the word 'church' – if not what it stands for. We're looking to build on an event which uses craft to explore a Christian message but without the insistence that parents stay. As the model develops, the parents will be encouraged to do so.

We have always seen this as a fresh expression of church and not a church youth group and we need to keep that focus on being a different way of doing church. Otherwise it could easily become a youth club where you just come along and have a bit of a laugh.

In future I'd really like to see some of the older children coming through to become leaders themselves. It would also be good to see more people catch the vision and realise that this is far more than 'getting children and young people in'; it's about asking ourselves, 'What is their discipleship?', 'What is their Christian walk?', 'How is this Kingdom-building?'

Springfield Church

Will Cookson is minister of a 'church that was a fresh expression before the term was invented'. He tells how important it is for fresh expressions of church to keep on reinventing themselves.

Watch Will Cookson and Sue Bosley discuss multiplication not duplication (transcript available on the update Oct12 link to the right).

Springfield Church was originally set up by Holy Trinity Wallington in 1992 to reach out to the community. In 2002 it became what is known as an Extra-Parochial Place (EPP) in Southwark Diocese which meant we had no 'official' parish and no church building. Our two key objectives were, and are, mission and worship and we now have about 400 people of whom about 40% are under the age of 18.

Springfield's two congregations meet in different places in Wallington on Sundays at 10.30am. The larger one gets together at Wallington High School for Girls while our second is the Springfield@Roundshaw cafe church which meets at St Paul's church on the Roundshaw estate.

The thing about a fresh expression is that over time it can become regularised in the way it does things so it has to re-discover itself. To an extent, when I came here almost 10 years ago that was what had happened to Springfield; it had got set in its ways. The thing that cried out to me was to go to a cell church model because everything has to be relational if it's going to 'speak' to people outside inherited church.

We are doing this through a whole series of different things, such as a Christian club at a local school (Xplore), Messy Church in the same venue (Footsteps), parent and toddler group transformed into Messy Church format, as well as cell groups and various ministries – such as an English conversation class – planted in the community. When we were asked by the vicar at Roundshaw estate to plant a new congregation in that area, we sent out 25 people and now average about 40 at the café church. Most of those who have joined come from the estate itself.

We have a huge focus on relationships and building events and ministries that reinforce and complement each other. To my mind, too many Messy Churches have focused on trying to get the numbers in and getting the event done efficiently. We concentrate on the relationships that people can make there and – as a result – have seen friendships growing, families joining us for other events, parents getting involved to help and some becoming part of Sunday congregations, cell groups and taking part in Alpha courses. The social events organised by those different cell groups look to encourage community and it may take one, two or three years for people to get involved to that level – but that's OK, it all takes time.

The common problem for many churches is that they have some great ministries but they are stand-alone and don't benefit from the relational overlap. So, for example, children come to Xplore on Mondays after school with their families invited to our monthly Messy Church. Those in Year Six are given invitations to our youth outreach The Mix, again every month, at a local community centre. The larger-scale events we put on are never officially advertised; we prefer to use word of mouth and ask people and families if they'd like to come along. Feast in the Field attracts about 600 people as a community event with laser quest, assault courses, Scalextric and face painting among other things. We also take up to 600 people to the cinema at Christmas. If we advertised I am sure that we could get larger crowds in but we would lose out on relationship building. We find that the more that we overlap and inter-connect what we do, the more that people are interested and able to take the next step in their faith journey.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will be visiting Springfield Church to help us celebrate our 20th anniversary next year by preaching and presiding at our Sunday morning service on 18 March. It's a wonderful recognition that churches such as ours are now integral parts of the Church of England and no longer an oddity! The Archbishop's visit is a practical sign of his enthusiasm for this mixed economy and a huge encouragement for us.

Springfield has always been a different sort of church. We were a fresh expression before the term was invented! The thing with many fresh expressions is that as their communities mature then it's all too easy for them to revert to 'normal' church mode.

We really emphasise to our leaders that the focus shouldn't be on the task but on the people they're seeking to serve and reach for Christ. This has led to a real depth of community with a very high level of participation; about 80% of our congregation is involved in something.

The important thing for anyone involved in a fresh expression to remember is that we're here to reach the unchurched. The disenchanted Christian and dechurched Christian will also come our way but keeping that outward focus is vital if we're going to continue in our true calling.

The Hothouse

An old hardware shop in Walsall, had been empty for some time when churches in the parish of Aldridge took it over, changing its name to The Hothouse. Gary Daniel is the Hothouse and Redhouse Community Worker.

The original vision for the Hothouse was to be 'a safe place for children and young people to meet, belong and discover the love of the Lord Jesus.' Whilst that vision is still in place it has increased its range in seeking to care for the families, the vulnerable and the older people in the community.

We are a charity supported prayerfully, physically (with volunteers), and financially by individuals from Aldridge Parish Church, Tynings Lane Church, St Thomas' Church and Aldridge Methodist Church.

Before The Hothouse started, there had been an evening club at Redhouse Primary School for several years run by Aldridge Parish Church's children's and schools' worker Jean Elliott. It was very popular; children and families appreciated the fact that activities were happening on the estate where they lived.

In September 2000, Jean felt the time was right to expand the work of the Wednesday evening and regular summer holiday clubs. Her idea was to transform the hardware shop into a permanent Christian venue. Obviously this couldn't happen instantly and it took time to gain planning permission, money and a group of people to take the vision forward. We also needed to know what the community thought and – above all – that this was God's project. Sometimes things have taken a little longer than we thought they would, and, as on any long journey, there have been frustrations but we have come a long way.

Initially the Hothouse met on just two evenings a week to concentrate on our original vision of meeting the needs of the 5 to 11 year-olds of the Redhouse Estate. However, over time and with increased resources, we've grown the Hothouse so that we now run a vast array of activities which include: youth groups for the 11 to 14s, toddler groups, breakfast clubs, tea-time events, children's after-school and evening clubs, larger community events, special holiday club sessions, day trips, training, special lunches and we now even offer a Sunday worship twice a month.

Originally the focus was on activity within the Hothouse building itself but now because of increased staffing levels (both paid and voluntary) and a larger vision we are able to offer support to children and families outside of the Hothouse, building stronger pastoral links into the community. We have, along with our wider support networks, been able to meet certain basic needs of the community, such as providing furniture, food, practical support, a listening ear and care for needy families. If we haven't been able to do these things ourselves we've been able to point people in the right direction.

A major change in the community came with the loss of the school in July 2006. As a result the Hothouse became, and remains, the only regularly used community building in the Redhouse. In some ways it's an unlikely hub of activity; we're in a parade of shops with a chippie on one side, a corner shop on the other and flats above us but it's a space that is certainly being used by God. In fact we're being used so much as a base that we're now physically constrained as to what we can offer because of the relatively small size of the property.

Between 120 and 160 people a week now regularly use the facilities and there is so much potential that we are excited to see how God will continue to develop and grow The Hothouse.

Our sessions for children and young people include:

Mondays. Youth Alpha for 11 to 14-year-olds;

Tuesdays. A 'youth club' style evening called 7-11s for those in school years 3 to 6 where children come along to play games, create different crafts, make new friends and socialise in a safe environment;

Wednesdays. WOW (Worship on Wednesdays) is an after-school session for three to seven-year-olds with an emphasis on Bible teaching in a fun and age-appropriate way;

Wednesdays. ALF (About Life and Faith) is an evening session for 7 to 11-year-olds. It is a more structured session than Tuesday night's '7-11' club and looks at many different aspects of life and faith with a Christian perspective;

Thursdays. Big Kidz for young people aged 11-14.

As for the community activities, we also have:

'Baby Rhyme' every Wednesday morning in partnership with the local Children's Centre;

'Hot Tots' parent and toddler group on Thursday mornings;

Community breakfasts every Friday morning where we invite people in for a bacon or sausage sandwich, free of charge;

That Sunday Thing – a monthly session for the whole Hothouse community to come together. This came about after we'd had a community get-together at which people said, 'We appreciate all you're doing but if you say you're a church, why don't you do anything on Sundays?' That was a learning curve for us because we had to fulfil their stereotype of church but then break down the stereotype of what church is all about!

All Age Communion – this provides a regular (monthly) service of Holy Communion to anyone who would like to come and join in. There is no other church situated on the Redhouse estate and we are aiming to offer new opportunities for members of the community to come along and take part in what we offer at the Hothouse.

We monitor and evaluate change in our community through relationship, conversation, evaluation and questionnaire. This is backed up by using statistical information from the Office of National Statistics. As full-time community worker here since September 2006, I am looking to develop the Hothouse as a viable community project as well as overseeing its growth and development as a fresh expression of church.

We are not self-supporting but it is amazing to see how some of the mums in our community, for instance, have said they want to donate to our work because of what they have found here. The next question for us will be how do we build a congregation? The short answer is that I don't know how but I do know that many (church) people now see Wednesday as our 'Sunday' here with lots going on in the way of children's worship and teaching. Our spiritual community is certainly growing because we recently had our first dedication service here – it was for two-year-old twins. The local ministers are very supportive and we use them as much as we can!

We also have a volunteer community-based family support worker whose role is constantly expanding as the work of the Hothouse grows and a part-time sessional worker who supports a majority of the sessions that we run for a nominal monthly salary. This role enables the sessional work at the Hothouse to continue week-by-week.

In addition we have about 20 volunteers ranging from sixth-formers to the retired, and – increasingly – members of the Redhouse community itself. They provide a necessary 'work-force' for the day-to-day running of sessions and are often involved in planning and leading sessions alongside the paid members of staff.

All sessions and activities at the Hothouse are provided free of charge to all participants. This is so that no-one within the community is excluded from taking part due to lack of sufficient means.

Our overall vision is to make the Hothouse a positive place for children and their families to meet, belong and develop community. In doing this we hope they will discover the love of the Lord Jesus and we do this because, as it says in 2 Cor 5:14, 'Christ's love compels us.'

For the next five years we have five words which we are using to envision us and help us move forward:

Consolidate: We have come a long way in the last nine years and so we want to consolidate where we are now. This means keeping the level of resource and personnel at least at the level it is now so we can continue to meet the needs of the community.

Grow: We also want to grow. The facilities we have now are fine but we're reaching their maximum capacity. We would like to consider renting/purchasing another shop unit to enable more creative things such as like running alternative sessions at the same time.

Engage: We want to continue to listen to the community, find out more of their needs – and respond to them.

Manage: We will continue to make sure our management and administration is following best practice and up to date.

Fund: We will look at various ways of building on the existing funding already in place for this project. We look to local trusts, charities and churches to achieve extra funding which will follow two streams. Firstly, funding for personnel, we need one full time project leader and our hope is to move our two part-time paid workers to full time and we would also like a part time administrator. Secondly, we need funding for materials, toys, furniture, technology, maintenance and hopefully bigger premises.

Fridays in Faith

Annandale Churches Together in south west Scotland ran summer holiday clubs in a local secondary school for many years. Very few of the children involved had any relationship with existing churches. Pam Mellor and Deborah Steele explain how Fridays in Faith has helped to bridge the gap.

The holiday clubs in Annan were really, really successful. They took place in an Academy and attracted about 150 children on average but they seemed to disappear as soon as the clubs were over.

Then the questions started, 'Where do they go afterwards? Why don't they come to church?' We said, 'Maybe church is not the place for them. Maybe we should ask if there is something else we should be doing.' Amazingly it was as if everyone had the same thought.

We had a team of 60 helpers for the holiday clubs and we all started to think about what this alternative would look like. After discussion, thought and prayer we thought about going back to the Academy on a Friday night to run something which would incorporate a lot of the key components of a holiday club – things like fun and food and games – but for all ages. The Academy costs about £150 to hire so we went to the churches and asked for their support in this.

Fridays in Faith is backed by Annandale Churches Together, an ecumenical group that includes Annan Old Parish Church, St Andrew's Parish Church linked with Brydekirk Parish Church, Annan United Reformed Church, St John's Episcopal Church, and St Columba's Catholic Church.

They were fantastic, simply saying, 'It's a great idea and we will support you!'

Our first step as co-leaders and co-planners of Fridays in Faith was to find out whether the people themselves actually wanted us to do something. We recognised that those who were coming along to the holiday clubs were not anti-church: it was simply that church wasn't even on their radar. In saying that, there were a number of kids from church families at the holiday club as well so we could see there were great opportunities for those within our churches – as well as outside – to grow together as a community.

On the final day of a holiday club with an Olympics-type theme of Going for Gold we did a 'closing ceremony' when nearly all of the children's parents came along. At the end of the session we stood up – very nervously – and said, 'We would like to ask you all something. We recognise that you love your kids coming here and you are enthusiastic about it all. We also recognise that church isn't working for you for whatever reason. Would you be interested in joining us as we would like to offer something for the whole family? We would set up and run the whole thing but would you like to come along on the first Friday of the month?'

The answer was clearly 'yes' with more than 140 people coming back for the first Friday night session. We read out a statement on that first night to set out what we were there for and we often remind ourselves of it to help us keep focused on the work in hand.

The statement reads:

If what we do here tonight, helps you to find faith, or helps you get to know God better, then that's what we're about.

Faith is a journey and people have helped us on our way. That is all we are trying to do – give people a little bit of help on their faith journey.

These evenings are about fellowship, fun and faith in a new and different way.

We hope that you will have a good time with your own family and with each other, that will be great.

If in time, in coming here, we all become closer to God, then that will be a wonderful blessing. Thank you all for being here and journeying with us.

Each session has a biblical theme running through it. Everything is centred on different activity tables and many of the people who helped with the holiday club became table hosts. Each table works as a team, moving from one activity to another throughout the evening. But on that first night they didn't have time to complete the activities before they had to move on to the next thing. It ran for two hours and we simply tried to cram too much in to the programme!

So we cut back on the time to 90 minutes and allowed a breathing space in activities. Now people have the opportunity to sit and talk during supper time.

We also have a time of prayer, when people are free to join in with us or not.

In terms of planning for the sessions, we meet every week. We set a theme for the year and follow it through each month. This year we are looking at travel, with Peter's journey as the Bible thread.

We told people that we would be looking at faith as a journey and that we'd imagine it as a journey in a car. For the first session we asked, 'How do you go about buying a car?' We thought about listening to people, listening to other opinions, having a look at what was available, counting the cost of it and getting in the car and having a test drive.

An interesting process involved stringing up a very long washing line on which we had pegged A1 sheets with various statements written on them about where you were on your faith journey. At one end of the line we had, 'I don't think there is anything' through 'I think there is something but I'm not sure what' through to things like 'I do think there is a God but I'm not involved in church' and 'I really do believe God is in my life'. There were also blank sheets of paper in between so that people could mark where they thought they were on this washing line.

What was so interesting about that was the fact that so many of our church helpers felt they could be really honest about how they actually felt on their own personal journeys of faith.

The sessions went on to include the MOT for which we looked at the Beatitudes; and Breakdown – which was our Easter session.

We set out on this journey to do 3 months and we have just come to the end of 3 years! We recognise that there are still many questions as we go forward and many issues for us to consider, such as offering the Sacraments. We have broken bread, but recognise that this is not Communion.

All of these issues of leadership and Sacraments come up again and again. We have to stop and think, 'Are we leaders? Are we getting it right?' Sometimes we both wrestle with that a great deal.

It's also difficult when people ask us whether it is 'church' or not. The label of 'church' can be a very real stumbling block to people, we want it to be a place of God's Kingdom where people can cry, ask questions and be real. We didn't know the word 'intentionality'; we didn't know the word 'incarnational' – all we thought about was, 'These are our families. How can we connect with them? How can we make faith more relevant and more real? How can we move them on in that faith?' We're still not sure whether we're going to run Alpha because once you introduce a course like that the concern is that you're imposing something that doesn't quite fit with the context and culture of your emerging community.

For the future, we realise that we have limits as co-leaders and some people have already stepped forward to get involved in various aspects of the work. Our funding runs until the middle of April next year and we continue to listen to God as to what he wants for Fridays in Faith. However, if our Presbytery wants to do something else, we have to be ready for that – if Fridays in Faith has served its purpose in helping the people in the churches to see what's possible by looking at things differently, then so be it.

For now, we continue to be excited at what God is doing in Annan and are blessed to be a part of it.