Calling Young Disciples Mission Enabler, Anne Batchelor, has been working with the parish of St. Thomas, Stourbridge to develop a new monthly ‘Toddler Praise’ service.
Anne said: “After attending the Baptism Matters training, the church realised that we needed to better connect with our baptism families. In the baptism service, the church makes the promise to nurture the children in faith and we wanted to honour that. Unfortunately we don’t have the volunteers to do a weekly toddler group, but something monthly was definitely achievable.”
Anne is working with five volunteers from the church to ensure the service remains sustainable. The session runs for an hour at 1.45pm so that families can come before they collect any older children from school.
Vicar of St Thomas, Andrew Sillis, said: “Our Toddler Praise is a very simple format – there’s a chance for the toddlers to play and their carers to socialise, a short time of prayer and singing with a bible story and the session is finished with tea, juice and snacks. Our hope is that it connects with the spiritual needs of families with young children leading to a longer relationship to the church.”
All the songs used at the service are based on the tunes of well-known nursery rhymes so they are familiar to children and parents and the bible story is told in a Godly Play style. Natasha was one of the Mums to come to the first session with her children. She said: “I was given a flyer at nursery and it seemed like a good place to bring both my children to give them the opportunity to find out about faith.”
Please pray for Toddler Praise in Stourbridge and for all our churches our doing to reach parents with young children.
Martley and Worcester West Deanery – Rural Dean: David Sherwin; Lay Chair: John Chidlow