Exciting news!

Dear parents,

I am soooo looking forward to welcoming more of our children and families back to in-person church! So much so that we’re holding a church lunch next week to celebrate! This update fills you in on the details of what’s planned for this half term, and brings some exciting news, too. 

We’d love to have a full junior church each week and be returning to two morning services – but we simply haven’t got enough leaders and helpers to do that yet. (I explain a bit more about why in this blog post) We will increase the amount of children’s provision as people step forward to help out. 

On the Sundays when there’s no specific provision for children, we will still put links to good videos and activities that you can watch together with your children at home – the links are always on our online church page. 

And I’d encourage any two-parent family to take it in turns to look after the children at home whilst the other comes along to the morning service. Or to tune in to the service later in the day or week whilst you’re cooking / washing up / driving around (via the podcast) etc. Even better – look after a single parent’s children so they can get to church too! 

Here is what is planned for this half term. 

September 12th
Self-service creche
Activity buckets and bags for younger children
Ignite (yr 6-8) – meet in parish hall

September 19th
Explore Together service - everyone welcome in main service
Church lunch after the service – we’d love to spend time re-connecting with everyone. Click here for full details and to book a space or use the ChurchSuite app. 

September 26th
Self-service creche
Activity buckets and bags for younger children
Outdoor session for Flames (yr 1-5)

October 3rd
Creche (0 to age 2)
Bubbles (age 3 to year R)
Flames (yr 1-5)
Ignite (yr 6-8) – start in church

October 10th
Self-service creche
Activity buckets and bags for younger children
Ignite (yr 6-8) – meet in parish hall

October 17th
Explore Together service - everyone welcome in main service

October 24th
Self-service creche
Activity buckets and bags for younger children

October 31st
All-age service – everyone welcome in the main service 

I’m really excited about our new Explore Together services – they promise to be fun and creative, helping people of all generations to hear God for themselves. We’ve got a great team running them – I hope you’ll be able to join us in person (we won’t be livestreaming these services as they won’t ‘transfer’ to a livestream format and it would create too many safeguarding issues). 

Exciting news
I’m delighted to announce that we have appointed a Children and Families Team Leader. It’s been a long process, but Angel accepted the post just yesterday. I hope to be able to introduce her at the church lunch next Sunday. Look out for her in the coming weeks! 

ChurchSuite app
Many of you have already logged on to ChurchSuite via the app or web portal. If you haven’t yet done so, please do: you can update your child(ren)’s health and allergy details, look at the church calendar, link to the podcast, manage your privacy and contact permissions, book in for events (such as the church lunch) etc. If you can't find your log-in details, let us know. 

And finally …
As always, do get in touch if you have particular questions or need particular support. I’m well aware that the beginning of the school year is a busy time for parents and often a difficult time for children – do let us know how we can be praying for you. Or if you have concerns about coming back into the church building, let me know so I can chat them through with you.