General
Children In Church
Like most churches which don’t have their own church school, we now have very few children attending church on a Sunday morning. The old pattern where people attended church every Sunday except the odd holiday has long since disappeared and the irregular pattern of attendance is difficult to maintain unless you have really substantial numbers. Many churches are now attempting to provide mid-week services and activities aimed at children. One way of doing this is through uniformed organisations but Longridge is very well endowed with such facilities and so it would seem a waste of resources to try to compete. For some time now we have had a ‘Pram Service’ on one Wednesday morning each half term. Children from the Barnacre Road Nursery and Reception class together with their ‘buddies’ from Class 6 form the core of the congregation together with a number of mums with their babies and recently we have also been joined by the children and staff from 2to School which meets in our own church hall. This means we have regular contact with over 90 children under the age of 11. This has encouraged the Church Council to explore the possibilities of developing a more frequent midweek activity. One suggestion has been something called ‘Messy Church’ which is something like a combination of Family Service and Junior Church with craft activities, games and even snacks participated in by parents and children together. (more…)