It is our joy to bring you stories from all over England and Wales, sharing good news from the churches, Faith Guides and projects you support. But these are often just snapshots of the day-to-day adventures that continue all year round. With this in mind, we have picked a few of the stories we’ve featured this year to celebrate over again and find out how things are going as the projects progress.
This week, we are re-visiting Knotty Ash in Liverpool where Faith Guide Tina set up Praise and Play, a faith-based playgroup for families in the local community. As there were few mums in the church, the goal was to focus on reaching families not already going to church and create a space where everyone felt valued and accepted.
‘The group is aimed at parents as much as at the children’, Tina told us, ‘It’s so important that parents feel at home, that the group is theirs. As they join in, the idea is that they get a basic understanding of faith, because children really need that support at home if they’re to keep journeying with Jesus. Often non-Christian parents have a real fear around the language of faith and not being good enough or clever enough. You can’t just go steaming in with the Bible. You’ve got to build relationships, get to know them, show that you really care about them. It starts to challenge their preconceptions. Only then can you really start talking about Jesus and the difference he makes to life. Only then will they be receptive. And the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that this all takes time.’
Tina told us about the Praise and Play Summer Sessions she and SU Revealing Jesus Pioneer Nic Findlay helped set up, and how these were helping to bring families from outside the church community to connect with the church in new ways.
Since this last report, another summer has gone by and Nic updates us ‘Over the summer, I worked alongside Tina to run more Praise and Play Summer Sessions.
These took place on Mondays throughout the holidays and included lunch together. It was a great opportunity for families that Tina has developed a great relationship with to continue meeting together over the holidays, and older siblings could also participate in what is normally just a group for 0-5s. Tina has been working tirelessly with this group of families for a number of years now and the church are starting to see families joining the wider church community as a result of being made to feel so welcome and accepted at Praise and Play.’
Nic is excited to see all that is continuing to happen in this small community, ‘this weekly space is so valuable to this community, and it is brilliant to see whole families engaging. Lots of those who came spoke so highly of the space that Tina and others have worked hard to curate, and Praise and Play has become a really important connection point for families who are on the fringes of church.
‘I was at Praise and Play this Monday helping one of the volunteers to run the group in Tina's absence and I was so impressed by the culture that has been created and sustained. On Monday, I think there were perhaps five families there and around ten children. The session ended with a time of prayer together and one of the very young children saying thank you to God for the group. Beautiful!’