Day 1
New Resource to Connect Children With the Life of the Church Launched
The Liturgical Advisory Committee launched new resources aimed at helping children to become more rooted in the life of their local church at General Synod today (Friday May 9).
‘Journeys Through the Church Year’ has been compiled by the Revd Julie Bell and is the product of a great deal of hard work by her and members of the LAC.
Introducing the resources, chair of the LAC Archbishop Michael Jackson said that from time to time the LAC heard the voice of the Church and sought to do something fresh and new. He said with ‘Journeys Through the Church Year’, the LAC had formulated a liturgical response to the Church year. “It was a complicated process but the Revd Julie Bell had undertaken it and it enables families to find church in in these resources,” he said.
Ms Bell thanked the LAC for resourcing the project. The resources were given as an approach to worship which was inspired by children with whom she had shared much of her journey from choristers learning church music to children reading Gospel stories and asking questions about them.
“These resources are shared with the hope that they will open the spiritual insights children bring to our worship,” she stated. “The primary focus has been bringing children into worship and ways to grow in participation at their own pace.”
“The words shared here are designed to be cumulative, to be shared over time rather than all at once. So you will see in the seasonal services, the approach is to give children the opening lines of the text such as the Nicene Creed and grow into the full text later. At the heart of the resource is preparation for worship and there is a preparation session before every season,” she added stating that some seasonal activities linked with the worship on Sundays and Holy Days.
She hoped that the resource would provide sparking points for people to take the material and make it adaptable to their own contexts.
Dean Nigel Dunne, secretary to the LAC, spoke about the distribution of the resource which will be made available through diocesan synods over the coming months. The preparatory sessions will be available online, he said and the committee is still working on a home resource.
He paid tribute to Ms Bell and the Revd Alan Rufli for their work on the project.
“These resources are designed to help children become more rooted in the life of their local church. But it is also designed to take them on a journey that will make them more comfortable with the language of the Book of Common Prayer as they grow up,” he concluded.