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Children Southwell & Nottingham Diocese has been the leader in a number of initiatives involving children, including ‘Communion before Confirmation’, child safety and protection, and the award-winning Time Travelling! project. In addition many churches in the Diocese do quality children’s work on Sundays, midweek, and in holiday times. There are also great examples of all-age worship and creative activities throughout our area. Nick Harding, the Children's Ministry Adviser, has written a number of books on education and children’s work, and is a Trustee of Scripture Union. He is responsible for overseeing, training and resourcing those who work with children in our churches throughout Nottinghamshire.  Nick recently wrote this for a church newsletter. Feel free to use it in your church if you wish. Childhood and Church 2007-style! It is very tempting to harp on about the ‘good old days’, and indeed as we get older our memories tend to focus on the positive times. But there’s little doubt that when most adults were children things were much easier than they are for children now. There are many dangers and temptations for children and young people, from the easy access to illegal drugs and the obsession with image and celebrity, to the increase in family rifts and the fear of child abuse and abduction. We have a responsibility to do all we can to reach children, to provide good quality and attractive activities for them, to share our faith and learn from them, and to help them through the pressures that the society we created puts them through. Activities on Sundays are not always the way forward, although if you’ve got Sunday groups you should do all you can to keep them! Children’s activities on other nights, perhaps in a local school or community hall, can attract children in a way that Sundays, with all the choices that families have, cannot. You may choose to do a Sunday group less often – monthly perhaps, or on ‘special’ occasions such as Harvest, Advent, Pentecost and so on. And it is also vital to remember that children are spiritual beings, and often come out with very profound comments on their faith….we adults don’t know it all! The church should be ‘family’ with all its challenges and contrasts. If the church never meets to worship as ‘family’ in all-age worship then we are uncritically going along with the fracturing of the generations we see all around us in society. We need to learn tolerance, to accept difference, and welcome the noise and vitality that having the young with us brings. Boys need older men and ‘granddad’ figures to look up to, and girls need examples of mature Christian women. We need the young to give us hope for the future of church and the faith we love. They need us, and we need them…we’re in this together! © Nick Harding 2007 / Diocese of Southwell and
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