Children at church
Have you got children that you would like to bring to church? Then they are very welcome at All Saints!
On Sunday mornings there is a small Sunday School for children in the side chapel (or sometimes outside if the weather allows). This may include games, crafts, stories, songs, puppets and more. The children re-join the service with their families for communion.
Children are also given the opportunity to participate in the service, e.g. reading prayers as part of the intercessions, bringing up the fruit and vegetables during harvest festival, lighting candles and reading prayers during advent, following the star with the wise men at Epiphany or enthusiastically handing out the flowers on mothering Sunday.
Some of our teenagers also help the younger children, assisting one of our children's team. We find this helps give the different ages a chance to get to know each other, and also gives our young people an opportunity serve and deepen their own faith as they share and explain it with those younger than themselves.
After the service, the children tend to grab a biscuit and then play with each other; ‘Hide and Seek’ is a favourite! Children of our regular families often take one book from the children’s corner to read during the week. We have a huge variety of Bible stories for different ages.
Over Easter, we run an Easter Garden Event, where the children made ‘Jesus’ tomb’ in the Church garden together and heard the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. In previous years we have run a ‘Christmas party’, where the children from All Saints played games for a couple of hours in Church House with their friends, ate party food and watched cartoons.
We were very excited to offer a short series of free Gospel drama workshops for primary school age children at the end of the summer and hope to develop this further. Do get in touch if you would be interested in this.
If you are a visitor or guest to our Church there are activity bags designed for each age group in the Children’s corner, which you are most welcome to use for the service. Some visiting children prefer to sit with their parents throughout the service, with or without an activity bag - please do whatever is your preference. We also have a few baby toys in the children’s corner, so if you have a little one or you are nursing, please feel free to make use of this area if helpful. The children's corner is set at the back of Church but you will still feel part of the service.
There is something wonderful about seeing entire family units of all shapes and sizes worshiping the Lord together! We believe people of all ages should come to Christ, regardless of the noises or distractions they might bring, as Jesus said, ‘let the little children come to me’.
If you have any questions about the above or you would like to know more about bringing your children along on a Sunday then please email us at
children@allsaintsheadington.org.uk
We look forward to meeting you!
Andrew, Catherine and Emma
The ACE children's team