This is a text-only version of an article first published on Thursday, 16 January 2014. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
MORE and more churches are being officially presented with awards recognising their work with children and young people. Jo Duckles explores how and why.
A "welcome award" and a "good news" award are available to those churches that meet the criteria put together by diocesan children's adviser Yvonne Morris and diocesan youth adviser, Ian Macdonald.
The first award was presented to St Mary's, Charlbury last year.
Below are some examples of how the awards schemes have helped churches in their work with children and young people.
Celebrating the award are children and youth and children's leaders with Yvonne Morris and Ian Macdonald at St Mary's, Charlbury.
Reinvigorating its children's work has reversed a declining congregation at St Mary's, Freeland.
The Revd David Tyler, Vicar, said: "Since focusing on families and children we have started to grow.
The awards process was a good one. Over the last couple of years the team at St Mary's has breathed new life into an after-school club, set up a toddler group and integrated a Sunday school (Junior Church) into its morning service once a month.
"Prior to that we re-invigorated the family service as well and we are involved in school assemblies every week, building relationships with the children. "It is important that churches engage with children and families. If we hadn't done the work we have done in this area the church congregation would be much smaller than it is.
It is important that churches engage with children and families as one of the groups we must reach out to. "When Rosemary Robinson read about the launch of Family Friendly Church Awards in the Door, the churchwardens and PCC at Wing had already been considering what could be done to make families more welcome at All Saints'. So the church held a Family Friendly Forum meeting and decided to make its Sunday services as child-friendly as possible.
"It's not a very big congregation and it took some adapting but on the whole we are getting on well with it," said Rosemary.
As a result of these changes, children's work has become more visible. There are three or four parents on our PCC now.
The Family Friendly Church Awards scheme talks about decision making processes for the church and whether families' needs are taken into account," said Rosemary. On Christmas Eve their two Christingle services attract more than 400 people altogether each year.
"We always ran one service and eventually decided to move to two," she said. "Village families now know what to expect each week.
We don't have enormous numbers of families, we can get eight to ten children but normally about five or six attend our Sunday school.
Quite a few babies have been born in the last year and more are expected.
Some of these families have also supported our Church Mice and after school Pop-In-and-Paint groups which have been running for several years. "In many churches, work with children and families has not been seen as vital to the continuity of a Christian community.
Children's workers and family workers need to be nurtured spiritually as much as anyone else.
The Family Friendly Award has brought children and families to the forefront of our church community.
Everyone is much more positive about the future of the church generally, and we hope this will be extended across our Team and Deanery as we experience genuine and sustainable renewal in our parishes. "Following a visit from Yvonne Morris, the Diocesan children's advisor, All Saints', Wing was given a Welcome Award in October 2013. The Revd Christa Pumfrey and her team at St Michael's, Lavendon, and All Saints, Ravenstone face the challenges of working in small, rural villages that don't have huge numbers of children.
So they have concentrated on reaching out into the community, rather than expecting the busy community to come to church on Sundays. We might have two or three children in church for Sunday services but we get 19 when we go to the school," said Christa, who runs an after school club, Spirit Level, with eight or nine volunteers.
At Spirit Level, children play games and hear Bible stories.
Christa has worked in the Buckinghamshire villages for 13 years, slowly building relationships and bridges within the communities she serves. The Welcome Award process helped leaders at Christ Church Flackwell Heath in Buckinghamshire find ways of helping their children's and families work to grow. Children's worker Ellie Wartew got on board with the Welcome Award process after it was recommended by Yvonne Morris through the Children's Workers Network. The leaders have recently surveyed the church, asking how welcoming the congregation feel it is, how they feel it could be developed etc.
They did a child-friendly version for the junior church, asking youngsters if Christ Church was somewhere they felt they could invite their friends. "The Family Friendly Award has brought children and families to the forefront. A lot of them were saying they really enjoy church and there was nothing they would change but that they didn't feel they could bring friends because they didn't think their parents would let them come.
We asked them what they felt we could improve and they said they would like chairs as they sit on the floor during their sessions.
They also asked for pens and biscuits. Ellie said: "Adults wanted better biscuits as well so we have overhauled our refreshment system.
We realised that we run a coffee shop during the week and go for broke with the quality but once people are in church we give them custard creams. " The church has been involved in Leading Your Church into Growth (LYCIG) conferences run by the diocese and is looking at where they are making room for growth spiritually and numerically, as the building is quite small. We wanted to make sure there was room at our services to invite other people to them.
The 8. 30am service is now at 9am and is followed by a 10. 30am service which aims to be a more modern service and we hope families will feel at home. "The other churches to receive an Award are:St Mary's Burghfield, Holy Cross, Slapton, St Mary's, Ivinghoe, St Michael's, Hughenden and St Mary's, Iffley, and as reported previously in the Door, St Mary's Charlbury, which was the very first church to receive the Welcome Award. If your Church would like to become an official Child and Youth Friendly Church email yvonne. morris@oxford. anglican. org or ian. macdonald@oxford. anglican. org ;