Anxiety workshops for primary school children are just one way St Peter’s Church in Loudwater is reaching into the local community. Children’s worker Charlotte King, partly funded by the Diocese of Oxford Development Fund, has been able to develop several church-based ministries as well as increasing the church’s schools’ ministry.
As a result, the number of children experiencing God through Sunday morning church services has increased to an average of 40 per week. Friday Club, Tuesday Tots and Friday Friends have continued to welcome growing numbers of families, as relationships have flourished and new people have come to explore God’s church. Every month an increasingly popular Lighthouse Live service treats children to fun, games and Bible stories as well as gunging the leaders!
Director of Children and Youth Ministry Mark Humphries said: “The funding we received for our children’s worker has been instrumental in growing the work we have been able to do in Loudwater. We have the confidence of the knowledge that what we are doing here in Loudwater is being backed by the diocese and the grant has given us the confidence to keep doing what we are doing.
"Without the funding we would not have been able to do some of the groups we are running, or employ Charlotte long term, to continue the work she had started.”
Charlotte has also been able to develop relationships with key groups in the local community giving the church a more outward-facing approach which allows them ‘to show the love of Jesus through being a source of spiritual hope, practical help and an authentic community’.
The Development Fund was established in 2019 to divulge up to £1million a year for the growing needs of communities in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Milton Keynes and has now granted more than £4million.
Notes to Editor
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About the Diocese of Oxford
The Diocese of Oxford is the Church of England in the Thames Valley region of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. There are over 800 churches in 626 parishes, the largest number of churches of any diocese in the Church of England. The diocese is also home to 285 schools and academies educating some 60,000 pupils.