NEW AND UPDATED FOR AUGUST 2010.  Back in September 2009 we introduced regular family services and over the last 12 months we have experimented with various ways of doing this. The truth is, some of them have been more effective than others!  Now we'd like to review what we've done and see what we've learned. Can you help?

IN a nutshell, the format we have found to be most useful for us at the moment lasts about an hour and looks a little like this:

Welcome - brief family related news ... but news is kept to an absolute minimum ie less than 5 mins tops!

Introductory activity - related to the theme of the morning (a game or a drama etc)

Worship - a couple of 'adult friendly' childrens songs and 2-3 'child friendly' worship songs (spiritual gifts, testimonies etc)

Teaching - Kidz Church style object lessons (short, practical, engaging, accessible and clear ... but not trivial)

Blessing - Praying for the body before they depart ... though this could also become a time of ministy on occasions

Teaching content - at the moment we are usually staying with the theme of the adult teaching series during these mornings.  For those who 'miss' more extensive teaching, it is available by listening to the evening congretion download on these Sunday's.

The teaching style needs to be very visual ... and only needs one talk to children and adults (rather than separate talks).

Where we still need to grow - primarily in the area of worship.  We desire the whole family to experience something of the presence of God together.  We desire to see children free to contribute in worship and adults not feeling constrained or 'dumbing down' their expression of worship.  That said, the wider age range almost inevitably means that we must keep things simple.

What we have found is that worship seems to work best if kept as a 'block' rather than a few songs here and there. 

Tea and Coffee - on 'Family Service' mornings, we'd like refreshments to be available at the end of the meeting as well as the beginning, as with a shorter meeting people seem more likely to want to stay to talk.

If you have any further comments, observations, questions or encouragement(!) please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Thanks!