Children and Young People

Trinity Hale Building
Woodlands Timperley Building
Crèche Sunday Seekers
Children's Worship Rainbows
Pilots Brownies
Guides Guides
  Saturday Seekers
  Boys Brigade
  Toddlers
  Holiday Club

New Download 'Young Vision'

As you are aware, there are many children associated with our local church and we Youth Leaders do not consider church to relate only to Sunday Worship Services although it would be nice to see more young families at both buildings on a Sunday morning. Christian teaching takes place within all our organis-ations throughout the week – Junior Church, Sunday Seekers, Saturday Seekers, Pilots, Boys Brigade, Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and the Toddler Group. It is still our desire that we achieve the ‘Child Friendly Church Award’ here at Altrincham United Reformed Church and we are slowly but surely trying to satisfy all the criteria associated with this. One of the first things we were asked to do was formulate a vision statement upon which we base our action plan. Our vision statement is as follows:

Whilst being nurtured in the Christian faith our children and young people will say that they feel safe and happy and that they are valued, contributing members of the church family.

ARE WE A CHILD FRIENDLY CHURCH?

We will continue to work on the changes necessary to achieve the Award and in doing so we hope to attract more young families into our midst. In the meantime, we take this opportunity of reminding everyone of the URC’s Charter for Children in Church:

Charter for Children in the Church

  • Children are equal partners with adults in the life of the church
  • The full diet of Christian worship is for children as well as adults
  • Learning is for the whole church, adults and children
  • Fellowship is for all – each belonging meaningfully to the rest
  • Service is for children to give, as well as adults
  • The call to evangelism comes to all God’s people of whatever age
  • The Holy Spirit speaks powerfully through children as well as adults
  • The discovery and development of gifts in children and adults is a key function of the church
  • As a church community we must learn to do only those things in separate age groups which we cannot in all conscience do together
  • The concept of the ‘Priesthood of all Believers’ includes children

JUNIOR CHURCH AND CRECHE ACTIVITIES
at Trinity Hale and Woodlands Timperley


Children take part in their own worship activities at both buildings and opportunity is given to share what they have been doing with the congregation.

At Trinity Hale, children leave the morning Service near the beginning at an appropriate time. Junior Church takes place on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month (on the 2nd and 4th Sundays there is a 9.30am All Age Service) and the Minister or whoever is leading the Service is made aware of what the children will be doing in order that the congregation can be informed. Megan Gilks, Denise Jolly and Helen McGonnell take turns on a rota basis to lead Junior Church. A crèche is available for babies and very young children every Sunday and Martin Stratton, Jennifer Marsland and Glenda Fraser help with this.

At Woodlands, children go straight into Junior Church and join the adults at an appropriate time about 20 minutes before the end of the Service when they share what they have been doing and show the congregation anything they have made. The leaders are Doreen Radcliffe, Mike Maratos, Sue Jesson and Sandra Scott who take turns to lead with helpers on a rota basis. A crèche is available for babies and very young children every Sunday which takes place either at the back of church or in the same room as Junior Church.

Over the past few weeks children at Trinity Hale have decorated cakes and offered them to the congregation during coffee after the Service, created a large colourful picture of a basket of flowers using tissue paper and fabric shapes and handed out daffodils to the ladies in the congregation on Mothering Sunday. More recently, the children took part in an Easter egg hunt.

During Lent, children at Woodlands have been learning about Jesus’ journey towards the cross. On Palm Sunday the children displayed the whole of the events of Holy Week by attaching pictures, a perfume bottle, palm leaves, Judas’ bag of money, a crown of thorns and purple material on a large cross and on Easter Sunday they made an empty tomb out of paper plates and coloured and constructed either Easter eggs or Easter bunnies.

Children at both buildings loosely follow the material provided in the resources suggested by Roots which is based on the weekly lectionary and therefore ties in nicely with adult worship.