“Find a job you enjoy doing and you never have to work a day in your life” – that’s something I quote quite regularly when I describe my role at St Mary Redcliffe. Of course, my job isn’t perfect, because life isn’t perfect – but there are moments when it doesn’t feel like work at all – but instead a great privilege – and that’s how I would describe our weekly Toddler Church.

Toddler Church takes place every Friday at 10am. We have created our own style of worship based on who we are. We sing songs and read books from the Bible. We read the same book (the book of the moment) for about a month, which enables our children to join in with the words and explore the themes in detail.  Woven into the service are aspects of the Early Years Curriculum, especially Communication and Literacy and Numbers. We also learn a bit of French! In dry weather (even in the winter) our Toddler Church takes place outside in the churchyard, in the form of Earth Church and in wet weather, we go inside our beautiful church building.  Toddler Church, like our Children’s Church, runs throughout the year. 

Since we started a couple of years ago, we have welcomed people from our local community and surrounding area. I find the Early Years a fascinating time – with lots of developmental changes – and it is a great delight to watch our younger members blossom and grow. 

Snack-time is always a highlight of our sessions, for us adults as much as the children! This is the moment we sit down together and sing, read our story, and discover a bit about each other.  One of my greatest pleasures is to learn how to say words in each other’s languages and to incorporate this into our service.  For me, liturgy is all about participation. 

Of course, as with all our church activities, our Toddler Church would not be possible without the help, support and generosity of our church community.   Our materials and resources have been donated by members of our church community.  It is greatly appreciated.  Any resources we have bought have been funded by your donations. We value this greatly.  Each time we have a new child join us, they’ve been given a knitted teddy, especially made for them by Barbara.  Every session I am joined by Richard, who gives his time and energy in helping me set up and pack away, and providing those much appreciated cups of tea and coffee. 

I thank you all for your gifts. As the African proverb goes, it takes a whole village to bring up a child. I think we can say the same for the life of faith.