Something you should have heard about by now is Capital Vision 2020. It represents the aims and objectives of the Diocese for the next seven years. There are many bold statements within it – one of which affects us as children’s workers directly, so here it is:
By 2020 we will double the number of children and young people who are in regular contact with the worshiping life of the Church and its outreach programmes.
We will work to improve the lives of children and young people living in London’s most deprived areas.
Yep, you really did read that right. We are going to have a go a doubling the numbers of children and young people we have contact with in our churches in seven years. On the face of it, the numbers are ridiculous and frankly if we get anywhere near it then we should all have a statue on the Embankment next to Robert Raikes! But then you get thinking. And then you start to wonder if we could do this…
Many of our churches have reasonably sized Sunday schools but no teenagers, what if we found ways of retaining more of these young people?
When we look at our stats we find that we have no more effective way of reaching children and their families than parent and toddler groups. What if we invested more time and money into making them brilliant and were more intentional in building Christian community in them?
Messy Church has been a huge success all over the UK in helping churches engage their fringe but in London we have relatively few. How many more of these could we start in the next seven years?
If we are going to get anywhere near this we will all need to join in and have a go together, we don’t have any churches or organisations that are big enough to do this for us! So have a think and a pray; what could you do that could be part of this mad plan?