What will we do for the adults? Just a thought that came out of a very pleasant lunch with my colleague from the Diocese of Portsmouth, Ben Mizen. Among the topics of conversation that came up were, the Dutch Royal Family, why our burger and chips came with a large bowl of non-spicy salsa and various insights into what it’s like to work for our respective Diocese. None of this is important to you but something else we did discuss might be: what our perfect church would look like.
You probably know me well enough to realise that many of my ideas were probably not about to be seen anywhere soon. My ‘river flowing from under the altar and then down the centre aisle before pouring into a baptismal font’ idea will possibly never receive the ‘faculty’ it deserves, and this is probably for the best. I wouldn’t want to be the one to remind the Bride that she’ll need wellies to get to the Altar. But one thing we agreed on in our fantasy churches is that we wouldn’t have any groups for the children; there would be one meeting and they would be in it with everyone else.
This is something I know I’ve said before and all the evidence we have points to this being the future; we know children’s faith is nurtured best within an all age faith community where generations worship together. Generally I think that churches are realising this and the rise of the ‘all age service’ reflects that and, to an extent so does the success of Messy Church. There is however, an issue with this that makes my model of no children’s groups an impossible dream: what will we do with the adults? It’s not good enough to have all age service that children love but adults endure, all-age means that adults are included just as much as children.
So here’s a question you might not have asked about your all age service before: is this a service that I would be comfortable inviting a single person without children to come to? If it’s a kids service then the answer is probably no, of course you wouldn’t, but if it’s all age then we should feel able to do.
There is no reason that you cannot have a service that meets the needs of adults and children if you realise that entertaining children isn’t your main focus. If you make clever use of story and reflection then you can, I believe move towards a model that is truly all age and people of all ages can encounter God and be nurtured together.