Light Party 2024 Look Back!

Every year at Sutton Vineyard, we throw a Light Party for our Kids and our Community. We do this as an alternative to Halloween, where we choose to celebrate goodness and light instead of darkness. It’s always such a special event but this year it was bigger and better than ever! We welcomed 127 children through our doors along with their grown ups. They had a huge amount of fun playing games, making crafts, jumping on the bouncy castle and soft play, having their faces painted, exploring our awesome glow room and eating sweets and cakes!

The thing that blows most of our guests away is that there is no cost to them at all. All activities and refreshments are completely free of charge and every year, people ask us why we would provide something like this for free. This is a great opportunity for us to tell them that, as Christians, we believe we are called to be generous and to spread the love of Jesus far and wide. Our Light Party is one way in which we can show God’s love to our friends and community.

Another huge encouragement from this year is the culture of invitation that our kids at Sutton Vineyard have truly embraced. We spent a session in the run up to the party thinking and praying about who to invite and dozens of our guests were invitees of our amazing kids! They are learning how to extend the table in their own circles and it is such a blessing to witness and be a part of! Another large proportion of our guests came through our Lighthouse and Wendy House community ministries, helping us to bridge the gap between our community projects and our church.

This year we have planned a follow up event of a Kids Disco which will be happening on Saturday 30th September. We already have many of our Light Party guests signed up to join us again in a few weeks time and we are so excited to see what relationships we can form and what might come out of these joyous events!

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5 Fantastic Prayer Resources for Families

In our Children and Families Ministry we are passionate about equipping young people and their parents, guardians and families with tools to develop their relationship with God prayerfully and spiritually.

Our pastoral team and team leaders are regularly asked how best to bring prayer and worship, God’s love and Jesus’ teaching from church on Sundays into everyday life.

This is what the Orange philosophy is all about; bringing the church and the home together (If you’re brand new to the Orange philosophy, click here to read about what it is, why we have adopted it and what it means for you and our young people!).

To run alongside our latest talk series ‘Deeper’, I’ve put together some incredible resources for you and your family to use to connect with God at home.

101 Ways to Start a Conversation with God

Via Parenting for Faith

One of the ways we encourage our young people to develop their relationship with God in our Kids ministry is through Chat and Catch.

Not sure what Chat and Catch is? Read our article on it here!

There are endless things you can talk to God about in our lives, but sometimes this amount of choice can make it difficult to start the conversation!

Parenting for Faith has put together some great ideas of topics for young people to talk to God about, to catch and to receive. These ideas are great for prayerful conversations over breakfast, in the car or anywhere you might want to spend some time talking to God.

Read 101 Ways to Start a Conversation with God here

Creative Ways to Pray with your Kids

Via 24-7 Prayer

As anyone who has or has worked with children will tell you, no two kids are the same.

This rule applies to praying with our kids too!

If you want your kids to develop in their relationship with God, finding ways to pray that best suit their interests, skills and personalities is a great way to start.

I think this creative prayer article from 24-7 Prayer is a really good guide for this. It’s got some great things to think about around engaging kids in prayer, and how you can incorporate prayer into your day-to-day life in a way they can connect with. 

Read Creative Ways to Pray with your Kids here

Engaging Kids in Worship

At Sutton Vineyard we aim to create a space for Kids of all ages to feel welcome, safe and to grow in their understanding of faith and their relationship with God.

We want our Kids to feel the power of worshipping God and enjoy developing in their faith alongside friends and leaders. Engaging Kids in church can sometimes be challenging, and worship can be one of the greatest hurdles for us to navigate as leaders and parents.

To equip us to help our young people connect with God I put together an article discussing some of the challenges in engaging Kids in worship and how we can encourage participation.

Read our article on Engaging Kids in Worship here

Devotional Dippers Prayer Sticks

Making prayer fun is a really good way of encouraging our kids to connect with God, and I personally find products like these devotional prayer sticks really useful.

Prayer sticks like these normally include a theme, a verse, a question to discuss and a prayer point to encourage our young people to speak with God.

Find a time that works for you to pick a short devotional with your family. It could take as little as 5 minutes and helps you to turn your focus to God as a family.

If you’d like to give these prayer sticks a go but the cost would be a barrier, please send me an email at kids@suttonvineyard.org and we would be glad to buy a set for your family!

Devotional Dippers Prayer sticks are available here

Help! My Kid Won’t Pray!

Via Raising Prayerful Kids

Our kids might not always want to pray at the time or in the way we would like. 

It’s normal for our children to resist if they’re asked to do something they don’t feel like doing. 

This article from Raising Prayerful Kids gives some ideas of things to try if prayer feels like a struggle in your house including encouragement, perseverance and making prayer fun!

Read Help! My Kid won’t Pray! here

There are plenty of fantastic resources for families to encourage our young people in developing their relationship with God prayerfully. 

If you want to chat about any of these resources, or are keen to learn more about equipping your young people, please feel free to drop me an email at kids@suttonvineyard.org!

Vision: Deeper in Kids Ministry

At Sutton Vineyard, we are firm believers in the fact that children should get to do ‘the stuff’ just as much as grown ups. We believe that God wants to have a deep and meaningful relationship with them and that they are never too young to start being Jesus’ hands and feet. Therefore, as we’re looking at ‘going deeper’ as a church family, this applies to our under 11s as much as anyone else.

For our Big and Mini Kids, there are three main areas in which our children have the opportunity to deepen their relationships, knowledge and faith:

Going Deeper at Church

While our kids are at church on a Sunday, our Kids Team are constantly working to make our children’s ministry a loving and welcoming space in which our kids can learn and build relationships. The church family is such an important part of the Christian journey and we’re seeing our kids develop deep and significant relationships with their peers which are spilling out of the Sunday morning setting. The consistent age groups they are in allow them to build on these friendships week on week and they are becoming a community of people who can support, love, encourage and trust each other as they develop and learn. 

Additionally, the topic of invitation is a focus in Kids several times a year, and our children are becoming more and more confident in inviting their friends from outside of church to our special events and services. The more our kids practise invitation, the deeper their confidence and boldness will be to share their faith and the more people they will see coming to Jesus. Our kids are putting the Great Commission into action!

Going Deeper at Home

As a church, we follow the Orange Philosophy, as we understand the church and the home need to work together in the faith development of our children in order to have the biggest impact. Parents and carers play the most significant role in the faith journey of a child and as a church, we want to support parents as they raise their children to love and follow Jesus.

Our termly family prayer trails give parents and carers creative and varied ways to pray with their kids and provide a dedicated space to connect with God as a family. The majority of our children have at least one parent or carer involved in the Kids team at church.

The significance and value of this should not be understated and this bridge between homelife and churchlife can give parents a deeper insight into their child’s faith, as well as giving them stepping stones of topics, activities and techniques they can use at home to help their children get to know God and the Bible on a deeper level.

We now have a Whatsapp Community group for parents and carers where we will send ideas of conversation starters and activities linked to our Kids sessions which you can do at home with your kids, further strengthening the link between home and church.

Going Deeper with God

Of course, our ultimate goal is for our children to experience the love of God in a deep and personal way. In Big and Mini Kids, we worship, pray and study the Bible in ways that are accessible and relevant to our children’s ages and stages.

We know our children are capable of connecting with God, experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit and having a real relationship with Jesus but we also know that we have to introduce these things to them in a way that is comprehensible, interesting and usually lots of fun! Silly actions to a song are actually an introduction to worshipping God with our whole bodies; a frantic race to find a Bible passage is the start of developing a strong understanding of God’s Word; and a beautifully crafted picture or gift for a family member is step towards becoming someone who is compassionate and caring and shares the love of Jesus in all aspects of their lives. Our kids are all on their own journeys with God and it is a privilege and a joy to support them and encourage them as they go deeper and deeper into the plans our Father has for them. 

If you’d like any more information on how to help your child go deeper with God or want to know more about our children’s ministry, feel free to email kids@suttonvineyard.org.

Engaging Kids in Worship

At Sutton Vineyard we aim to create a space for Kids of all ages to feel welcome, safe and to grow in their understanding of faith and their relationship with God. As adults we understand the importance of worship; it creates a personal relationship between us and God. It also helps us to create community as we worship together on Sundays and across our programme of church events.

We want our Kids to feel the power of worshipping God and enjoy developing in their faith alongside friends and leaders. Engaging Kids in church can sometimes be challenging, and worship can be one of the greatest hurdles for us to navigate as leaders and parents. Why is it that engaging kids in worship can be difficult? And what can we do to encourage participation? 

Why can Kids worship be difficult?

Picture a jigsaw puzzle.

To manifest the picture on the box you have to place puzzle piece after puzzle piece. 

What quality does that kind of activity need?

Patience.

And as Kids leaders and parents will tell you the world over, one thing a lot of children are still developing is patience.

Kids are full of amazing boundless energy, but that also makes them squirmy, wriggly and fidgety.

When we’re encouraging our Kids in worship but getting them to concentrate is difficult, it is also on our leaders to model the patience and engagement we so want to see in our young people. This need for continual patience can be tricky. One of the reasons we are so blessed as a church is the amazing character our leaders exhibit to our young people, but keeping that up can still feel like a challenge!

Our role as parents and leaders in Kids ministry is to train our young people in a lifestyle of knowing Jesus and worshipping God. On Sundays we do this through many kinds of activities that encourage personal faith development, one of which is worship. Finding methods to encourage our Kids to explore the power of worship is an important part of how we do church on Sundays and during the week.

How to engage kids in worship

Given we know encouraging our kids into worship can be a challenge, it’s important for us as leaders to think about ways we can help our young people navigate these activities.

Here are some of ideas we think about and use as a Kids ministry to welcome our young people into worship:

Knowing where our kids are in their journey

We’re all at different points of our faith journey with God, and for our young people they are certainly at the early stages!

We shouldn’t encourage anyone to run before they can walk in their faith development, and this also goes for our Kids. 

By having an understanding of where they are in their journey, we can more easily gauge what parts of worshipping they are engaging with and where they need some helping hands from leaders and parents. Allow and trust God to move through our young people as they are ready.

Create a safe space for Kids worship

If you’ve ever been in an unfamiliar situation surrounded by others and not known quite what to do, you know just how daunting it can be.

We want our Kids to feel safe in our space to explore the act of worship, find ways of worshipping that suit their individual personalities and feelings and to feel encouraged in listening and speaking to God.

We use our worship time in Kids ministry as an opportunity for stillness, to wait on God and listen to what He is telling us. By modelling this for our young people and encouraging individual participation we have seen some amazing moments of God working through our Kids. 

Make worship fun!

Although in this article we are discussing Kids worship as a discipline, that doesn’t mean we don’t have an awesome time praising God with our young people!

When choosing our Worship songs on Sundays we include a few different styles of song.

To create stillness to wait on God we choose softer, more reflective songs.

But it’s also so important to bring songs that get Kids up on their feet and having fun!

Get them doing actions, jumping, making noise; Kids have bundles of energy so use it!

Get the Kids involved in the music

At Sutton Vineyard we’re blessed to have so many passionate musicians who bring their energy and expertise to our Kids ministry.

Being an Orange church (read up on the Orange Philosophy here) we want to encourage our Kids to ‘do the stuff’, to play their part and to be an active member of our church community.

Encourage Kids who have any level of musical instrument knowledge to play! And even for the ones who aren’t quite there with an instrument, they can still join in with percussion!

We’re also encouraging our Kids to help lead our worship through singing and leading actions at the front. This helps to foster individual participation, community growth and bringing them into a fuller lifestyle of worshipping God.

Be expectant

This is one of the most crucial aspects of encouraging worship for our leaders.

Our kids are amazing, and surprise us week after week.

By underestimating our Kids in worship, we are doing them a disservice and starting our efforts off on the back foot.

Come into worship sessions full of optimism and be excited to see and feel God working through our leaders and kids.

While we should be expectant for God to move, we often need to put aside our own preconceived ideas of what it looks like to worship ‘well.’ If our hope is to have a room full of children with peaceful looks on their faces, eyes closed, arms in the air, visibly connecting with God in a ‘classic’ worship position, we’re likely to end up disappointed. Some children will be wiggly and bouncy, some will be shy and quiet and many will be somewhere in between. It is not our job to make a room full of children reach their hands to the sky in worship, it is our job to create an environment in which our kids can connect with the Lord in a way that is authentic and genuine to them. Much like with grown ups, this will look different for different people and if we expect the Holy Spirit to work in our children’s hearts, little by little, prayer by prayer, song by song, He will. 

Engaging kids in worship

We know and understand the importance and power of worshipping God, and we want our Kids to feel that too.

Encouraging them into worship can feel like a difficult task at times, but there are many methods and opportunities for us to help nurture their faith development including:

1. Know where Kids are on their faith journey

2. Create a safe space for Kids worship

3. Make Kids worship fun

4. Get Kids involved in worship

5. Be expectant

If you want to find out more about kids worship, engaging young people and serving our Kids ministry, please feel free to get in touch!

Drop us an email at kids@suttonvineyard.org, or come to speak to one of our Kids team on Sundays (they’re in the bright orange t-shirts, you can’t miss them!)

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Discover more from Sutton Vineyard

Welcome Sophie, our new Kids Co-Ordinator!

At Sutton Vineyard we love welcoming new members of our team, and in March we get to do just that!

Sophie has joined us as our new Kids Co-Ordinator. She will be supporting our Kids ministry, helping to develop our young people’s faith and development alongside Kids & Families Pastor Lily!

We sat down with Sophie to find out more about her, and what she’s most excited about in her new role:

Tell us a bit about yourself!

I’m Sophie, and i’ve joined the Sutton Vineyard team as Kids Co-Ordinator!

I’ve been a member of the Sutton Vineyard family for 7 years now, and was baptised here in 2023. I’ve been a volunteer on our Kids Sunday ministry for 3 years, which helped to spark my interest in this new role. I’m also a part of the Youth team, as well as Youth Friday Night once a month!

What will you be focusing on in your new role?

As Kids Co-Ordinator I will be supporting our Children’s and Families Pastor Lily in the running of the weekly curriculum delivered on a Sunday. This includes ongoing communication with the Kids team, prepping resources, administration tasks and planning and organising events within the church calendar. 

What inspired you about this role?

The enjoyment I gained through volunteering once a week and how refreshing it is to come in and do something completely different to my other job. I also like the idea of combining my work and my faith as I believe it will strengthen it.

What are you most excited about in your new role at Sutton Vineyard?

I can’t wait to work alongside Lily, bouncing ideas off each other and creating new and exciting ways to develop the Kids ministry. I am excited about extending the table and opening up opportunities for families to experience what church is about and encouraging them to come along to our services and events.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I have been dancing for most of my life and I am specifically trained in Classical Ballet but take part in other dance styles also. 

I love a DIY craft kit and enjoy making things, including knitting, crochet, and painting. 

We can’t wait to see Sophie develop further as part of the Sutton Vineyard team. If you have any encouragements for Sophie feel free to drop us an email at kids@suttonvineyard.org!

What is Chat and Catch?

In church everyone should get to play. Everyone should have a relationship with Jesus. We all want our kids to develop in their relationship, but sometimes helping our kids to hear Jesus can feel less supported and more instructed. We want to help our kids hear from God for themselves, as well as inviting them into prayer together.

You might hear this instruction if you asked kids how to pray. They might describe the stereotypical actions of praying; hands together, say “Dear God”, finish with “Amen”, kneel… Instead of feeling like they are praying at God, we want our kids to have conversations with Him.

So how can we do that? Here at Sutton Vineyard Church we are using Chat and Catch to invite our kids to talk to God, understand their experience and develop in their relationship with Jesus.

What is chat and catch?

Chat and Catch is a prayer technique which helps kids develop their conversations with God, what God is telling them and how it makes them feel.

It was created by Rachel Turner of Parenting for Faith.

The concept is simple. Chat and catch resembles everyday conversations. You talk, chat, and you listen, catch.

Just like in everyday life, people can tell you things in different ways; words, emotions, body language, actions…

And you can hear things in different ways too; hearing, feelings, sensations…

When we chat to God, we encourage our kids to speak to Him as they would to their friends and family. This means not telling them what to say or how to say it, but to say how they feel in a way that suits them.

When we catch from God, we are supporting them in recognizing and responding to God’s voice in whatever form that takes. This helps to turn their prayer from a monologue into a dialogue, from an individual experience into a conversation with God.

How can we help kids know when God is talking to them?

As adults we know God can talk to us in different ways at any time. For kids who are still learning about themselves and their relationship with the world around them, recognizing these different ways can be difficult.

In chat and catch we support them to understand what and when God is talking to them through what they see, think and feel.

Sometimes we can physically feel God is in the room with us or really close, or feel His touch as he speaks to us. We may see images and pictures in our mind as we read something or hear someone speak. God may talk to us in our dreams, or make us feel as if He is speaking to us. We may become overwhelmingly joyful, loved, or peaceful. God may even appear to us, so we can see or hear Him.

We want to help our kids to recognize and learn that we can hear from and feel God in lots of different ways, and that is no ‘absolutely correct’ way to pray or talk to Him.

It’s also important for us to teach them that sometimes it can be difficult to hear from God, understand what He is saying or if He is even speaking at all. We encourage the kids to share what they think they have heard from God with a trusted grown up. We can then encourage them that good, kind messages which are in line with what the Bible tells us about God may be something they have caught from God. We also can gently remind them that God is a good, loving Father and anything that is unkind, hurtful or worrying is most likely not coming from God.

What can kids chat to God about?

Chat and catch isn’t about getting our kids to pray about anything in particular. We want them to feel encouraged to continue their conversations with God, speaking AND listening, and to develop their relationship with Him.

You can encourage kids to chat about lots of different topics, for example:

• How was your day? What went well? What didn’t go so well?

• What makes you feel worried and why?

• What is something that makes you proud?

• What are you thankful for?

• What is something or someone that makes you feel loved?

• Who are your friends? What are they like?

• What are your favourite things and why?

• What makes you feel safe?

• What’s a part of the Bible you really like? What’s a part of the Bible you don’t like?

The list is endless! The important thing is encouraging them to start and continue their conversation with God.

How can kids ask to hear from God?

Just like chatting to God, asking God to hear from Him helps kids to understand that their relationship with Him goes both ways.

You can help kids to hear from God by suggesting questions like:

• God, if you were going to play a game with me today, what game would you play? Why?

• Is there anyone you think I should be praying for today?

• Is there anything I should be thankful for today?

• What makes you happy, God? What makes you sad?

• Is there anything you would like me to help change? How can I help?

• Is there anyone I should be especially kind to today?

Asking God these kinds of questions means kids can become more invested in their conversations with Him, and to better understand how and when He is talking to them.

Chat and Catch is an amazing tool for us to use in supporting our kids’ relationship with God. It helps us to teach them about how God can talk to them, how it makes them feel, what they can talk to Him about, and how conversations of every kind help them to know more about themselves and their place in the world. 

If you have any questions about chat and catch, please feel free to drop me an email at kids@suttonvineyard.org!

Lily Broadbent,

Children & Families Pastor