Little steps

A man was crossing a stream in the Lake District, jumping from rock to rock. Reaching the other side, he called his 10 year old son to follow. But the son’s stride was not the same length as his dad’s, and in he went.

Where engagement is concerned, we mustn’t assume the stride of those we want to engage with is the same as our own. We need to make smaller steps.

Take parent and toddler groups, for example.

One church decided to make the most of the opportunity afforded to them by their popular, oversubscribed toddler group to engage with their community. They decided to do this by taking little steps.

They started by asking themselves why people came to the toddler group. They knew those who attended were unlikely to be there because they were asking spiritual questions. The answers they came up with were:

• To help with the development of their children’s social and fine and gross motor skills, and to prepare their children for nursery and primary education.
• To meet other parents at the same life stage, for friendship; support and to socialise.

To develop the group around these needs, they had to do it from the perspective of both the parent and the child.

What developed over the next few years was a programme that went a long way to meeting these aims.

Each thing they added was not an end in itself but a little step to building a whole programme. They only added something new when the need became apparent and the resources became available.

It started very simply. They bought a collection of resources and offered them as a lending library. They chose topics that would interest, and because their clientele was not highly educated, made the books easy to read. The resources went like hot cakes, with one parent recommending a book to another. They started with parenting books from the Parentalk series and added to it over time.

Next, they included a children’s DVD lending library, with a range of titles including Bob the Builder and Postman Pat. They included some more overtly Christian titles such as Promise Keepers. There were also a few parents DVDs in the library.

Deciding they needed more time to mix and build relationships, they asked a member of the church to come and do the group’s drinks on a regular basis. They deliberately chose a grandmotherly figure who could relate to the children well.

Then they asked the church leader if he was willing to make a coffee-time visit so that the parents could get to know him. He decided to serve drinks behind the counter to begin with, realising that over time he could build an individual relationship with every parent who came to get a drink.

The group leaders also decided to make the group free. This acted as a great talking point and made the members feel important to the church.

Next, they decided to give the mums an opportunity to socialise without the children - so they started pamper nights. They hired in a professional beautician, a manicurist, pedicurist, a Colour Me Beautiful expert and a massage therapist.

Then, because they had a trained chef in the church and because they wanted to get to know the women’s partners, they arranged some couples’ three course dinners. They had an after dinner speaker who spoke briefly and with humour on parenting issues.

This led to the group starting a parenting course. At the time, they chose Parentalk – now, they could consider using 21st Century Parent instead.

Gradually they introduced toddler services three times a year, at Christmas, Easter and Harvest. And they also introduced pastoral visiting, aiming to visit the children and their parents in their homes once a term. If there were any ongoing needs, these too were addressed.

The parents suggested doing some fundraising activities for outside causes like Children in Need, and the group leaders embraced this with enthusiasm.

Other groups have included other ingredients like Messy Church and Journeys. Still others have started a Saturday dads only group called Who let the dads out?

See the diagram for these ideas – and you can add your own, too. The sky’s the limit!

Last Updated 09 February 2009