Sam Andrews is the Children and Families’ worker at Pershore Abbey. She works 18.5 hours in the role which is funded in part thanks to a grant from the Healthier Churches Fund. Sam is also Churchwarden and prior to officially starting the paid role in February 2023, had been volunteering at the Abbey in a similar role. Now as a paid worker she has been able to expand the Abbey’s work with children, families and schools in the local area.
Sam is part of our diocesan network of employed Children and Young People workers. They have a WhatsApp group to share ideas and resources, and they meet periodically to have fellowship time together. Through these contacts, Sam arranged to visit some other churches to give her some ideas and inspiration. She said:
“I’m part of a small and very supportive team at the Abbey but there’s no other paid member of staff doing exactly the same role, so the support of the network is invaluable.”
Sam particularly wanted to see how other churches run Café Church. Pershore Abbey had launched their own in September 2021, in the meeting rooms at the St Andrew’s Centre, which enabled them to have a more informal layout.
They now have a core of around eight children who attend with their families. The informal nature of Café Church has meant families don’t feel they are disturbing proceedings if they need to get food or other items for their children. From speaking to other churches Sam realised they didn’t need to have songs played on a piano, instead they can use You Tube. She also realised that they don’t need printed service sheets, and in fact taking away the expectations of having to follow a service sheet made for a more relaxed environment which suited the families attending much better.
Since 2023 Sam has extended the programme of events for children and families, which is where they get the best levels of engagement. She has introduced a weekly ‘Little Seeds’ group in August and a Summer Activity Morning in the school summer holidays for parents to come along to with their children, where they can do a variety of craft activities, supported by a team of volunteers. These have been really popular, with 30 children and their parents attending in the course of each morning. Sam has also introduced A Light Party event relating to John 1:5 as an alternative to Halloween. Sam said:
“The children take part in a number of craft activities including Christian related seasonal pumpkin activities and making colourful jam jar lanterns. The resources from Scripture Union are brilliant for this.”
Sam was also inspired by her early research to offer an ‘Edible Nativity’ event. She reports this has been so successful it is now an annual event at Pershore Abbey. She particularly likes how it brings the whole congregation together and new volunteers on board as they make the gingerbread figures in advance. The children and their families come to the St Andrew’s Centre and decorate each figure as the part of the story that relates to that figure is read out. The children then come back to the main service to show the rest of the congregation what they’ve done.
Since starting the paid role Sam has also been able to offer more to the local schools and is happy to help the staff meet their national curriculum requirements. A particular highlight was a ‘God and the Big Bang’ science and faith day that was delivered in partnership with Christian scientists from St John’s College in Durham. Sam arranged for Year 5 students from several local schools to visit the Abbey and attend a rotation of four workshops entitled ‘Evolution and Genesis’, ‘Mystery and curiosity’, ‘Climate Change’ and ‘The Big Bang Theory and God’. The events aimed to offer students of all faiths and none, the chance to explore, discuss and debate these themes. This was all provided free of charge including transport thanks to funding mainly from Pershore Rotary, very kindly topped up by members of Pershore Abbey congregation to ensure all students could attend.
Another particular highlight for Sam is helping out with ‘Monks Day’ each year, an event the Abbey put on for a local school. On this day, all the students come to the Abbey dressed in habits as Monks and are welcomed with the bell as pilgrims. They are given a tour and then challenged to eat a meal of bread, cheese and fruit in silence!
Sam recently attended a network retreat day at Holland House, which offered training opportunities and time out as well as spiritual time. Sam is now in turn able to share some tips of her own. She has found a great website called ‘Sermons 4 Kids’ which she describes as a great resource.
If you would like to explore how a grant from the Healthier Churches Fund might further the work with children, families and schools in your parish, please contact Children and Young People lead Simon Hill.
