Director of Calling Young Disciples, Ruth Walker and MissionEnabler Anne Batchelor have been working with Childrens Officer, Emma Pettiferto deliver a series of training sessions for grandparents keen to share theirfaith with their grandchildren.
Emma said: The idea grew out of the resources I had beenputting together for Faith at Home. Ruth had had a few people asking if therewas anything with grandparents and so she and I got together with Anne who is agrandparent herself. The first session was all about sharing the vision ofFaith at Home, explaining how we can support parents and grandparents to sharetheir faith and since then each session has developed in the way that theparticipants have asked. This time weve been looking at helping children withadditional needs.
Grandparents have come on the training course from Droitwich,Kidderminster and Stourbridge some have grandchildren living locally whileothers see them only rarely some are as far away as Australia. In a number ofcases, the parents of the children dont have a faith themselves and the grouphas been looking at how to share the grandparents faith in this context.
Comments from the participants included:
Its definitely given me some ideas of how I can connect myfaith with my grandchildren in particular Ive started sending cards throughthe post Im going to send an Advent calendar this year!
I help with our Sunday School and am also involved in theyouth group, these children often feel just like extended grandchildren. Ibelieve that the church needs to be ready and open and its been great to havea different group of people to meet with where we can discuss ideas together.
Ive learnt the importance of setting aside time to reallythink and pray for my grandchildren and the situations theyre facing. Itsbeen great to get to know different people in the Diocese and pray for eachother and our families.
Our grandchildren often come to church with us, but we haveworried whether this was the right approach. The training has been a goodopportunity to learn from and share with others and we have realised that wejust need to be there for our grandchildren as they develop into church membersin their own right.
If you would like to find out more about sharing faith as agrandparent, contact Ruth Walker or Emma Pettifer.
