Building Bridges

a project to link church and school

Both last year and this as part of a step of faith to become an independent children's worker and in conjunction with the Baptist Church I currently attend in Kenton, a suburb of London, we held a Nativity exhibition on one Saturday just before Christmas 2007. The idea of this was to help the church get involved in its local schools.

During the autumn term I visited eight local schools to invite them to take part. They were offered a free assembly craft workshop or story telling event based on the way we celebrate Christmas and the characters we depict in a Nativity scene. Of the eight schools, four invited me to do an a Christmas assembly, I did workshops at three and a storytelling session at one. Five schools made nativity scenes to enter into the competition.

On the day some children came along with their parents to view the exhibition and at least one of the winners was there to receive their prize. As part of this session we ensured the real Christmas story was told and visitors were given tracts about Christmas. The assemblies and workshops were received well and as a bonus one of the local shops displayed one of the winning nativity scenes in the week before Christmas.

Following the Christmas project I have been doing regular assemblies at one of the schools, did an Easter journey and assembly for another and an Easter journey for a third. The school where I do assemblies also accepted Its your move books for the year 6 pupils as well as some input to the transition process.

For 2008 we are repeating the Christmas project and hope to include two more schools. Over the year regular prayer for the schools has been included in the church news sheet and meetings. I am keen to extend this project to other churches who are willing to get involved and want to link with their local schools.

Chenda, Lindsay Park Baptist Church, Kenton