One of our priorities at Holy Cross, Davidson’s Mains has been reconnecting with local families. The church used to have a flourishing Sunday School but, as in other places, this mode of ministry died out in recent decades. With our Children’s Minister, Izzy Armstrong-Holmes, we worked to make our church building and Sunday Eucharist child-friendly and tried various services and events for families.
Izzy writes, “There are a few children at our Sunday Eucharist but we found that, for the under-fives and their families a Friday morning was best, a day when there are few activities for pre-school children. We settled on the format of a toddler group with some Christian input suitable for their age, calling it ‘Toddler Church’. Over time, the parents asked for more Christian input, which developed into a fifteen minute circle-time liturgy at the end of an hour and a half session. This built up a committed group of about 20 parents or carers and children (not all are present each week). Many of the families attend other services and events at Holy Cross, such as our children’s concerts arranged in partnership with the charity Live Music Now Scotland, but Toddler Church is their spiritual home. This made us realise that if it really is ‘Church’ it needs to be centred on the Eucharist because that is what Jesus told us to do”.
Some in the church might think that a group like this should be a feeder for so called ‘real church’ on Sunday morning but it has become a real and valid expression of Church. A reality of Christian life today is that not everyone can come on a Sunday. At Holy Cross we have people who only come to Mass on a Wednesday or Friday, and we have re-started the Sunday Early Communion for those who are working or for whom this is their only family day in a busy week. Toddler Church is part of our response to these changes in society and to the theological truth that the Eucharist (not Sunday) makes the Church.
The children’s ministry team and I had a discussion about what is required for a Eucharist and what is appropriate for the children, and we essentially combined the weekly Toddler Church liturgy with a simplified Liturgy of the Eucharist. We have celebrated this together three times, once a term. The whole takes about 15 minutes and is interactive, so that it engages the full attention of the children (even if they decide to run round and round the altar!).
Eucharistic Prayer VII in the 1982 Scottish Liturgy (revised 2022) is shorter than the other Eucharistic Prayers but it was still too long for a celebration specifically for the under-fives. We looked around at prayers form various Churches and ended with a Eucharistic Prayer based on the Church of England Common Worship Prayer H but shortened and brought into conformity with our 1982 Liturgy in the essentials (especially the epiclesis).
Children of this age group can cope with deep theology, something adults can find it hard to understand. They do, however, need brevity, simplicity and consistency and, as some of them attend other Eucharists in our Church, the prayer must look like a ‘normal’ Eucharist. We thus decided to use our usual vestments, a normal preparation of the gifts (with children helping), the usual initial dialogue to the prayer (‘Lift up your hearts’ etc.), the Sanctus, and our usual nave altar with everyone sitting or standing around. The various responses in the English Eucharistic Prayer were reduced to one short one that was repeated: ‘Thank you for your love’. This, together with a series of simple gestures to be copied from the priest, kept their attention. I was hesitant about having the Sanctus at the end but it was argued by the team that if it were in the usual place it would break the flow and attention of the children. In the event they were right, it made sense at the end and scarves were waved enthusiastically. We used the Sanctus from James Macmillan’s ‘St Anne’s Mass’ because the tune is easy to follow and is used in our churches, but others could be used.
Someone outside our group suggested that unconsecrated bread and Ribena should be used for all, but we all felt the children are real Christians and deserved the real sacrament. I have written about the important theological implications of our Scottish Episcopal Church policy of giving Holy Communion to all the baptised in a blog post Holy Communion for Babies, or what it means to be Human. We speak to everyone beforehand so the children and their adults all had the choice whether or not to receive the sacrament and most decided to. It was presented as a free choice and a blessing was also offered or they could just observe.
Each time it has been a good experience and valued by the children and others present and it bears repetition. I have let our Bishop and the Liturgy Committee know about the experiment, as it is not yet authorised, and the text has been shared with other churches round Scotland. It is important for us that we use a liturgy that fits with our Scottish Episcopalian eucharistic theology as found in the 1982 Liturgy and yet is appropriate for this age group. The full liturgy can be seen below and please feel free to use or adapt it. The Toddler Church model itself has been shared around Churches in Scotland (and even Australia and New Zealand!) and Izzy, our Children’s Minister, has been invited by the new Franciscan community to set up a group at St David’s Pilton. We would be interested to hear about your experience.
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The images of Holy Cross included in this blog are not specifically from Toddler Church and are used with appropriate permission. We decided that Toddler Church would be a safe and boundaried space where families could play and explore Christianity in private, so we don’t take or share photos. This is specific to Holy Cross and we recognise that other groups and families in different contexts may enjoy sharing photos to celebrate the life of their church!
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