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Creating a positive relationship with your local school is so very important, not only in helping children to understand what the Church is about, but also in forging positive connections within the local community. If done well, the relationship between School and Church can be an extremely fruitful and mutually blessing connection. However, it is the “doing it well” that can sometimes be the challenge.

So, to help, we – along with our colleagues in the Children’s Ministry Network – have developed a pack with ideas and guidelines to help you get started.

This guide suggests ways to build and strengthen the relationship between your church and local school(s) by hosting educational visits or services, and offers other suggestions of how to build meaningful connection between the Church and school. Our church buildings and people are a God-given resource and there are many opportunities to use these assets to meet the needs of visiting school groups. No two churches are alike, even within the same denomination. The aim of this guide is to be adaptable to whatever your situation and setting – take from it what fits.

Contents

• Getting started – Building a relationship with your local school
• Connecting with the school curriculum
• Drawing out the significance and meaning of things children will see
• Explaining worship practices in your church
• Other opportunities to use your building to engage with schools
• Conclusion and credits

This is a unique back-to-school activity for your family that will encourage you to capture moments of prayer, learning and growth. Based on the idea of the school locker and how it starts the year empty with everything shiny and new. Then through the course of the year, we fill it full of the things we have learnt and the “stuff of growth” By the end of the year when we come to empty our lockers we discover memories that show how much we’ve grown and changed through the year. We get to look back at important lessons and moments of challenge. In the same way, we encourage you to create a family faith locker where you make a box and use some of the resources in the pack to help capture how you have all started the school year, the things you have concerns about, prayer requests and answers to prayer. By the end of the school year as the summer holidays start you can sit together and look back at all that God has done in your lives this year  – chat it through and laugh about the things you’ve made and memories made.

Starting with the locker itself, you could use pizza boxes which can be bought easily from food supply businesses, or encourage the children to decorate an old cereal box or something similar that will fit A4 size paper – alternatively, you could simply buy a box   Each child then fills in the form for their class details and all the things they like or are concerned about going back to school. Through the year you can complete the family devotions each term with the specific activity for that season. All of the forms and crafts can be kept in the locker and any answers to prayer are written and kept in the box. At the end of the school year, you can empty the locker, just as you would at school, and see together just how God has moved in your family and how you have each grown and changed.

For those of you leading Churches / Children’s clubs, we have developed a complete All Age Back to Education Service which works in tandem with the Faith Locker and includes the complete service which you can edit and adapt as required, as well as cards for a prayer activity and postcards which you can laminate / Shrinkydink and attached to the children’s bags.

Click HERE to get your Family Faith Locker

Click HERE to find out about the All Age Back to Education Service

This all age service works in tandem with the Family Faith Locker but equally can be run independently. The focus of the service is on our talents and what we can use for God’s glory during the year, the core message applies to everyone even if they are not in school so it doesn’t matter if you don’t have many Children in your congregation the message will still be relevant to everyone there. You can also alter the message to use as an assembly if you wish.

There is a scripted talk which you can use as much or as little of as you wish – please feel free to edit it to fit you. You will also find printable name cards for teachers, school pupils and students for an active prayer time. As well as a postcard you can print back-to-back and laminate for each child to take away.

The service outline includes all the graphics below and the backpack blessing tags which can be re-sized, printed and laminated, or if you’re feeling creative you can print them onto shrinky dink paper which can be bought at Baker Ross or Art supply shops then attached to the student’s backpacks.

Click HERE to download the pack