By Mary Petersen

Sunday morning education, holiday programmes, after school care, Christmas crafts, resource libraries for parents, day camps, Mainly Music, coffee mornings, play groups, family events ­ how does your church make contact and develop connections with children and families in your community?

Connecting church vision and mission sounds simple and helps to identify the most effective outreach. Yet in practice some churches never pose the real question of "what are we aiming at in ministry with children and families?"

About 70 percent of New Zealand Presbyterian churches provide a separate Sunday morning programme for children at the same time as a worship service. Most have children with the congregation briefly and then they go to age-related groupings. Many express concern at the small numbers of children now attending on Sunday morning. Yet, if the age group of parents of school age children is not represented in the church the children are not likely to be there either. I know of churches that still maintain a Sunday School because "that is what we have always done". What is the vision here?

One of the questions most frequently asked is "What curriculum should we use?" My response is usually to ask about vision and goals and strategies before suggesting any curriculum resource. If your vision is about the whole congregation worshipping and learning and serving together then the most suitable resource may be very different from that for a programme to teach children all the major Bible stories or provide discipleship training for the children of church families or for children with no other church link.

If your vision is to sow seeds of understanding about the love of God for children and families with no church connection - you might start with a one day a week afterschool programme or a holiday event, or establish a lending library of books and videos or a Mainly Music programme for pre-schoolers and parents, rather than attempting to do anything on Sunday morning at all.

For example, in Feilding a Friday afternoon Kids' Time at Knox Presbyterian Church creates a safe place for children - with afternoon tea, a story and some craft activities. Friendly Christians use a range of resources and the initiative of 'crafty' people, to help children make things they can take home that reinforce the theme of the day. In November 2002 contact was also made with parents at the end of year afternoon tea.