We’re about to join our church’s plant. It’s such an exciting time but for me, totally new! I’ve never been part of ’small church’ and have got pretty used to being able to sit back and relax (complacent, moi? Well, oui actually!).

One of the new things for us is having one teaching group for all the children in the church family. I estimate that there are about 10 kids from 2-13 in the group at the moment (not including the wee babies!). It’s a challenge to engage and usefully teach those kids isn’t it?

Having chatted to Dave I feel convinced of a couple of things:

• simple is going to be best here. Even the oldest kid can glean useful stuff from simple, faithful teaching done well. It’s reassuring to remember that these young people may well stay in church all their lives – this isn’t their one chance at each book and topic we go for.

• this is where parents’ responsibility to teach their children comes in to its own. The sunday club teachers are going to be doing a great job, but their teaching won’t be exhaustive – there will be things missing, things that were too tricky for one kid or too basic for another. We easily rely on sundays to be our children’s big Bible meal, whereas it should be a tasty snack on top of all that we’ve been doing with them through the week. It may well be more memorable for the child but it is unlikely to be as significant and crucial as the day by day, along the road teaching from parent to child that happens at home.

In Sunday club the leaders are following what the adults are doing – this term it’s 1 Peter. I think this is exciting because it will really help us as parents to be better equipped to teach our kids and consolidate and follow up what happens on a sunday. It also challenges the sunday club leaders to be simple – which is pretty tricky with a letter, I think.

I’m going to continue to prepare stuff for Jennifer, who is sticking with Mikey inspite of our change of congregation. I’ll be giving updates of how on earth we teach 1 Peter to preschoolers through play! My brain is being stretched and I’m praying my all too cold heart will be warmed.