Children’s Ministry

At Holy Cross we are in an exciting phase of starting up a new ministry for children and families. Izzy Holmes was appointed as our Children’s Minister in 2021 and we are building up a new team and trying out different types of services and events. These include Friday ‘Toddler Church’ in term time, with songs, stories and crafts, and concerts for children. We have also hosted the diocesan Play Church, a portable, child-sized altar with child-sized vestments and communion vessels.

We’d love to have feedback from local children and families about what they’d like to see happening in our church. You can get in touch with Izzy, our Children’s Minister via families.hce@gmail.com. We also welcome contact from community groups and schools who would like to come along to one of our services or visit the church, or get involved in any other way. As an example, we are hosting evenings for the Brownies and Beavers to come and explore the church, learn a bit about its history, and find out the meaning of the things you see in church.

Children’s ministry at Holy Cross is based on up-to-date knowledge of child development. We acknowledge our children and young people as individuals in their own right, with their own gifts and ideas to bring into our community. It is for us adults to listen to them and to guide them. We welcome their questions, comments and criticisms, and their joyful and often amusingly timed noises. God put the wiggle in children!

We want to pass on the Christian faith in all its fullness to our children and young people, teaching them about our beliefs and traditions, offering them good music and beautiful liturgy, and allowing them to get involved with our worship. They might, for example, want to contribute to our music, help plan services, or serve at Mass. Younger children are often more spontaneous in their contributions, such as ‘helping’ the priest by putting battery tealights on the altar in the middle of the service…! They are welcome, too, and we hope that any encounter that any child or young person has with us is positive, and that they might find a home at Holy Cross.

All activities involving children and young people follow our safeguarding policy and are run by volunteers who have been vetted as required by government legislation.