A vision for ‘Family Time’
The Youth and Children’s Department have just produced a brand new resource to support faith in the family called ‘Family Time’.
It was developed out of an observed significant decline in the practice of families spending time with children to talk about faith and values and hopefully it will make it easier for adults to spend some time talking about faith with children regardless of
where they are on their own faith journey.
It contains 2 basic sections –the first one on advice for simple, everyday prayers and the second one containing 99 family devotions. These devotions are designed to be able to be completed in around 10 minutes with little preparation and are split into 4 sections:
Devotions for daily living –For example, appearance, worry, giving, arguing and so on. Devotions for significant occasions –such as a birthday but also occasions in the Church year Devotions for learning the Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments and Apostles’ Creed Introductory devotions on Christianity
The vision is to make this book available FREE to any family in Ireland that would like a copy.
At a time when families are under financial as well as time pressure it would be a great message and ministry if churches and Christian organisations were able to make available to families one of these books for free. This doesn’t mean printing one for every family in Ireland but rather having copies that can be given free to those families that are interested in receiving one.
This means that the book could be used for:
Giving to families attending church or with children at church–based organisations
Reconnecting with families that may have had children baptised at church
Giving to the parents of children that attend your organisation or programme
Outreach to local communities and schools
Mission and back to church initiatives (perhaps with an accompanying invite/bookmark)
Making it available for families to pick up in foyers and reception areas
Complimenting Sunday School prize giving
The Church of Ireland is already committed to making a small amount available for churches but individual parishes may also be looking to order further copies. If your church or organisation wishes to purchase copies to be able to give away free then they can be ordered for the cost price of only 80p or 1 euro.
The book will be launched with an accompanying website in the autumn but in the meantime if you need more information please contact Andrew Brannigan on (+44) 28 9082 8855 or andrew@downanddromore.org