My adventure with Bubble Church began at the beginning of this year when I took on the new role of Bubble Church Mission Enabler. Bubble Church is a stand-alone Sunday church service especially for little ones and their families to worship together. It’s a puppet-packed, Jesus-centred, coffee-and-croissant-fuelled, 30 minute kids and families adventure! This is what it looks like. It began in response to families needing to ‘stay in their bubble’ during Covid but has continued to bring in new families week on week, right up to the present day. Many of these families would not normally have attended church but love being involved together. Here’s what some of the families have said about Bubble Church.
Having been part of the Children & Youth Team at the Diocese, I was excited about the intergenerational nature of Bubble Church – families worshipping together in an accessible way. I knew God was calling me to make the leap into this new space and I have loved building with churches and seeing the impact Bubble Church has had on their communities. Since Covid, many churches have found themselves with less families, and people in general. Bubble Church is a fresh opportunity to connect with young families in a way that suits this demographic.
At Bubble Church we always say three things: Give, Help, Pray. These are principles that can be found in any church and we say them every week. People have an opportunity to give, there is someone to pray with them at the end of the service or they can complete a prayer card and we encourage families to get involved by helping. Many of the families have joined the team and we have very small children in team t-shirts helping alongside their parents. As you can see in the ‘what is looks like’ video above, you can see that some of the older children who are starting to outgrow Bubble Church are able to help lead the service as well as take on other roles. Not only is Bubble Church a great space for young families to worship together, it also provides opportunities to grow faith and develop skills from the youngest to the oldest, as well as a community to belong to.
One of our children, aged 8 who helps to lead services said:
“Bubble Church is different to other churches because most churches don’t really have puppets and things, usually they don’t have a kids service, you just stay for a bit of the normal service then you go into a group. But with Bubble Church you can stay in and there are things you can do. Children don’t usually get to lead. You just sit down in most churches but you can do action songs in Bubble Churches. I help with the games, the songs, demonstrate things and do the actions. You get to show them what’s in the bags and things.”
Another of our service assistants, aged 10 said:
“My favourite thing about Bubble Church is the people in it, they’re really kind, they give you compliments. And when you get home you feel like you’re a good person and you can do many things. And they let you do things that you can’t do outside of church.”
With the help of Innovation Funding from national church, we are beginning to take Bubble Church beyond Balham. We have four other Bubble Churches across London and Southwark Diocese and one said:
“Bubble Church is absolutely the best thing I’ve ever been involved in. We have new families coming to church and the kids all love it! We keep being asked to run it every Sunday!
There’s such a buzz around Bubble Church, it’s fun and easy to run and we feel well supported.”
Bubble Church works across different church traditions and in spaces where church services already happen. In the case of fixed pews, a church hall also works and, if church already happens in a community space, that’s a possibility too. Of the two churches running in Southwark, one has seen numbers double since they started. The other is an Anglo-Catholic church who have started completely from scratch – they had no contact with any families or children and have gone from 0 to 20 people in less than six months. It has been really exciting to see the growth but also the enthusiasm from the team and the families who keep coming back! We have also developed a learning community with the other churches so we can learn from each other and continue to hone what Bubble Church is. We offer support and expertise along with making all of our resources available to those who run Bubble Church.
Since the National Church made the video above, we have had well over 100 enquiries about churches potentially running their own Bubble Churches and that number continues to rise. Southwark churches are in the special position of being provided with funding from the Fresh Expressions team to cover much of the start-up cost. We will be running some initial Zoom meetings across different days and times where you can get a bit more information and find out if Bubble Church might work for your church. You can register for the Zooms here.
This is definitely a wonderful start for me to join in with something God has already been doing. I’d love to see your church be part of this adventure too. If you’d like to connect in with me, head to www.bubblechurch.org.
