Questions to explore when starting out:
- Why do you want CYF in your church?
- Do you have a vision for CYF Ministry? Have you communicated it?
- How are you praying for CYP?
- Where are the children and young people in your community?
- Who is in your congregation?
- What is your current engagement with CYP?
- What do CYP need in your parish and how can you meet that?
- What’s your church’s strength according to your tradition (e.g. choir, estate ministry, youth work)? What can you do sustainably?
- How are you communicating with people outside your congregation?
Book a catch-up with us
We would love to support you to launch or grow your CYPF ministry – please email us at [email protected]
There is also introductory training for anyone wanting to start their church’s CYP ministry. Read about training opportunities here.
Our 4 Welcome Toolkits
The CYP team can walk you through toolkits designed to grow or launch your children, youth and/or family ministry
First Steps – For those with no or few children or young people
The First Steps booklet provides a framework to enable churches to begin, re-start or reimagine their welcome and inclusion of children, young people and their families. Once you have completed all sections, you will have decided your vision, values and action plan.
Decision Making and Inclusion – Enabling CYP to have a valued voice
The latest part of this toolkit, the Decision-Making and Inclusion, is now available to download. This has been developed to help parishes to take a fresh look at how decisions are made regarding their work with children and young people and how to include them within this process.
Decision-Making and Inclusion toolkit (pdf)
We encourage you to create a group to look through this self-evaluation course, ideally including your CYP parish rep, Incumbent or Churchwarden. We also encourage you to include children and young people in the group, to enable you to see things through their eyes.
Mission and Outreach – Enabling CYP to be active in faith
Perhaps your church is considering how to reach new families or looking for ways to involve your existing young people in mission?
The Mission and Outreach booklet will help you map out opportunities and work out your next steps.
Spirituality – Helping CYP grow deeper in faith
If you are looking to explore the opportunities your church has to enable children and young people to encounter and deepen their relationship with God, then take a look at the Spirituality and Relationship with God booklet.
