Faith at Home Bags

Here is the article, written by Steph, that appeared in the Diocese of Exeter's bulletin about work with Children and Families.

Faith at home bags

In Sampford Peverell Team Mission Community we have been prayerfully gathering resources for our set of Faith at Home Bags - a set of activity bags specially designed for our children and families to hire and use in their own homes. We launched the project at the beginning of the first Covid lockdown, as a way of keeping in touch with our families, and they are now successfully being used by several families in our area.  The idea for the Faith at Home Bags was born out of the concept of ‘family games evenings’.  Instead of reaching for the game board, we thought why not reach for the Faith at Home bag instead and enjoy some family time together growing in faith. Solidly based on scripture, each bag contains a range of activities that promote discussion, educate and hopefully inspire. The bags are jammed full of exciting objects, games and books, based on a range of Christian themes. The contents range from card games to puppets, ornaments to quizzes. They are many and varied. Each bag also contains a DVD, a music CD, a Bible story book and Bible passages, plus worksheets, anagrams, cryptograms, dot to dot, word searches and colouring sheets.  We were very lucky to receive funding from Scripture Union to produce the bags and have been very blessed to have the support of members of our congregations who knitted Bible characters, donated resources and supported us with prayers.  As a team of churches, we had begun to acknowledge that we have a part to play in helping our children and families grow in faith at home, as well as in our churches, schools and the wider community. Whilst we were seeing many families at our monthly activities such as our Messy Church and Sundaze, we were only seeing them once a month - what about the weeks in-between?  The Faith at Home bags are a great start for us in developing support for at families at home. But there is always more that can be done. We would love our bags to grow over time, depending upon the needs of our families. Perhaps you could help us with this? Do you know of some great resources we could include in the bags?  Maybe you have come across a great activity or puzzle sheet on a particular topic. Or maybe you have a game you no longer use that you would be willing to share with others. We really would love to hear from you.  We also hope that by hearing our story, you may be inspired to do something similar in your setting. We really hope it ignites something in you and your churches.