Page 82 - apr2023

April 2023 April 2023

involve children in the service once a month in any way we can. I am taking
more of a back seat now and younger people are coming through, and we have
a team of about seven committee members and helpers. I joined the Parochial
Church Council, the PCC, to defend Junior Church.

In about 2006 I was on a church course in Salisbury and saw a group using
puppets to singalong to “You Raise me Up” the song made popular by Westlife. It
was mesmerising and I thought it would be a perfect way to re-engage a couple
of Junior Church children who were becoming less interested. I took them along
to see the puppets and they were really taken with them. We performed our first
puppet song at a pets’ service in 2008. The young puppeteers and puppets went
on to win a ‘Pop In Award’ at the village show. By 2014 we had about 20
puppeteers and we are still using puppets and children each month in Junior
Church singing two songs, which we can move around in the service.
I’m a maverick. I like something a bit different. For example, at Christmas time
children in Junior Church make Happy Birthday Jesus cakes and deliver them to
the older people in the parish, our ‘Honoured Oldies’. We give a cake to as many
older people as we know about. We have done this now for about 10 years.

I am also involved in the Bible
Society’s ‘Open the Book’ which is a
national scheme. A trained and
supported team of volunteers go into
different local schools and tell or act
out the stories from the Bible. I am
part of a team of twelve and we go
into the schools in Bere Regis and
Wool once a fortnight. We don’t
evangelise, we just act out the story
in the school’s assembly. The Bible is
such huge influence on our culture it
is important that children know the

16 81