Bubble Church

Ministers from St Mary's attended training on Wednesday 15th July to lead a new initiative for Haverhill: Bubble Church.

Launching here on the first Sunday in October, Bubble Church is a Sunday church service especially for babies, toddlers and young families. It's a puppet-packed, Jesus-centred, coffee-and-food fuelled, 30-minute kids and families adventure. Here's the deal: you turn up 10 minutes before it starts for refreshments, before being guided to a family 'bubble'. You and your little ones will share in 30 minutes of song, story, puppet and prayer.

It is a national resource being offered in communities around the country - and even internationally. Since it began in 2020 as a way of enable families to worship with their social 'bubble', it is now live in hundreds of churches and congregations in a whole variety of different contexts.

Lay and ordained ministers from Haverhill joined with others from across the diocese to share in a full day's programme of training, networking and sharing resources. It was an opportunity to find out how the service works, hear from others who have already started to run it, practise the art of puppetry and story-telling and access professionally designed materials and resources.

The Revd Max Drinkwater, rector, said, 'Bubble Church is a proven way of offering something to families with young children, who have previously rarely engaged with church activities. It gives them an easy and accessible way of being introduced to prayer, worship and liturgy and to hear stories from the Bible, as well as to feel as though they are taking part and contributing to the life of the church in this place. Thank you to those who took the time to undertake the training today, which was informative and great fun!'

Look out for more information about Bubble Church in Haverhill coming soon, and spread the word to anyone you think might be interested.