Here's the killer. This is one which can't be confused or shirked away from I'm afraid. The dreaded coming to church promise. Do we really honestly expect people to come back to church after the baptism service? Er, well, yes actually. If you stand there and make the promise as a parent or godparent we take you at your word that you value church, you want to be a part of it and that we are going to be seeing you most weeks. Sadly many parents and godparents come along for the baptism and then never bother coming back again. If that's going to be the case with you then please don't stand there and say that you will.

Why should you come to church with a small child though? Isn't that sheer madness? 

Well in some churches maybe so, but not at Pennington Church. We all know there are churches where children should be seen and not heard, where there's very little to engage them and a great deal to make you as a parent feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. At Pennington we delight in being a family friendly church, and families start from the first moment of pregnancy through to when a child grows up and leaves home. At Pennington church you'll find plenty of young families with children of all ages. As a result we always put on various groups for the young people at every 10.30am service each sunday. The older ones go over to Church House where they join in with kids their own age for fun activities, prayer, worship and learning something about God through the Bible led by very able and experienced youth ministers who have all been thoroughly police checked (we take Child Protection very seriously here). 

The youngest members of our church family (the 0's to 4's) stay in the main church building for a fun filled creche. the creche meets either in the foyer behind the main worship area or down in the old choir vestry room which is just down a few steps as you come in the main door to your left. Sometimes, when the creche is really full we split it into two groups for 0's to 2's and 2's to 4's, and one group meets in the choir vestry while the other meets in the foyer.

As you can see, coming to church with your children actually affords you a little rest and time for you as an adult to meet other adults, worship God without worrying about your children, and learning more about what it means to be a christian in the 21st century through our Biblical teaching. 

Your child will learn its values for life through the exampe you set it. If your life is too busy to include 2 hours of going to church on a sunday then your child will have a life which is also too busy to include finding 2 hours to go to church on a sunday. If you show your child that learning what the Bible teaches is not important enough to you to bother with, then your child will also grow up not being bothered to learn what the Bible says either. 

However, if you show by your example that belonging to and being a regular part of a lving church family is important in your family then you can expect your child to grow up surrounded by a host lof loving and supportive people who care about you and your children. They will grow up with true Christian values and be a positive part of our world.