In December 2019, both Beccles Parish and St Edmundsbury Cathedral received a Growing in God Growth Fund grant of £794 each to begin Starting Rite – a five-session programme providing spiritual nurture for new parents and babies.
Each Starting Rite session explores different Christian themes through activities like peek-a-boo, blowing bubbles and splashing water.
"One week we read together ‘Guess how much I love you’ and noticed how the line ‘I love you to the moon and back' is similar to the way that God loves us…. Words are not enough to express this love.”
The programmes have also encouraged parents to reflect honestly on faith and provided a safe place to ask questions. In reaction to playing peek-a-boo, one mother said, “sometimes it feels like there is a God and sometimes not.”
Starting Rite enables local churches to offer a welcome to all new parents, and at the groups parents and their babies have been invited to certain church services, such as Mothering Sunday. Volunteers from the church congregations have also been attending the Starting Rite sessions so that there would be some familiar friendly faces if/when they come along to a service.
Although the remaining Starting Rite sessions and Sunday services were cancelled due to coronavirus, good relationships were built and there is excitement to restart once lockdown eases. And we are excited to share that one mum has even asked for her baby to be baptised!
Photo by Anne-Marie Large.
