Children and Youth

We love to welcome children and provide a Children's Corner, where young children can be with their parents during the service until they feel happy enough to join Lighthouse.

Our church operates a "Safe to Grow" policy, and all of our children's workers are DBS checked.

LIGHTHOUSE – Children's Church

Lighthouse runs during the morning services, after a short time of worship with the church family, during which we also celebrate communion all together twice a month.  During Lighthouse, the children have their own programme of activities, starting with prayer, a chat with refreshments, interactive stories, games, songs and crafts.

As there are just two “Lighthouse Keepers”, we operate Lighthouse during normal school term times, which enables the session content to remain fresh, but also gives the Lighthouse Keepers and the children a break from each other, as well as allowing both the Lighthouse Keepers and the children to be regularly included in the wider church services.

Lighthouse operates to encourage the children to develop their understanding of and have a relationship with God, through prayer, worship and hearing His Word in an age appropriate way, and to think about and apply this within their lives today.

The session content is found from many different sources, various lesson publications and the internet.  The books we were using at the beginning of the year, “God is Great”, “God’s Power” and “Celebrations” ran their course and were replaced by “Great Children’s Lesson” and “Praise Pray and Play”, which appear to have to captured their imaginations and held the children’s interest to a higher degree.

We have covered the many church calendar events such as Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and Remembrance, plus a series on The Fruits of the Spirit and latterly into sessions helping them to achieve that personal knowledge of and actions for Jesus under headings such as: 'Stay connected to Jesus', 'Sticking out for Jesus', 'Living like Jesus', 'Sharing Jesus with Others'.  The children's responses to these sessions have been good.  All that we have done has been very much Bible-based, readings and verses coming from all over the Old and New Testaments.

Lots of singing, games, sticking, colouring, cutting, reading & learning Bible verses, viewing relevant clips and cartoons, discussions and prayers.  The children have been bringing prayers that they have written during the week so we can start each session with their own prayers.

We thank God for our children, for enabling us to provide teaching and a safe environment in which to do it.  What a blessing God gives to both the children and the Lighthouse Keepers during this work.  It would be great if there were more children and helpers, but as ever we continue to rely solely on God and His future plans for Lighthouse. 

Please continue to pray for the children, the leaders and helpers, and the work in Lighthouse.

 Bideford Baptist Pre-School meets on our premises during the week.  The Pre-School's aim is to provide a safe and caring enviroment where children are given the opportunity to learn through play without fear of rejection or failure.

The Pre-School is run in two parts – The Pre-School caters for children aged between 2 and 5 years and operates Monday to Thursday, 9am - 4pm and Fridays 9am - 1pm.  The Toddler Group meets in the upstairs hall on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings 9.30am - 11.30am.  For more information, check out the Bideford Baptist Pre-School website.

http://www.bidefordbaptistpreschool.co.uk/