Grassroots: Toddler-group outreach in Dagenham

Hannah is the Children's worker at Becontree Church, Dagenham, East London.

I run a toddler group on a large council estate in Dagenham, East London. The group is made up of mums and grandparents from Romanian, Bulgarian, Nigerian and English backgrounds. Many new mums have little English, which can make communication tricky! The group is friendly but often just with their own country groups.

The group is a great opportunity for outreach as the families all live in walking distance and willingly come to us. Some of the Eastern Europeans have an orthodox or catholic background, but it doesn’t practically mean anything to them. They’re mostly unreached with the gospel, but they come into our building every week. In the past we’ve had a toddler Bible story and craft but nothing aimed just at the mums or that encourages discussion. I try and visit families in their homes to get to know them with a view to share the gospel—but it takes a while to see all families.

One of the biggest difficulties of running this group is the language barrier. We had a group of 15-20 mums each week and found it difficult to have gospel conversations weekly with them all. As we have no Christian mums with young children in church there weren’t any obvious connections between these families except at the group. 

I was first attracted to Wonderfully Made because it looked easy to use. As I don’t have any children myself, the idea of listening to an “experienced” mum on the DVD seemed helpful. It also seemed like good starting point. It was linked to mothers so had that point of connection for those coming to the group.

In the session we have a snack time for kids, just after this we have a snack time for adults. We get the mums to get the coffee in another part of the hall (nice sofas and biscuits for them). The other couple of toddler helpers look after the children why we have the “5-minute mum slot". We put up a screen to limit child distractions.

On the introduction week I played the DVD—but as the women had a poor level of English, I abandoned the idea pretty quickly. So I watched it in advance and used the Handbook as a base for the session.

I’d give adults a handout on the back of the craft for their child (so they’d have to take it home with them). I’d put introduction question(s), a Bible passage, and a closing question(s) – often from the "discuss" and "think about" section of the Wonderfully Made Handbook. I’d have the Bible translations in Bulgarian and Romanian to make it easier for some of them. 

I’d then base the toddler story on the topic to reinforce the message and the kid’s craft would be linked. 

It was the start for us in running a "mums time" as part of the group. It was a good introduction to get parents speaking to each other about parenting and their thoughts about who God is and how he made us to be.

When I do it again I will translate all the notes for parents. I started doing this when I realised parents couldn’t always follow. I’d probably try and add more visuals too – obviously if I had an English speaking group the DVD would work well.

We found that Wonderfully Made is a great springboard to conversations with mums. As it gets them speaking about life and then seeing how the Bible is actually relevant for what is going on with them day by day. It’s a non-offensive way to get talking about the gospel and opening the door to further conversations. Most churches I know run a toddler group of sorts and this is a good next step from a "stay and play with Bible story" group.

Have you used Wonderfully Made? How did you make it work in your context?

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