Church must provide ‘safe space’ for children, says bishop

The Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill made the comments in a presidential address to the Lichfield Diocesan Board of Finance and Synod last week.

Pointing to the findings of the Good Childhood Report from the Children’s Society, he said children needed loving families and good friendships to grow.

He also said children needed “enough money so that they are not ashamed in front of others”. The report, he said, showed that “too many just don’t have most of those things”.

The bishop said churches needed to provide a safe place for children and teenagers to meet and play but noted a recent report by the Ven Bob Jackson which found that 80 per cent of churches in Lichfield Diocese have no proper provision for children or young people’s work.

“If we know these things but do not do them, perhaps we are in danger of stricter judgement than those of our neighbours who don’t know,” said Bishop Gledhill.

Raising the level of children’s work is part of the ongoing growth strategy for the diocese, which has already seen an increase in the number of children attending its churches.

“But we have some way to go before we get back to the expectation that every church will have a proper children’s work, let alone back to the 1950s situation when over 40 per cent of the population went to Sunday School,” he said.

“Unless we care properly for (children) we will never grow the Kingdom, because ‘of such is the Kingdom of God’.”

The bishop added that the “glorification of the individual” and “duty of a person to look after themselves first” were behind the present banking crisis and MPs’ expenses scandal.