In April this year we held an event in Tayvallich Church to explore how we can respond to the Church of Scotland’s challenge that we make 2018 the Year of Young People locally.
At the event which was attended by a number of people from the church and also from other organisations in Mid-Argyll we completed a “Children and Young People Health Check” which had been produced by the Church of Scotland to help us to evaluate our current engagement with children and young people.
This is a short summary of the outcomes from that “Health Check” for North Knapdale.

The “Health Check” is in the form of 18 Questions or statements on what we think is our church’s current position in relation to our engagement with children and young people.
There were 3 sections of the Questionnaire:
Section 1 “Being Church together”, the place of young people in the church services;
Section 2 “Forming Together”, the way the church and young people are encouraged and develop faith together;
Section 3 exploring the church’s engagement with, and connection to young people in the community.

The main points from the answers submitted are:

There is a wide range of views on where our church currently stands in our relationship with, connection to, and impact on children and young people in the parish.

We are weak in all the areas of the “Health check”.

The two lowest scoring questions were:
“We are all growing in our discipleship – including children and young people”

“Our church recognises and supports children and young people with the problems they face in their daily lives.”

The two highest scoring questions were:

“Our Church takes seriously Jesus challenge to welcome and include children and young people”

“Our church values children’s and young people’s presence in our main worship gatherings”

What can we do to improve our connections with young people?
Is this important for us?

If you have any ideas, can give any time or resources, and want to talk about this further in the church, please let the minister or any of the elders know and we can see if we can get something happening for our young people in this area.