The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

1/5/2012

Admitting Children to Communion Stephen Tucker

On May 10th at 8 pm in church we shall be having our final consultation meeting addressing the question of allowing children to receive communion before confirmation.  At that meeting the Reverend Marjorie Brown, Vicar of St Mary’s, Primrose Hill, will be describing for us the way in which they implemented this proposal at her church and what effect it has had on their church life. 

I do hope you will be able to come to this as we need to hear as many of your views as possible in order to help the PCC come to its final decision.  So far, some people have expressed anxiety as to whether this might downgrade the importance of confirmation in people’s minds and whether 7 and 8 year-old children are old enough to understand the significance of receiving communion.  Others feel that this would serve to strengthen children’s sense of being important members of church life and would help us make confirmation a more important event as it would come later on when they were teenagers and so help them to make a more mature affirmation of their place in the life of the church.

Please do come to this meeting as this is a very important decision the PCC has to make.