“Daunted, but also excited”. That’s how Rachel Fasham describes her new role at Christ Church. It’s part of the Diocese of Birmingham’s Growing Younger initiative which aims to reach out to children and their families with the good news of the Gospel. Here she explains why she took on this role and what she will be doing.

I first heard about this new post early in 2015, and was immediately excited about it. I had been a primary school teacher for over 10 years but wanted a change from the challenges of teaching and was praying that God would open up new opportunities to me.

It took some time for the funding for the post to be confirmed, and I then had to complete a handover period in my previous job. I was particularly encouraged by last Autumn’s sermon series on sharing our faith and have found myself many times over the last few months thinking “Yes, I want to be that person”. I had to be patient!

One of the things that excites me about this role is that it is new, so there are no rules stating what I have to do. It will keep evolving to meet the needs of the people concerned. I am open to hearing what God wants me to do and the places he wants me to be. And it isn’t just about me: I aim to equip people in Christ Church, who have such incredible gifts, to be a part of this journey too.

Leaving teaching will bring huge changes for me and my family, which will take time to get used to. The job is part time, which is something I was looking for, as I wanted to be able to pick my daughter up from school and be more involved in her school life. Our income will be reduced, but the talks on the last Weekend Away assured me that if you step out in faith then God will be there to guide you, he will provide everything that you need and you will never be without.

Rachel’s role

Although the job role is not fully defined, here are 4 areas that I know I will be starting with:

• Building links with local schools: not just taking assemblies, but finding others ways to serve too
• Supporting Messy Church: building deeper relationships with the families that attend and encouraging new families to join
• Working with the Baby and Toddler Group and looking at ways we can develop this important ministry
• Building relationships with the uniformed organisations that use our building each week: I have helped to run a Brownie group myself

Find out more about related activities on our Children and Messy Church pages.