CGMC Day Conference

UK Population

• 63 million• 18% 0-14 5.6m boys 5.3m girls

15.7% 65+ 4.0m men 5.5m women

26.4 million Households 29% single person 18.2 million families

UK Families26.4million Households 29% single person 20% 4+ 18.2 million families – 38% with dependent children• 12.2 million married couples• 2.9 million cohabiting (1.5m 1996) 1.8m children

(0.9m 1996)• 2.0 million lone parents (1.6m 1996)• 89,000 looked after children• Fertility rate 1964 2.95 2001 1.63 2011 1.97 (Replacement rate 2.075)

Childhood in Britain

• Commercialisation• Sexualisation• Media-fication• Family Breakdown• Poverty• Education

Reports • Compass –Commercialisation of C 2008;• UNICEF Report Card 2007 & 2012• Children’s Society – Good Childhood 2009 ++• Mothers’ Union – Bye Buy Childhood 2010• Bailey – Letting Children be Children 2011• Action for Children – Child Neglect Review 2011• Loughborough University• Sue Palmer – Toxic Childhood

Children & Church• 2010 - 375,800 under 15s • 2020 - 183,700??• 1998-2005 104,000 left (256,000 predicted)• Baptist Union 2009-10 Children +2.5% 78,648 Young people +3.5% 39,602Most people come to faith before they are 1325% Primary Schools in England C of E 8% Secondary Schools1,000,000 children in church schools

Children & Christian Story

• 38% 5-7 year olds didn’t know Christmas Day celebrates birth of Jesus (DJ Research 2012)

• 20% Thought - Simon Cowell’s b’day• Basic details about the Easter story are

known by as few as half of the people polled in a survey.

Theology• Human Development –

Attachment, Brain, Morality, Cognition 0-7, Play

• Faith Development Theories – Fowler & Westerhoff

• Children’s Spirituality – Rebecca Nye, Jerome Berryman

• Child Theology Movement – Keith White

• Brueggemann – ‘Missed the child in the Scriptures’

Study & Training

• Yet how much of this context do we allow to shape our study and training?

• How seriously do we ‘place the child in the midst’ and see what happens?

• How are we helping future leaders to ‘become like a child?’