Chat and catch 

Chat and Catch is a framework created by Parenting for Faith that encourages children to communicate with God on their own terms – and then to hear from Him.
 
Kate Irvine, Parenting for Faith Support Coordinator and former Children’s Ministry Leader at Chipping Campden Baptist Church, explains more

 
 
“I always go back to the story of Eli and Samuel, when Samuel heard from God,” explains Kate. “As parents and church leaders we're very good at being the high priest and praying for our children or praying with our children.
 
“But actually, I think deep down our main responsibility is for each and every child to connect with God themselves. We want them to have that two-way alive relationship with God.
 
“Chat and Catch is one way I’ve seen work in lots of different settings and denominations.”
 
 
Chat
 
The ‘chatting’ element simply encourages children to use informal language, as well as non-verbal forms, to communicate with God. It could be anything. Parenting for Faith has created a resource of 101 questions children could ask God, but the idea is just to start communicating with Him.
 
“For chatting, we use questions for the child to talk to God directly, rather than adult getting in the middle,” Kate says.
 
“When I was working for the church, I would do this in a group about 30 kids, all different ages.
 
“We give them pieces of paper and pens if that's the way they would prefer to talk to God, but we really encourage them to chat.
 
“Anything over six years they can do this in their head. Anyone under six we encourage them to whisper to their hand or give them a pillow to whisper into. And they get it! It's just a very natural thing to chat to.
 
“Questions might include: tell God your favourite colour; tell God the best thing about today; tell God what's made you frightened during the week.
 
“It can be a vast array of questions, but all you're doing is encouraging them to talk to God themselves.
 
“On paper, it shouldn't work, but the reality is they really engaged with it.”
 
 
Catch
 
‘Catching’ is simply training them to recognise and respond to God’s voice – however he chooses to speak.
 
It works on the premise God loves speaking to his people and has created us to be able to hear him. Because we all have our own individual relationship with God, chat and catch will look different for each of us, explains Kate.
 
“We talk about how God speaks to us through the Bible, how God can speak to us through pictures and words or music, or our gut feelings, a wave of emotion or friends - how God can speak through all sorts of different ways. We gently go through the different things.
 
“Some children say they can't hear anything, and we explain it's like when you're learning to play football, you have to practise. To catch, you have to practise catching.
 
“We also talk about sometimes how we can catch wrong, so we need to tally up with what the Bible says or test it out with a wise person.”
 
 
 
Learn more about Chat and Catch: parentingforfaith.brf.org.uk/tool/chat-and-catch
 
Session 4 and Session 5 of the Parenting for Faith course – free to download – cover Chat and Catch in detail 
 
Free resource: 101 ways to start a conversation with God

 
Kate Irvine is the Parenting for Faith Support Coordinator and former Children’s Ministry Leader at Chipping Campden Baptist Church 

This article accompanies the Summer 2024 edition of Baptists Together magazine, which had a focus on prayer