CHURCH RUN BY CHILDREN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19583, 12 September 1925, Page 13

CHURCH RUN BY CHILDREN.

EALING’S SPECIAL BUILDING. BOYS AS DEACONS. Ealing children will shortly have a church of their very own. For more than a year Little Church has been held in connection with the Congregational Church, Ealing Green. The children go to the ordinary service and the file out to a room where they hold their own service. Boys and girls form a choir, and there is a diaoonate, on which there are only boys at present. The deacons’ meeting, once a week, is an important gathering They decide who shall bo the readers at the next service, who shall take the collection, and what hymns shall be sung. Should any member of the congregation be ill, it is decided who shall take flowers to the sufferer, and so on. The children have their own service book, called “My Church Book.” There are pages for the child’s record of attendances at Little Church, and the book also includes texts to be learnt at nine years of age, Bible passages at 10, hymns at 11, and poetry at 12. Michael Rix, son of the minister, .who thought ont the plan of little Church, told a visitor about the new, Little Church to bo built at the back of the parent church, and in which children alone will worship. Michael said he had been a deacon until lately, but had had to resign because of homework. “However,” ho said, ‘T hope to rejoin the diaconate shortly.” The deacons of little Church are at present somewhat divided on ’-o question of the admittance of “women’ to their body. There were more hoys than girls at the first little Church. “There is not exactly an objection to girls beoom'ng deacons,” Michael said, “bur •uost of vho boys arsm »o tldnV it would bo