Vacancy for Senior Children & Families Lead

The Woodlands Church Family (WCF) is a vibrant, growing family of churches with six sites located across the city of Bristol and a vision to plant more. As we’ve grown, so too has our team, and we have an exciting opportunity for someone to join our team as Senior Children and Families Lead at Woodlands Central.

 As Woodlands Church Family we aim to disciple children and families to be connected, confident and equipped.

1. Connected
We aim to help children and families to connect with Jesus, with one another in friendships, in relationships with the church community and with a sense of belonging.

2.  Confident
We aim to help disciple children to be confident in their knowledge of who God is, to have a sense of their own identity in Christ and therefore confident enough to ask questions, explore faith and be curious.

3. Equipped
We aim to equip and support parents as they disciple their children with the help of the Holy Spirit. We aim to equip children with tools to help them to pray, read the bible and experience the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. We want to equip them to own their own faith in Jesus, to obey Jesus and to be empowered ministers to the world around them. 


About the Role
This position is a strategic leadership role to oversee and grow the Children’s and Families ministries at Woodlands involving leading, shaping and building an expanding children's ministry for children aged 0-11.  

This includes planning ministry programmes, events and outreach initiatives throughout the year. You will lead and line manage the staffed Children’s Team and through them recruit, train and support a large team of volunteers. You will oversee the Families Ministry including daytime groups and events, equipping parents to disciple their children in the home.  

Candidates should be highly motivated, enthusiastic, able to take initiative, work well in a team and be passionate to see children grow in their faith.

Requirements: This role requires a commitment to be a follower of Jesus and a member of Woodlands Central.

To find out more about this role, download the following documents:


Terms
This is a permanent position contracted at a minimum of 3 days per week (22 hours 30 mins) with the possibility of more hours being added and the role potentially becoming a full-time position.

The salary band for this role is £29,000 - £31,000 pro rata, depending on experience. The annual holiday entitlement is 25 days pro rata plus 8 days bank holiday pro rata.

The role will be based at Woodlands Central in Clifton, Bristol.

The post is subject to satisfactory references.

We have a legal responsibility to ensure that all our employees have the legal right to live and work in the UK. Therefore, please only apply if you are eligible to work in the UK as we will have to verify this before you can start work.


How to apply

The closing date for applications is midnight on Friday 28th March 2025. However, this vacancy will close once we have sufficient applications. 

Please contact Rachel Riddall, Senior Leader at Woodlands Central at rachel.riddall@woodlandschurch.net if you have any questions about the role.

If shortlisted, interviews will take place at Woodlands Church on the afternoon of Friday 4th April 2025.

For an application form please contact our HR Administrator Jenny Hanley at hr@woodlandschurch.net.

Please send your completed application to Rachel Riddall at rachel.riddall@woodlandschurch.net and our HR Lead Julia Shrimpton hr@woodlandschurch.net.

Join us for Lent 2025

As Lent begins we want to invite you to join with us thinking about and celebrating the Easter story.

For many churches around the world Lent is like a journey where we join together with the whole church world wide, including our brothers and sisters in the persecuted church. It’s a time of drawing closer to God and thinking about the events of that one week that changed the course of human history.

In 2025, Lent begins on Wednesday 5th March and ends on Thursday 17th April.

This year, why not choose a bible reading plan that will help you follow the story of Jesus’ journey to the cross? Lent culminates in Holy Week, when as a church we try to find ways of pausing each day to remember the specific events of that week, including our Good Friday service and Easter Sunday celebration at Woodlands.

Nowadays there is a wealth of free digital bible plans available online and in apps.


DIGITAL LENT RESOURCES

The following resources are available through the Bible App which is completely free, with no advertising and no in-app purchases, or access plans direct from their website version of the Bible online.

Additional free app based daily devotionals from 24-7 Prayer:

  • Lectio 365 
    A free daily devotional resource that helps you pray the Bible every day, inspired by Lectio Divina, a way of meditating on the Bible that’s been used by Christians for centuries.

  • Lectio for Families 
    Free devotional app that helps families read the Bible and explore faith together.

  • Inner Room 
    A Lent prayer series, available through the Inner Room app. The app has morning, afternoon, and evening prayers designed to bring you back into the presence of God for a few minutes throughout your day. This year their theme is ‘what’s shaping you?’, with an invitation to choose to be shaped by God this Lent. 

Volunteer Opportunity: Children's Team Administrator

The Woodlands Church Family (WCF) is a vibrant, growing family of churches with eight sites located across the city of Bristol and a vision to plant more. As we’ve grown, so too have our teams, and we have an exciting volunteering opportunity within our Children’s Church team at Woodlands Central.


JOIN THE TEAM

We are recruiting for volunteers to join our Children’s Church team to support and underpin some key administrative work for the team at Woodlands Central. We’d love to hear from you if you’re interested and Children’s team admin is something that sounds like an area you’d be interested in helping with!

Key areas of work include:

  • Volunteer rota checks for acceptances/declines and highlighting gaps where more volunteers are needed.

  • Processing all new children’s church volunteers through the recruitment process.

  • Processing new children into groups on ChurchSuite.

  • Transfer Sunday registers of attendance to ChurchSuite records.

  • Assist with setting up meeting dates and sending out invitations.

  • General administration as delegated by children’s church leaders e.g. booking a venue space in the building, sending prewritten emails to groups e.g. for one off events.

Personal attributes and key skills

  • Strong administration skills with an eye for detail

  • Good written communication skills

  • Administering confidential information in line with our Data Protection Policy

  • Team player

Our volunteer roles require a commitment to be a follower of Jesus and a worshipping member of the Woodlands Church Family.

Could you commit to around one day a week to support this ministry? Ideally it would be helpful, if you have availability during the day, to meet with the children’s minister on a Monday between 11.30am - 12.30pm to run through weekly tasks but there is flexibility as to when the rest of the hours/tasks are delivered in the week. You’d be very welcome to join us at our Children’s team meeting too.

Support in volunteering role
You’ll be given in-house training on Data Protection and the use of our ChurchSuite database if needed.

You are also welcome to join in with our wider Central team time on Monday mornings from 10am - 11am where we gather to worship, pray, share good news and have input from key members of the team.


Hannah Dunmall
Assistant Children’s Minister

INTERESTED?

Please contact our Assistant Children’s Minister Hannah at hannah.dunmall@woodlandschurch.net for an opportunity to meet and discuss the role further.


Seasons of the Soul Series

Seasons of the Soul Series

Finding God in every season of life

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.
- Ecclesiastes

We all love to be in seasons of prospering, success and fruitfulness, where we sense God’s blessing on what we are doing. Of course! Most of us have also experienced seasons of suffering too, where external pressures or internal pressures can impact our sense of well-being and make us question what our lives are meant to look like. Seasons come and go and these ancient words from the book of Ecclesiastes tell us that all of this is normal human experience. It may be more accurate to say that parts of our lives can appear to be in different seasons - whilst one thing is dying, another may be coming to life.  Age sometimes seems to correlate with seasons, maturity bringing fruit into our lives that was elusive in younger years.

One idea that can help us navigate the ebb and flow of blessing and hardship in our lives is the idea that just as there are seasons in nature, our lives can follow similar patterns. A winter season can look very dark but God may be at work in the darkness doing essential work in us. Work we can cooperate with or resist. Some people talk about the ‘seasons of the soul’  --  if you had to choose the one you are currently in, what would you say?

This series is called Seasons of the Soul and is all about finding God in every season of life. The series is really asking the question ‘What is God doing in your lifeat the moment? How can you cooperate with the work of the Spirit in your life as he seeks to renew and heal your mind and body to make you more like Jesus?’ We want to give you an opportunity to think, reflect and pray about where you are at with God and allow him to work in the deeps of your soul.

Here’s what we’re hearing about each week in our messages on Sundays:

  • Winter - 2nd February

  • Spring – 9th February

  • Summer – 16th February

  • Autumn – 23rd February

Download our discussion notes to go deeper with the topics each week. This also includes recommended reading and signing up for our Wholeness Course as well:


MESSAGES FROM THIS SERIES

Winter | 2nd Feb 2025 at 11am

Spring | 9th Feb 2025 at 11am

Summer | 16th Feb at 11am

Autumn | 23rd Feb at 11am

Winter | 2nd Feb 2025 at 6.30pm

Spring | 9th Feb 2025 at 6.30pm

Summer | 16th Feb at 6.30pm

Autumn | 23rd Feb at 6.30pm

Wholeness Course Starts 25th Feb

Wholeness: Explore Identity

Explore how our lives can be established on the sure foundation of our God given identity. This is a course with stories of breakthrough, teaching, including our ‘Spiritual spring clean’ and opportunities for receiving prayer.

Our next Wholeness 1: Explore Identity course will be taking place over 6 weeks beginning the 25th February and running on Tuesday evenings from 8pm - 10pm at Woodlands. To sign up follow the link below.

sign up

To find out more about the wholeness course head to the webpage here.


Hear some Testimony’s from the Wholeness Course

Refresh Group for Mums and Little Ones

On Thursday mornings at 10am in The Crypt, we offer mums with little ones a chance to meet up, share a cuppa, refresh and pray with one another.

This group is specifically aimed at supporting the well-being of mums and their little ones.

Why not check out our Tiny Treasures Toddlers group that meets on Wednesday mornings at 10am in term time.


GET IN TOUCH

For more information about Woodies Kids - get in touch with the children's church team by filling in the contact form below.

Lorna Savage
Senior Families & Children’s Lead

Hannah Paton
Children’s Minister

Immanuel Series: Life Giver | Tim Dobson | 15th December 2024 at 11am

Immanuel Series

God with us

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

This series aims to explore the mystery of Jesus entering our world.

Immanuel: Peace Bringer | Dave Mitchell | 8th December 2024 at 7pm

Immanuel Series

God with us

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

This series aims to explore the mystery of Jesus entering our world.

Immanuel Series: Peace Bringer | Dave Mitchell | 8th December 2024 at 11am

Immanuel Series

God with us

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

This series aims to explore the mystery of Jesus entering our world.

Immanuel Series: God with us | Dave Mitchell | 1st December 2024 at 11am

Immanuel Series

God with us

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

This series aims to explore the mystery of Jesus entering our world.

Immanuel: God with Us | Rachell Riddall | 1st December 2024 at 6.30pm

Immanuel Series

God with us

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

This series aims to explore the mystery of Jesus entering our world.

WATCH SERVICE

Immanuel Series

Immanuel Series

God with us

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign:
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
- Isaiah 7:14


Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name
Immanuel, which means, God with us.
- Matthew 1:23

People often go home for Christmas. No matter how many messages, virtual meetings, or posted cards and gifts - there is nothing like someone’s actual physical presence in the room. When someone you love comes home, tears often flow. Human beings are wired for this — we are reassured and filled with joy by touching, hearing and seeing someone in our time and space. When Jesus entered into human history he entered our reality, our circumstances, our families, our work lives, our most secret and public lives. And it changed everything.

Perhaps still reeling from the experience he had just been through John started his letter with these words about Jesus: We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life.
- 1 John 1:1 NLT

C. S Lewis called earth ‘the visited planet’. This Christmas amongst the busyness and festivities we are taking time to ponder again the profound mystery of Jesus entry into our world. He is “Immanuel” which means “God is with us”.

Here’s what we’re hearing about each week in our messages on Sundays:

  • 1st December: God With Us

  • 8th December: Peace Bringer

  • 15th December: Life Giver

Download our discussion notes to go deeper with the topics each week. This also includes recommended reading and a video to watch as well:


MESSAGES FROM THIS SERIES