ROSIE HORRIDGE, a lay pioneer minister at St George’s, Tufnell Park, in north London, created Baby Days in 2019: a space for new mothers to explore the spirituality of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood.
“My instinct is that there are figures in church communities who have always had a calling to nurture other new mums. I suspect that’s always been there under the radar. But that relies on you being a member of a church community already. Whereas my interest, as a pioneer, was on connecting with new mums who were at the edges of established church life, or outside it altogether.
“I found it hard to connect with a support network after I had my first child, Elijah. It’s an enormous pastoral moment when a whole section of your life stops, and then the new one starts. I didn’t have a spiritual structure, and really needed one.
“A few years later, while I was undertaking my pioneer training, my husband happened to be reading Tina Hodgett’s chapter in the book Pioneering Spirituality. In it, she described piloting a group in Bath for new mums and their babies, which she called Baby Days. As I read about it, I felt an immediate sense of urgency, thinking, ‘I have to do this here.’
“We ran a six-week pilot, and it was truly special, going so deep. Over time, it gradually evolved into something called The Sandpit, which is now a monthly brunch.” Ms Horridge emphasises that this is more than a mother-and-baby group, as it is focused on nurturing the nurturers.
“It was safe, but not overtly ‘churchy’, and we had the living room set up with sofas close to one another, soft blankets, soft lighting. The message was ‘Come in exactly as you are, have an experience of church and of God’s presence in a way that you can access right now.’ It was warm, nurturing, caring, and it went emotionally very deep. People just had so much they wanted to talk about, and were so grateful for a space where they could be quite raw and real.
“There was a structure: a settling time with coffee and a cake I’d baked. And we’d say not to worry if you’re late; of course you’re going to be late: you’re going to try and leave the house, and then there’s going to be an exploding nappy that you’ve got to deal with.
“When we were ready, we would light a candle, and we would say a gathering prayer together. In the very first group, we had a mixture of quite established Christians in their faith journey, and people who were not established at all, but were very interested. It was a gateway into the Church, and everybody was up for praying aloud, which was really exciting.
“I would read a very short snippet from the Bible, usually one or two verses, and then I had prepared a conversation starter each week; so I would throw out some thoughts, and then I had a series of questions. Then we just free-flowed, and we would go around the group and say the best and the worst thing about [the] week. And then, if people were comfortable with this, I would pray over the things that we had shared.
“In the third group that we ran, people were really not comfortable with participating in prayer, or trying to pray out loud . . . and we needed to really dial back on churchy language, and adapt to where each person was.
“I’m thinking of writing up a Baby Days resource of some kind, to share the discussion ideas and the learning we gathered, in case other churches want a starting point for exploring ministry among new mothers in their own contexts.”
