It is not only the joy of bearing children that brings people back but also their awareness of mortality, vulnerability and dependence notions more often associated with dying. Christians can give and gain much by being more aware of the profound experiences encountered by expectant and new parents, experiences that can open the heart to God. It can be too easy for us to give short shrift to 'cultural Christians' bringing their children for baptism and to assume that they finding their own experience echoing the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. These ordinary but life-changing experiences do have that effect and it is the responsibility of Christians to make more visible and tangible the links between human experience and Christian faith when the waters of the womb of the font break in baptism, spirit can reflect the physical, and we can be born again. Justine Allain Chapman is Team Vicar of St Paul's in the Clapham Ministry in the Diocese of Southwark.
Most dioceses have their own local groups to undertake similar projects themselves.