Holiday Clubs REALLY do work.....

Fun activities that tell kids more about Jesus really do have an impact on children, the Barna group has found. Fun missions activities for children can have a significant spiritual impact on those who attend, a survey by the Barna group has shown. The US group surveyed thousands of children who attended 'SuperKids', one and two week outreach missions run by Scripture Union USA during the summer of 2010.

It found that as a result of the programme, 85% of the children who took part felt more loved by God and that over 80% said they learned new things about God and Jesus. More than 30,000 largely at-risk children took part each day in some 90 Superkids outreach missions held in major urban centres and beach resorts across the States.

Sources: children matter and the Barna Organisation (a.k.a. my very favourite researchers)

I think we can conclude that God loves holiday clubs Be blessed as you plan them, even now as you read this!

Spiritual Hunger

Wow, so much has happened since I last blogged.

I have spoken to a couple of hundred people at CLAN in seminars and family ministry sessions and been privileged to watch some very special times of prayer and interaction between mothers and fathers and sons and daughters. So the time was split into teaching sessions and "putting it into practice" sessions - I love this way of doing things!

Over the two days we covered some principles for raising children in the river of God, we looked at some practical ways to bring children into the heart of the church. I taught a little on how children can honour their parents vice versa. We did some prophetic activation amongst family members and in particular looked at the actual (not potential) skill with which children hear things from God. I saw some quite incredible pictures drawn by children in the family soaking time.

One 4 year old drew a tree with an acorn at the bottom. The acorn was clearly recognisable. He said "God showed me this tree when he was talking about me". I asked him if he knew what an acorn tree became. It becomes an oak and I read Isaiah 61. to him. What a special little boy! I love that he, a preschooler, didn't just draw any tree, he drew the one God showed him! His future is in the heart of that passage.

My only irritation post-an event like CLAN was that people said "oh yeah, your seminar was about kids". I feel something rising up in me (NOT anger, probably a little frustration) as the seminars were not just about kids. Its about preparing the church for the harvest to come. If we don't get this right - if we alienate the young and the generation of parents now who don't know how to teach and instill faith in their children - then we lose a generation. More than that, more than this being about numbers, we miss out on what children see with their spiritual eyes, their hunger for experience grounded in total practical reality; the way in which their prayers seem to touch heaven.

I showed a short clip from TACF's Fruits of Revival DVD, which records the ongoing testimonies and ministries arising out of the incredible 1994-to present day outpouring. The clip I showed had Trevor Baker, senior leader at the ARC church in Dudley, describing how he went out to get some prayer during the 1994 outpouring meetings. He describes (very honestly and with real humility) how his heart sank when a small boy came out to pray for him rather than one of the adults. He then describes the powerful encounter he had with God the moment the little boy prayed. Wow, wow, wow, wow.

The speaker on the final night of CLAN spoke about generations coming together and much of what he said, which I am not going to write in detail here (I need to buy the recording and listen to it again) really resonated with me - moreover, I felt affirmed.

CLAN was a really positive experience for us (Mr HIWWC did a little chunk of teaching on the heart of a dad) and I want to honour the leadership team for asking me and trusting me. I felt it was a real privilege to share what I have learned and tried out over the past seven years. We were welcomed warmly and encouraged hugely.

Today I ran team training for our week-long holiday club which starts on Monday. 80 children are coming from all kinds of backgrounds. I'm delighted to have a team of 30this year, with ten of them being really young teenagers. Four of them have just left the kids' programme and want to come back and serve - I'm really pleased about this.

But its a busy week. Pray for us and the other churches near me and you who are running holiday clubs. This is ours here

Last week it was my turn on staff devotions. I spoke about spiritual hunger. I have had a summer of contrasts - I've been in arid places and refreshing places. All part of the journey I think, like the people of Israel! But I know which one of these two places I'd rather be at.

The challenge I am facing - and we all thought about this as a team - is that we can't MAKE people spiritually hungry - its their choice - press in or stay distanced. None the less, I am re-reading the periods of "effusions of the Spirit" throughout church history and I am embedding myself in the stories of societal transformation that I was so into in the mid-90s when the Sentinel Group first released the documentaries: hunger and longing for God to touch the church in Scotland/the UK is growing, we feel it so desperately as a family, to bursting point sometimes. We're sure we're not the only ones.

Please post in the comments if you feel that too!

June....all for Christ

Looking back over the four years of blog entries in June, it's always the case that June is like: "how can I manage to do all the things in this month that need to be done?"

Yet I always manage it. Although I feel like I might not be able to (I sent a crisis text to a praying friend just this week) I try to take one week at a time. I try to "rest" my way through each one of them. Sometimes I manage it, sometimes I don't.

Our church has superb administrative staff, real high quality, servant hearted, organised and caring folks who go out of their way to help me and they have been a lifeline to me as I had to initially undertake a huge tranche of admin work to get systems and paperwork in place for children and volunteers.

In May, I gained a part-time volunteer children's worker who is also very gifted and organised and a real grafter and I am hoping we can retain her.

So this month:
* I held a residential children's weekend away. Our theme can be best summed up by the Drake's song "God is Here" - He was *so* present. The kids had a total and utter breakthrough when we used this song to worship more freely than they have ever done so before which opened the way to more freedom and response to the Word. I was teaching on preventing sin becoming a stronghold and how the application of the Word of God into our minds affected our will and our emotions - our ability to obey, resist and overcome.

All I can say is that God is just so AWESOME and so faithful to reveal what he is like - I love, love, love it when children who have been part of a church community for 2 minutes (3 months) have a supernatural encounter with God's Holy Spirit without anyone telling them anything about it or manipulating anything to happen. This has happened every single year we have gone away. "I feel all wobbly, like I might fall over and I kept seeing Jesus in front of me, holding his arms out", "it feels like God is hugging me"...what were we doing? Worshipping Jesus. Singing, dancing, praying, offering up our lives to him in spontaneous worship - both leaders and children saying: here we are Father God.......
God wants to tell us AND show us that he loves us!

* I've got a Positive Parenting Course running this month, and its full, 80% folks from the community. I was told today that two of the guests were pleasantly surprised with the atmosphere and how the course ran - they had expected to be lectured in a dusty and cold hall. It's a form of guided self-help, to use the parlance, so I facilitate, not teach, the course.

* I'm also running a daytime Alpha course just now, with one of my previous guests who came to faith helping me run the course. We have seven guests and a couple of Christian "bringer-alongers" - if you read regularly you will know how much I love Alpha and next week is our Holy Spirit morning and a bacon roll breakfast! What's really great about this course is that we have two of our guests are parents from the midweek kids club, so we are seeing two or three members of the same family be immersed in the words of Jesus and in loving wee communities (small groups)at the same time! My kids team see them during the week and I see parent during the week!

Coupled with this, God continues to bring families along who are just waking up one morning and coming to church.I shouldn't compare this with my previous church, but I have been blown away by how often this is happening. It seems like a once or twice monthly occurrence. I'm visiting not one but three families this month to talk about how to have friendship with Jesus and become part of our church (and in particular, part of the missional expressions; our smaller gatherings) is why I am reminded again and again of what I believe the Lord has for us in Scotland in the realm of children and families, oh Jesus, I'm longing for the more.

I've said it before, but I sense there will be an ease in evangelism if we welcome the Spirit's leading and not rely solely on our own good effort. I've just to co-operate as he moves freely in response to the prayers over this nation. I have honestly not come up with any strategies personally except I run Alpha when I sense there are a cluster of people ready to do it, for me this usually takes the form of one teatime course and two daytime courses. I try to ask God about what else I should do in my morning a week retreating to lay the diary out. I try to be myself (this can be hard as my background is so different from the community I am now part of). Oh, and it helps that I am part of an obsessively outward-focussed church. I don't like typing that. Shouldn't every church be outward focussed?

* there are two other really big things on this month. Tomorrow I have holiday club team training day and I am really excited about this club. I knew it was a Dave Godfrey as soon as I read the daily themes - if you are a NE England person, check Dave out. He's great. I think I will post on this another time, I want to offer some theological reflection on why I think starting a holiday club with the Ascension story (Day 1) and then Pentecost (Day 2) is great :-) So I see 25 or 30 lovely people tomorrow.

* finally, before I can go on the holiday we haven't really got organised yet, I have to finalise the summer cover arrangements. Dance, drama, games and Persecuted Church Sundays.

* oh and order the loads of Bibles - see other posts. That's a fun June job. Cept the NCV translations are being reprinted and not available anywhere in the UK. Grrrr. Might have to go backwards to the Good News version for one of the age bands.....

* I've got two preaches to do and two all age services to plan but at least some of them are well underway already.

*I forgot I am leading children and family worship evening/praise event on Friday nightt with a mini-teach and ministry between the age ranges present.

*I'm actually trying to meet with some of the kids' teams (managed two so far) regarding some major changes after the summer, as well as see some pretty vulnerable parents, I'm keen to catch folks before school holidays hit us in 3 weeks. Invariably I am not going to manage all of this before July starts.

We managed to have a babysitter to get to a small group meeting together this week and the Spirit fell very powerfully and very gently. Cue: stuck to the floor in rest and having a download of joy and a vision of heaven. Just want you need to get you through the rest of the month! I just couldn't do it without you, Jesus. It's all for you because I love you so and I understand afresh this week that what I manage to accomplish - or don't - doesn't matter a jot.

Champions Challenge

I'm at the halfway point of a holiday club for 75 kids and 25 leaders.

We decided to go outside the church buildings to hire a local centre and its great having big break out spaces for dance, craft and games workshops.

The highlight of the week will be, I hope, a family (indoor) BBQ on Friday early evening, complete with little "show" of what we have been up to.

I'm off for some prep, prayer and soaking as I'm in need of some refreshing before I lead tomorrow. Some niggly little problems hit the club today (entirely normal for Day 3 before the important Day 4 message) and I need to retreat into the "cleft in the rock" - in all seriousness!

G'night all.

The Week So Far.....

:::::phew:::::: one big week has just past and one more is ahead......

I needed to be up extra early today to get a lot of things said to God. I awoke feeling a tad on the low side; overwhelmed; in need of "coorying up" with the one who created me.

I feel a weight of expectation on me as I lead the club this coming week. This morning I needed to cast that aside and ask for the Holy Spirit to help me do all I have to do this week for the sake of the children who are coming for the week; I so, so, so want them to encounter Jesus. Something touched me this morning; about how attractive Jesus was to people; they crowded round him; they wanted to be where he was. I've loved the Genesis narratives we have used over the past few years to tell the story of Joseph but I'm excited to be ending my time in this fellowship with stories from Luke.

I've worked full time since returning from Canada on July 16th and I'm feeling a bit tired. We've been trying to keep our house clean and tidy for potential viewers; no mean feat during school summer holidays. We've also been organising lots of visits for the kids to various generous friends who have had them round to play/eat/even sleepover :-)

So in some ways I am looking forward to a little rest or break in the week between leaving this job and starting the new one; though the reality is with the move happening a week on Thursday we'll have less time for that than we thought. Can't pack up the house or clear out my office while the holiday club is in full swing. Still, three days of long lies i.e. past 7.30am is very appealing at this moment in time!

The church family organised a Farewell Party on Friday night. It was a great night and we are very touched by the love shown to us. If I speak about it more I will cry on this blog and that would be messy. More about that in a week's time after our final service. Particular thanks are due to our dear friends Pete and Henry who trawled through my musical history on Facebook and iTuned music for the disco from my "music i like" preferences. I have a suspicious feeling that there is more Mac'd Visuals coming my way..I spied an embarrassing photo on a desktop at the sound desk (OH NO!)

How many church leaving do's have Sparky's Dream on the playlist by the awesomely wonderful Teenage Fan Club? :-) Classic tune.

How time flies.....

I can't believe I last posted here on the 5th of August.

Since then, I have finished the holiday club, hosted a packed out parents BBQ, enjoyed the celebratory and age old custom of The Holiday Club Service, complete with stuff and nonsense, helped in no small fashion over the week by this man and this man and countless others, been on holiday here for two days, then flew here (and back 24 hours later) to catch this man in concert.

It was truly awesome :::::sigh:::::: Highlights were the crowd of thousands singing his version of Amazing Grace unaccompanied and the standout "Indescribable". Plus meeting up with good friends for a wee drinkie and late night pizza and a most eventful trip with an exceedingly crazy taxi driver.

Then later that same day I took my son to school for the very first time. (Child no 1 sailed in an hour earlier without a backward glance, giving and receiving hugs from her friends!) I had a wee tear in my eye; he gripped my hand very tightly as we entered the classroom but settled with no bother at all as I left him with the other children and his new teacher.

Starting school is indeed a rite of passage. Not just for parents and carers who feel a little emotional but for me as a Christian it represents a "handing over" of a lot of influence on my child to other people. In some ways age 5 seems a very young age to do that but we must remember that we still have masses of time to input into our child; to impart our vision and values.

Our children begin more and more to make their own choices. Will I eat my sandwich or bin it? Will I play with him or her? Will I do what the teacher says or question it? This is an important time and I urge those with children at school to continue to pray for your child regularly; to do this with authority and urgency, not living in fear of the "what ifs" but to pray for their safekeeping and most importantly for the development of character and calling. I want my children to be strong and secure in who they are, not apologetic about their faith, but radical, different, eyes open for the unloved or unfortunate, tuned in to sense need, resistant to apathy and consumerism. And take heart dear friend! - it is possible - I already see a remarakable lack of "wanting" certain toys/items with my daughter. I know this may change, but I have tried to set in place the values which I want her to have - which I PRAY with faith that she will have.

I have heard of those who become very anxious about sending their child to what they may call the "enemy environment and oppression" of school - errrr, welcome to the world! We were never promised it would be easy. I'm a bit blase about this as I have obviously been on the inside of school and am in a position to celebrate the goodness in schools - strong friendships are built there, esteem is raised, a sense of teamwork is fostered....just for starters. WE HAVE THE MOST INFLUENCE though - this must always be remembered. What goes on at home is far, far more important than anything else. And this is scientifically proven - as teachers we have long since known this anecdotally but there is now a wealth of academic research on the web to back this up.
See, for example - http://www.specialistschools.org.uk/article.aspa?PageId=1320
or this from the Literacy Trust -
www.literacytrust.org.uk/familyreading/ParentalInvolvement.doc

Sermon over!
What are your views on Christian schools? Or homeschooling?

Going very quiet........

......my internet connection at home has died. More specifically, my BT Voyager modem is not playing any more. Says its disconnected all the time when the wee lights are clearly ON and somebody is IN.

So I am sitting here in my office typing this. Pah. (Had things to pick up for the holiday club anyway). Or could I have deleted an .exe file when I was tidying up my desktop?? ::::::bites lip::::::

Also, I will mostly be offline this week as I have great fun Down the Nile with 130 children in a hypothetical Egypt. Can't wait - the band sound great, the drama team are splitting my sides, the messy games are..........messy..........and the team are great.

All sorts of folks are stepping in to help with all kinds of behind the scenes things, which I love. The army mobilises!

Preparing for the beginning...

.....of 130 children for a week long holiday club, culminating in some silly stuff where we showcase the week's activity with a family BBQ and fun night. It's perhaps my most favourite part of the club as the children bring their parents along - last year we fed 328 people that evening with elastic hamburgers and sausages.....
I am blessed with a large team, and new this year - a support team. Wonderful!
In three years the numbers attending the club has doubled, which is a little scarey and exciting. We have no advertising now and the club is full by June 30th.

But I am always, always blessed and humbled by the way the church pulls together. I think that's why these kind of projects/missions (call it what you will - I like to think of it as KA - Kingdom Advancement) are so good for the church, because everyone can get involved in helping or praying, if they want to. Tonight someone was offering to paint traffic cones (a task even more horrific in my eyes than dusting), the guys who made the scenery last year came out to check it was all OK for me and the team before they go away, someone else is sending all the consent forms out for me, others are making icebreakers etc

My beamer-pal and sometime reader of this blog always puts together a great AV show which we use at the BBQ and the guest service, I know for a fact that it takes him hours to do....(this is why I continue to act daft around movie maker software - it's too hard!)

God placed children in families - deliberately - for me to reach their parents :-) Much as I love the children, I also love their families :-)

Very sadly, I heard of someone who now doesn't want their child to attend Christian holiday clubs because their child enjoyed themselves so much last year, was singing the songs for weeks, for example, and wanted to know more about God - and the parent could not answer their questions nor feed their spirituality. Back to the old Hay and Nye book on the Spirit of the Child - it needs nurture.

My only need is for an experienced sound engineer for one day - so if anyone reading this knows of someone who can help.......please do email me!