It takes a whole church......

Below is an open comment I wrote on Krish Kandiah's blog in response to a post he wrote. Read all the responses others have made. Great points raised from other people's experiences. What are your thoughts?


Hi all

I am probably too late to add a comment in but I had a special reason for waiting…..this post really wound me up Krish. Not in a bad way, as I hope I will explain but because it made me weep tears of pain and frustration. I have taught, practised, written, trained, preached and prayed on and through what I am about to say. I'm not posting it to wind people up or being deliberately (naughtily) provocative back, I’m just sticking my head above the parapet to share a little of my heart for our church.
I didn’t choose to do what I do now, I would have been very happy (and better off!) in my previous career and like the commenter who has been asked when he’s going to become a real pastor, not a youth pastor, I have felt the pull of God to do what I do because of the reformation I believe he wants to bring to the Church.

What we have always done just isn’t working. In the year 2000 the church-going population of Great Britain was 4.4 million and 19% of this figure were children aged 15 or under, i.e. 836,000 children. By 2025 the churchgoing population is estimated to be 2.3 million with 5% aged 15 or under i.e. 115,000 . That’s a huge decrease in 15 years or so, if current projections continue. We will have lost 721,000 children in a 25 year period that we are almost halfway through.
If we were to go back to 1990’s figures and compare this with the 2025 estimate, we will have lost contact with 1.1 million children .

Now Peter Brierley (from whom I have these stats) and Mark Griffiths ("One Generation From Extinction") have written extensively on this. I don't want to remain at the point of doom and gloom. I write now as from my experience as a children and family pastor.

I found your post provocative Krish because unless the way we do church is up for root and branch reformation, we simply talk. We know how bad the statistics are and we know we have to do something. I don’t believe we have to have the attitude of getting our kids to last through church but instead, have more of an attitude that is up for a return to the Old and New Testament pattern of (as Gordon Wenham says) – “we’re part of a team”. We’re in this together and we don’t live for our own preferences or style of church; how can we together learn more about our amazing God and let as many people as possible know about because of the way we live our lives as individuals, families and communities?

I’ve been able to think recently, (and huge thanks to Joel Green’s writing on children and families in the book of Acts) at what it must have looked like to see such radical reformation of household life in the First Century. For women and children in particular something so utterly revolutionary was happening to their treatment and status that those outside Christianity looked and wanted to be part; in a context of hardship and even waves of persecution, people wanted to see the same kind of radical reorientation and transformation in their family lives. Pliny wrote that even children were at risk from the menace of Christianity! Chuckle. This thing was spreading like wildfire through the Roman Empire and men, women and children were loving Jesus and each other as part of the embryonic church.

You see, straight away what I represent is more than just children, although I love them dearly, I love the church. I love what we look like when we are together. I love that on a Sunday morning I look out a gathering like no other on the face of the earth. No shopping mall, football stadium, concert or school composes such a rich mix of ages, backgrounds, interests and ethnicities.
Partitioning and compartmentalising for convenience sake only has really got to stop in all of our major denominations in order that we might operate as I believe an extended family (the clan and tribe of the people of God).

Now I do not write this post as an intergenerational guru.Yes, I have set up and advocated intergenerational small groups. I’ve also done age-specific groups. I teach or oversee in all-age settings, but also separate settings. I am not saying that we must be together ALL of the time What I am saying is that we have deferred to be apart MOST of the time. I could write or propose a structure for an individual church as I have been able to put into practice in my own ministry but you know what, that’s not going to kick it either.

What I have found to be most effective is not a structure or de-programming exercise but a massive culture shift in how we see the young: their current potential, their innate ability to have proven insight into things of the kingdom, their natural connection with the supernatural, their place of incredible acceptance and humility. THESE THINGS we are to nurture, provide space for and…..learn from…..

Negativity and decline is NOT the picture across the whole world. There are lessons to learn from churches in nations (Indonesia is a great example) who are experiencing tremendous growth due to what I would summarise as this: children contribute to and partake in kingdom practices – they are being discipled as naturally as drawing breath through the input of the whole church which means they learn to pray with expectant faith, worship chasing the presence of God and engage naturally in mission which is marked by signs and wonders.

I just feel its time for us to take our hands off controlling church shape and structure a little more which, at times, favours the oldest/wealthiest/gobbiest/(insert your own adjective!!). Children occupy a unique place in the gospels, one which with all my heart I long for the church in the UK to return to.

Jesus, children and the kingdom, all three are in relationship. Through their lack of desire for power and prestige or glory they possess something that I believe we are desperate for in the UK – a church with integrity, authenticity and humility marked with God’s heart to love freely and with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power.

Bless you Krish for taking the time to stir this up – you have been much on my mind since you wrote this.

Dummies Guide to Creating a Vision Statement

In this period of sabbaticalling I have met with a number of lead pastors who are working out their church's view on children and children's ministry. They have all asked me how I got my vision going.

Prior to April, I was emailed by LOADS of children's/youth workers all over the country to ask, amongst other things, how I knew what I was to do first, what were my priorities. I always asked them what their vision for their role was - which was often met with....pauses/blank looks/uncertainty. So I'm pretty pleased that now their team leaders want to support them in this.

Last year I ran an equipping track at my annual vision day to help pastors and leaders get a vision for children's and youth ministry but, errrrr, I encouraged them gently not to just copy my vision statement. That's a cop out - what might the Spirit of God want to say to you which will be much more exciting than my vision statement would say?! I know whose I would rather have any day :-)

Here's my Dummies Guide to Creating a Vision Statement
(not that I am saying pastors are dummies. Far from it. I'm one!! (one what?)



Implementing a Vision for Children and Young People

The first THREE steps to implementing a vision for children and young people in YOUR church are to:

1.Get armed with information from culture and Christian research

2.Get familiar with passages in the Bible pertaining to children and young people

3.Have an open heart and mind, to be challenged and changed, stirred and broken.


The next step, if it is needed…..(and it might not be, you alone know this about your church). Vision for the future is built from the ashes of repentance.

4.Repent for any wrong attitudes personally or corporately held towards children and young people.
See this post for help with this.

5. Consider the following definitions. Make sure you understand them:
Values – principles held that informed the vision process
Vision – the place children’s, family and all age ministry should go.
Process – how is this vision to become reality?

6. The next step is to write out your theological non-negotiables about children and young people. These are your values.

"My last church" example:
•Children start with God. However, their “default” is to veer away from him without a twin strategy of evangelism and nurture. Every young person needs to hear the Good News and be nurtured in their faith journey.

•Children and teenagers need to be given regular opportunities to personally respond to what God has done through Jesus’ death and resurrection and to keep on saying “yes” to Jesus through thick and thin, throughout their stages of cognitive and spiritual development.

•Children and young people are capable of understanding their position in Christ, precious, chosen, people whose prayers are heard and who are worthy of the Father’s love, “welcome at the table”.

•Children and young people are part of the Joel 2:28 promise (“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh”). We are not to construct a theology of “what is not for them”. We uphold that there is no “junior” Holy Spirit.

7. Then write out what, in your wildest dreams, you would like to see in the future. This is your vision.

Mine is tightly worded into three bullet points. If your church has a vision statement, look at your thoughts to see if it marries with it. Hopefully it’s not going in the opposite direction!

Obviously I am not going to reproduce this here now as that was for then. I will be asking God what it should be for next place I am and those who follow me in my previous church should be asking God what it is they are uniquely to bring as they're not me and they will have different "wildest dreams". I know mine were very big but I had a history of seeing big things happen with God so I was never going to have a vision statement that said "I hope the children all behave and have good fun in Sunday School."

8. Think: how are you going to get there? What needs to change? This is the process.

Again, I had a tightly worded pathway to make these things happen and before the church's structure changed I was a significant way along seeing these being carried out.

9. Finally, writing a vision requires the heart to follow it through to implementation.
It needs to be presented to vestry/diaconates/board/elders. It needs to be taught from the front. It needs to underpin every leadership decision your church makes. It needs to have someone/people behind it who can make it happen. Who are passionate about prayer and passionate about the vision; which is why the initial four steps are more important than anything else.

Children - the Natural Missional Conduit

How does your church see children and mission? I don't mean, what mission do you do for children, although that's a really important question.....

I mean:
- what is their involvement in your church's missional activity?
- how do you encourage their involvement? I reckon you have no problem with wanting teenagers to be missional, what about those younger than 13? And actually, wouldn't missional teenagers have even more practice if they were discipled into missional ways of thinking before they were 13?
- if you are a parent, how are you instilling in your own child(ren) the need not just to TELL others, but to live your life in such a way that it can't fail to point people to Jesus To simply love and serve!
- if you are a church leader - in the pressure on you to be missional/have strategies/run evangelistic activities, I've said it before and I'll say it again - don't miss the ones in front of you, lower down, maybe even at your knee level!
- and where you have children who are stepping out into deeper levels of prayer and ministry, with a heart for those outside of the church, are you putting your best around them in terms of community, involvement and belonging? Are they being pastored and cared for? Just marvelling at their giftedness/openness/spirituality and giving them opportunities to exercise that is not going to be enough. I don't want to descend into dualistic-type talk but be aware that they need you - the church - to love them, pray for them and cover their backs.

Children: a natural missional conduit

Children talk about God very naturally. Because they trust, they easily talk about what they know and have seen and heard. This is not just simple mimicry, it is a God-ordained way of transmitting truth. I have no scientific proof for this – this is only a throwaway personal proposition - but I wonder if this ability is linked to the hardwiring in the brain to connect with God identified by neuroscientists, which I've written about elsewhere? To connect with God, to experience him and to simply tell others the truth about him? Let me give you an example: a three year old child is brought to church by a carer. Her grandmother, who is the child’s full time guardian, is at home. The fact that her grandchild attends Sunday School gives her a break, some respite for a few hours. As the weeks and months pass, her little grandchild tells her repeatedly that Jesus loves her, that Jesus forgives us for the things she's done wrong, that she can tell Jesus the things that are worrying her and he will listen. I believe this child was speaking right into the things her grandmother most needed to hear at those moments.

Some months later, I have the awesome privilege of sitting with this grandmother in her home as she shares some of the stresses in her life. She tells me what her grandchild has said and asks if this could be true, does Jesus really feel this way about her? She confesses how deeply impacted she was by this little child’s words to her. I am able to tell her that it is true and to pray with her. To help her let go of some of the guilt she is carrying and to receive God’s love for herself – all because of the insistent words of her three year old grandaughter.

A similar story but not so positive in its outcome. At our annual summer holiday club for children, a brother and sister returned home singing the songs they had learned about Jesus love, care and protection for some months after the club has finished. They explained to their parents what the songs meant to them. The children were not allowed back to the holiday club the following summer as their parents did not want the same thing to happen again as they were not comfortable with their children having this experience. Dear readers – all over our world children are speaking and singing the most incredible truth about the nature of God himself! They do it innocently, naturally, sometimes like lambs to the slaughter. They need our love and support – and care and protection. Being such natural conduits means children are also susceptible to attack.

In 2005 I had a vivid dream. I watched as hundreds of terracotta warriors were unearthed, just like those uncovered in 1974 in China. But these weren’t adults, they were individual children, each armed with weaponry and precisely positioned in battle formation for the task that was ahead. I didn’t know this at the time of the dream, but each terracotta soldier that was uncovered from the Emperor’s Palace in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, was absolutely unique. No two soldiers of the eight thousand discovered are the same.

At the time of this dream I felt the call of God to love, support and equip children to stand strong in their faith. As a response to this picture in 2005 I wrote a vision statement which said to the church that we would disciple children to be victors, not victims. I knew from God that I could have high expectations, not for the children in my church to perform, but high expectations as to their capabilities to be disciples. I knew that I would not be alone in wanting to disciple children, that there would be many people in churches in the comfortable West feeling the same thing. And so my “career” in children and family ministry has tried to be very practical in carrying out that vision.

So firstly, I was to help children grow up knowing who they were in Christ, but secondly as a result of this dream, I knew I was to help prepare the church to be the safe place, the covering for these little warriors. I'm writing the book asking all who read it to partner in this. These children aren’t disciples-in-training, they are by definition disciples who are experiencing the battle now.

When she was six years old my daughter came home from school in tears because a boy in her class had laughed at her because she believed in Jesus. “He’s not real, he’s dead!” she was told. This was devastating for my daughter so what followed in our household was a crash course in apologetics suitable for six-year-olds to use in the classroom and playground.

Let every member of the church of Jesus aid in this task of teaching, instructing, welcoming and loving children who carry a huge ability to impart to the church but also a keen eye to watch and protect them, intercede for them by name and cover them at all times. They are not designed to operate as lone rangers but alongside others in their family, part of the clan and tribe of the people of God.

I love this.

Upcoming Event

If you are in the Central Belt, (or even further north!), maybe you might like to gather with me and others across denominations as we seek God for his empowering, his strategy and his presence as we prepare our churches for welcoming more and more children and their whole families into the Christian faith.

If you know me or have been following this blog for some time, you will know that I cannot separate children and teenagers from their families. I have been reading and researching the first four centuries of church growth as preparation for the chapter on children and families in the New Testament in the book I am writing.

I have re-discovered much that is making my heart beat faster, my faith levels increase and an increasing, "awakes me at night" deep hunger for the good news to spill out into the community. Like an infectious disease, (!) my plan was simply to facilitate a time for others to catch it too by drawing folks together to worship and pray. I'll teach a little bit on what I see in the Bible that underpins and highlights the rapid transferral of a life-changing belief in the person of Jesus from one person to another through the extended family and social networks of the day - sociologists like Rodney Stark have concrete evidence for a 40% growth rate every decade from the time of Jesus resurrection to the end of the fourth century. Close study of actual death records in Egypt over one time period showed this growth rate to be modest - it was in fact far higher than this for the one specific area records existed for.

The reasons for this rapid spread of Christianity are varied and complex but there is consensus that the different way of life (witness) of the changing family had such an impact that people WANTED to re-orientate their lives towards Jesus - babies were born without the fear of exposure/infanticide, women were treated well and grew in their own giftings and leadership; marriage was honoured, slaves were treated well, families grew and thrived. In short - people were attracted to what they saw in the lives of Christians. Wow.Wow. Wow.....oh Father, how we want to see more of that in our time!

So this evening of prayer, worship, teaching and preparation to go and love and serve is on Monday 26 September at 7.30pm. Email me on children.pastor@gmail.com if you would like more information.

At the moment I am serving on the ministry team of an ILSOM (International Leaders School of Ministry) and have been reminded by the internationally-travelled speakers of the incredible growth of the church in South America, Africa, China, Indonesia, Korea....in short - in every continent bar ours and North America......

But something is stirring. Hunger is rising. A month ago, 15,000 young adults gathered for a conference in Chicago - Jesus Culture Awakening. I was privileged to watch a lot of the talks live and I urge you to listen to them - they blew me away.. You can find out about them here

I do believe that hunger is stirring in our nation too - to get "out there", to love and serve local communities, to love our cities, towns and villages. There is a rising dissatisfaction I have observed with just "doing church". Yet we mustn't rush ahead without spending time with the Father to just rest and listen; to hear his strategies and plans, just receiving from him because we're simply his beloved! Its hard enough to get out there without crashing and burning(interestingly I read this today and I wholeheartedly agree with Mike Breen's (initially tough-sounding) post.

And so the plan for Monday 26 Sept is that we too will gather to ask the Lord to enlarge our hearts to love the ones who are in front of us, maybe even related to us (!) and to believe that once more God can change a nation by impacting one who impacts another who then impacts another. We need the fuel and fire that comes from sitting at the Father's feet and drinking in the Holy Spirit's power and plans rather than relying on our own strategies and thoughts.

Dealing with challenging behaviour

I'm often asked how to handle difficult behaviour.
I think everything in the notes below sums it up!


Some causes of challenging behaviour

(for the first part of this posting, I'd like to reference SU's Top Tips series on handling difficult behaviour, although I have added some other factors in due to my own knowledge, practice and experience)

• general learning difficulties

• specific learning difficulties (do you have completed registration and consent forms? Do volunteers know about the relevant information?)

• developmental disorders – ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia

• low self-image (vicious circle)

• fragmented home situations and unsettled relationships with parents

• lack of boundaries in the home

• physical demands – what I call the Saturday night sleepover sydrome...!

• group dynamics - who's the strong leader amongst the children, for example

• the organisation of your session - it might be our fault!

• (teenagers?) alcohol/drug use


Types of behaviour

• childish irresponsibility

• behaviour linked to age and stage of development

• challenge to authority

Hebrews 12:6
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”

Don't be afraid of discipline!!


Some thoughts:
Children and teenagers, like adults, are made in the image of God, imageo dei, so like us they matter to him. Have a God-focused approach towards them.

• Children are so valuable to God that He commands us to protect them (1Sam 20:42, Ezra 8:21)

• God wants to have a genuine relationship with His children – He describes how children may enter His presence and enjoy His company (Ps 8:2, 34:11, 103:13, Mal 2:15, Matt 21:15, Mark 10:13-16)

• God loves young people enough to ensure they receive discipline. It is a reflection of His passion for a child’s well being.

• God enjoys the nature and personality of children – attributes such as sincerity, humility, naïveté, vulnerability and simplicity. He treasures these characteristics.


Towards Change…….

1.Working within the church community and communicate clearly
Be aware of Child Protection policy and any written guidelines your church has and use a large dollop of common sense. I had written a discipline policy that was disseminated once a year to volunteers so that they knew what was minor behavioural issues and what was major (everyone has different standards and expectations therefore a team of volunteers need help to establish the base level - is interrupting a leader who is talking ok? Some leaders say it's fine, others cannot tolerate it. If this example is a major issue for your team, decide what you will accept, and disseminate this information amongst the team, preferably in writing and LET CHILDREN KNOW! Setting boundaries publicly to the children and showing that you work as a team yields such fruit. Appy your decisions simply and consistently and soon it won't be an issue any more. I can testify over and over again how well this works).

2.Working with parents/guardians
Parents/guardians are our first port of call. How can you consult with them? You may need to invest a little time in speaking with them. Always speak with the relevant leader as s/he may have relevant information to give you. Find out about parents’ expectations of their child’s/teenager’s behaviour as you may find the root of the problem right there!

3.Working with other children/youth team members
Everything written so far needs to be applied to a team context – we need to work together. Children and teenagers spot tensions and differences between adults and will play us off one another. This underlines the need for written policies/clear communication. It's the one strong similarity between church and school. I was gathering up to 175 and 160 children together in two churches; the size of a small primary school! If your church has 10-30 children, the scale may be different but the need is still there.

4. Prepare thoroughly and vary the style
I've spent many years working with and watching children, and now I observe a growing tendency in some (many?) leaders to just turn up to help at a kids club or Sunday school, assuming that all the preparation has been done by the main leader of that day. That may be very well if they are pouring juice or doing toilet runs but if they are answering questions about God and teaching something from the Bible it's just not enough. The best way to address this is to raise it as a training issue - and then monitor.

I instigated a "send-out-by-Friday" email and planning grid of who was doing what, with the Bible passage, relevant small group questions and heart prep to be done in advance of the Sunday session in both of the churches I have worked in. A good rule of thumb is that we should personally spend at least twice the amount of time on the passage that the children will spend thinking about and interacting with the Bible. This word is living and active - therefore we who teach it (whether it be to adults OR children) must spend time on and with it. Don't give out stale bread! Tastes awful....

Vary the style - this is worth a whole other posting....

Suffice to say we often teach people in the style that WE prefer, so if we like reading and thinking, we take children into a lot of reading the Bible out loud and group discussion. But leading group discussions with children requires highly skilled individuals, so the best way round this is to watch the time allocation for this part of the programme and make sure there are opportunities for the kinaesthetic (doing) - making something, acting something out, trying out a new skill.

Children engage in low level misbehaviour most often when they are bored and unstimulated. Allow them to EXPERIENCE God's presence, his working and moving amongst the group, the answered prayers, his holiness when a song finishes and you stand in silence, his tender care in moments of quiet soaking in his presence.

Just some thoughts from the past decades!

Disappointed

"Discipline:

We try to make our programs fun, fresh and powerful so that a child will not become disruptive. We also use positive reinforcement and team competitions where points are awarded for good behaviour and deducted for innapropriate behaviour. In extreme circumstances a child may be placed back into the adult service with their parent. Parents will be notified of innapropriate behaviour (sic)."

Grrrrrrrrrrr. The above is an excerpt from a very large church website. One of the key members of this church, who founded the children's ministry programme in that place is speaking at an event in the UK. I'm afraid reading words like those above really put me off going. In fact, I don't really want to go (unless you, dear reader, talk me round!) because entirely separate churching of age groups to me isn't just a matter of taste, its about losing something of the discipleship culture we are meant to build and celebrate and show the world.

I'm disappointed and I'm tired of reading words like those above: "a child may be placed back in the ADULT service with their parent. Parents will be notified of inappropriate behaviour" (I've corrected the spelling).

Why am I so disappointed?

1. "adult service" - like the cinema classification system, are we soon to have:
"U cert" - everyone can attend this event, such as a church beach trip
"PG" - you can bring your offspring to this meeting, but if they barf or get freaked out by anything that happens, it's your responsibility.
"12" - your older primary children can probably handle this event, but you'd better be on hand, parents (e.g. Good Friday reflective service)
"15" - only for those in the yoof programme e.g. average length evening service
"18" - you'd better be grown up to have some longevity about you e.g. very long evening service, church business meetings, many church prayer meetings

2. I'm disappointed that the most extreme method of discipline is to put a child BACK in the adult service with the adults. Note the words: BACK IN.

So the message given out by this website is that the adults meeting with God equals a place of punishment for a child who is missing the excitement of the kids programme.

What does this say about the experience of being in the presence of God? I actually feel very strongly about this point in case you hadn't guessed. I have devised in the past a whole load of ways of working with children who are having behaviour issues at church; it nearly always comes out of one of two things: (a) we need to look at what we are teaching, how we are teaching it and who is teaching it and maybe make some changes or (b)things are not great at home in some way; a lack of boundaries, or there are worries, tensions, bullying, threats or abuse. I've been used to sitting with my colleagues and sharing pastorally so that I might be the lead person but we pray and support the family (and me) together, for we cared about each family represented in the church.

3. I'm also (as the regulars amongst you will know) disappointed with the term "adult service". I don't believe there is biblical precedent for it.

I favour the "part and part" approach with occasional but regular all-age incursions that we may all learn from each other and in one or other, or both the churches I have worked in, I have been liberated to do my thing, e.g. to model good pastoral care for families, kids and volunteers, to pioneer prayer meetings for all ages, large celebration meetings with everyone represented and intergenerational cell groups AS AN OPTION for those who wish to use them. Neither church has held adult-only everything (except of course the certificate 18 church business meetings!)

4. And finally, as if there wasn't enough here for you all to leave this blog and never return, I'm disappointed that this website makes no mention of the need to WORK WITH and SUPPORT parents. If a child isn't behaving, something is going on, as I said in point 2 above, I believe pastoral care and support is so important. They may just be tired or family circumstances might be causing a wobble (a parent out of work, for example) but it can be something more serious. Many years ago I worked with a boy who the team had to refer on to me for continual misbehaviour - it transpired that there was major stuff going on. As a church we offered support in a number of ways to the family and it was with great delight some years later I saw him be baptised. On a return visit to the church he hugged me and Mr HIWWC. Imagine if we had just sent him back into the "adult service"....(for his behaviour was extreme).

To be clear, I can and have sent for parents to come out of the service to support the team in serious cases but at the end I talk with the parent(s) and the child, pray with them, visit them at home if necessary and follow up. I always talk about how we have a God of second chances and how my love and care for them does not depend on their behaviour.

Rant over.......anyone with me at all?

Martin Luther WTG!

Martin Luther - way to go!!!:

When I preach I regard neither doctors nor magistrates, of whom I have above forty in the congregation, I have all my eyes on the maidservants and on the children. If the learned men are not well pleased with what they hear, well, the door is open".

Everybody wants to change the world, but no-one wants to teach Sunday School

This is a very stirring post.

Huge thanks to the person who sent it my way.

"Teaching Sunday School may never be sexy. But it is one of the most valuable, sacrificial, and yes, radical things you can do for a church. So when they ask for volunteers next session, you—yes, you—should consider it."

Volunteers and volunteers and...children

At the start of the month I spent three days with three of my volunteers at a Children's Leaders conference. I have to be really honest and say that, by and large, specialised events are not my thing. I much prefer conferences that are holistic in their approach i.e. deal with issues that affect all leaders. So attending the Holy Spirit in the World today conference (please read here ) was much more my thing because it was the first overtly theological conference I had been at, so it covered a LOT of information, I processed information that I took home with me to pastoral AND teaching settings.

I find that stereotypes can abound at "womens' conferences" or "youthwork conferences" and in some ways the Children's Leaders event was no different
e.g.
"c'mon we can all woop and make some noise and get excited cos we're kids workers"

err. no. I won't. I can't make myself behave like a "typical" person who works with children because I'm not. I'm me, with a unique role and purpose and I suppose I get into bother sometimes because I am not exactly fitting into the expectation that occasionally get thrust upon me!

I didn't exactly choose to do what I do. I got chosen. Some blog readers will know the story; others won't. But I heard God speak to me. He said: "work with younger children" (I taught 11 to 18 year olds as a job). He said it was for what was to come and that I was to release others to do lead children, to disciple children and to show families new to faith how to go on in their faith. So I try to train and release others, take something new out there, then train and release others, whilst listening as closely as I can to God for what the next thing is that I have to do.

I can't get away from my desire to be OUT there with the families and the children who don't have Jesus in their lives, twinned with an appetite to see those who know him as a friend to know him as the source of life and power;as a freedom-giver. We have such an army of children in the UK who are just getting by and no more as Christians, and its time for them to rise up as victors, not victims.

Becky Fischer, in her book "Redefining Children's Ministry in the 21st Century" notes that many people who pastor children in these current days did not intend to go into this area of ministry but found themselves sensitive to God's call to do "for what is to come". HOW EXCITING!!!!!

There was one session at Children's Leaders conference in particular that really stood out for me and I will post on it in due course. If you are a leader in ANY CAPACITY, please come back and read it as I believe it was of national prophetic significance. As I am on holiday without my work notes, I need to write it up when I get back.

I went to this conference principally to hear Mike and Marilyn Seth, who are to be listened to and learnt from because of their great experience and huge humility. But more about that next week. Suffice to say, it is of immense importance to those who want to see the transformation of the nation through the rising generations.

The value of such a specialist conference was that I took some of my volunteers with me - and that kind of experience, being away together, is priceless...we talked, prayed, planned where we were going and I got the chance to see exactly what God was marking out for them to do and the direction I could really easily nudge them into and let them lead.

In September I changed the way we taught children utterly and completely (due to a lack of space; not enough rooms!) and modelled a different way of teaching for 4 weeks, so that others could then take over, with me helping each "Presenter" think about planning and teaching week by week. I have an outstanding team, very loyal to me personally and incredibly open to all that is ahead. The relief team (school holidays) are similarly qualified, as was my summer holiday club team. The volunteers are a real blessing - I have five teams for different areas of ministry/work and I haven't had to advertise for a single person this year, in fact one or two of the smaller teams within the main five teams are in abundance. What an absolute privilege and I *never* take this for granted. Volunteers are another group of people I am called to care for and love and encourage and impart into....more of the Holy Spirit and his gifts so that we never, ever rely on just good work and great skills. I want to teach and model that we need him so!

I have been asked twice this week: how do you keep volunteers? How do you motivate volunteers? Here are my personal tips for retaining people for more than a year.

1. Passion - yours (mine) - what do you REALLY believe in with children and families? Do your team know YOUR vision? Does it rub off on them after they have been with you? I don't mean you wag a finger and impose stuff but....try to allow the Holy Spirit to re-invigorate and refresh you regularly....some Sunday mornings I struggle to get up and out but once I have spent time in the bible and prayed (often puring out my heart!); even for a short time, and then I see some children I know, or some mums who are new to faith, or some faithful serving families.....it all floods back...the love and the care and the desire to serve.

2. Time - for your volunteers - are you there for them and do they know that? I know I can do better on that but I try my best, given the time I have. I constantly wish I could do more - I carry quite a large pastoral/service planning load. I lead evangelistic initiatives, see people for prayer ministry and do some whole family discipleship and support as well. More recently I have been working with some external agencies to provide support to some vulnerable people. This in itself takes up a bit of time but I am seeing the church receive real favour here and it feels as if it is the "shape of things to come" with budget cuts etc.

BUT in my weekly plan I always look to see: who can I take out for coffee this week? Not email. Not text. See in person. I always have a half/whole day that is unbooked to allow me to react to who God brings to mind; which volunteer might need a wee bit of encouragement this week? I try to be a pastor to my volunteers and again, I think they know this as I tell them of my love and appreciation for them as often as I can.In my low moments I feel utterly failing in this as my current church is very large and sometimes it seems that there are so many people I would love to spend time with but I am restrained by normal human limitations - never enough time....

3. Graft - real hard work. I need to be around the things my volunteers are; not at every meeting nor every event. I need to know every child by name and a little bit about their story..how did they come to be at our church? Who do they come with? Are there any pastoral issues that I need to know about? (therefore I get to know families and visit at home; pray with parents, offer support, both spiritual and practical)

4. Advocacy - I am able to represent the lives of young people and their families at the highest level of our church governance; in decisions, in planning - I always think: how will this affect children and my volunteers? Will it encourage and bless them? It means that the volunteers know I am there for their best.

5. Resourcing - I go out of my way to read, research, buy and disseminate music, creative resources, teaching material, collect testimonials and visual clips that advance news about the AMAZING things God is doing all over the world....I give my team access to this (again, I could do better at this, we have v little office space and meet in another building from where the offices are) and by and large, money is not an issue. What I mean by this is that my church blesses me and what I do hugely and I want to pass this on to my volunteers. They know I will budget in for whatever we need and it will be done. If they buy stuff, I arrange for their reimbursement promptly. If they need something, I'll either get it for them or work towards getting it for them when I set my next year's budget. So volunteers have a sense, again, that there is someone who is for them.

I know many reading this have to buy supplied out of their own pocket and couldn't even claim the price of a CD back from their church treasurer and with all my heart I pray for an abundance on what you do. I know having a full time worker is not possible for many churches but I really believe that the tips I h ave given above can be carried out by one person - a volunteer or a minister in sole charge - who gives themselves over to bless children's/youth volunteers.

I know with all my heart that God wants to pour out blessing on children. I can't give out loads of details here, but over the past 8 years I have seen God provide even seemingly impossible things for children and family ministry in the churches I have worked in. I have big faith for this...which is being tested at the moment in the building we meet in which is not big enough!

The one example I can give you is that I really, really wanted preschoolers furniture for 14-20 children. Have you seen the price of wee tables and chairs in educational catalogues? Not IKEA plastic tables and chairs, I wanted solid, good stuff. To cut a long story short, I almost accidentally spotted a commercial auction selling classroom supplies and I got a whole junior classroom, story stools, tables, chairs, wheeled storage...the whole lot for £150. Oh the goodness of God - we discovered that one of the six tray-ed storage units I got would have been £150 on its own!

As I publish my list I have thought of some more tips on how to retain volunteers that I would add; come back tomorrow (or in a day or two) for more......

Children and the Holy Spirit in the World today

This is a very brief splurge..........

Why is a children and family pastor at a theological conference on the Holy Spirit?
What direct application does this have for my role?
Why was my church so kind to let me go in work time and pay my train fare?
(to shut me up?)
(to get rid of me for a few days?)

No way. Wasn't for those reasons.

I have accumulated some head knowledge about God through studying, but in addition I have spent the last six years teaching and modelling things to children and more so teaching my teams who teach children the things God has taught me. I have, in particular, been watching the signs of how young people are responding - and watching the signs of what God is doing over the nations of this world through the young.

Since 2006, I have been talking with my equivalent staff members in centres of outpouring and powerful renewal moves such as Bethel and TACF. I have visited Toronto twice. I have had the Toronto guys in Scotland to minister to my families. I have studied theology and in particular church history as it pertains to children and young people. I have looked at biblical instructions to families in the OT and NT. I have read how eminent theologians saw children (early church fathers, the Reformers - check out any Marcia Bunge books). I have read scholarly reviews of how faith develops (Westerhoff and Fowler) and combined these with educational theory (Bronfenbrenner) and studies on nurture (Bushnell, Wilhoit/Dettoni)

Then I have looked at the trend of children leaving the church in swathes e.g.in Britain and in the USA (Christian Research findings, Barna Organisation, empirical observation). I have watched how families respond in church (must have toys or edible distractions for all non-puppet moments). I have listened to the thoughts of hundreds of children under my pastoral care (literally) in two churches - how they have expressed their experience of faith; their hopes for the future and their faltering fear of not making it through 12 years of education with their faith still in place.

Readers, its time for the church in Britain to stop giving birth to children whose experience of faith causes them to feel like victims. Where they are picked on and ashamed of having a faith. Where they are marginalised in their classes because they go to church. With all my heart I want to teach and train pastors, leaders, parents and children that children were created to be victors, not victims. This is *not* about triumphalism. This is about children understanding that those who love Jesus are invited into the most loving and accepting community - the Trinity!- that they could ever find. Those who are hidden in Christ become one with Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit! As much as I need the Father and the Son, I need the Holy Spirit to empower me and give me hope just when I feel I'm running low.

Pneumatology has a place in the spiritual formation of the young. We talk lots about Jesus and tell all his stories, but we also need to tell stories about the work of the Holy Spirit! I posted elsewhere on this blog: how can children love someone whose name they haven't even heard? Right now, in this nation, boys and girls are going to churches where they are taught either nothing or half-truths about the Holy Spirit. How can they keep on, keeping on without the precious Holy Spirit? I don't say this flippantly, but if I spent seven years in primary education being told the same stories again and again, engaging the head without the heart being touched by the phileo - demonstrated love of the Father - I'd be off out the door too.

And its through the Holy Spirit that we release our children into the supernatural - there is no junior Holy Spirit! It's exciting to be a Christian! Not meant to be dull and one-dimensional, but to be felt, experienced, laughed, cried, tried and practised. And dare I say - played with? Yes! It's fun listening to God! Praying for others! For more on this, read anything by Heidi Baker and how God uses the young in Mozambique. Or Visions Beyond the Veil
by H A Baker. <--- That one will get you!

I don't say any of this flippantly. I am absolutely serious about the fact that I know the set of circumstances that led me to leave a secure teaching job to do the job I do now, to labour under a second degree, to have the opportunities to influence some kids leaders and pastors in this little nation here, are all because of what is coming. Most people doing the kind of job I am doing did not intend to do it. They were involved in other work, secular or otherwise. This fact is substantiated by Becky Fischer in her book "Redefining Children's Ministry in the 21st Century".

With all my heart I believe that we will once again see children flooding through the doors of the churches who have repented of the wrong attitudes and are ready to receive a little child. I believe the hearts of fathers and mothers will be won through many, many children and we are in a season of "getting ready" - to disciple children who in turn will disciple their parents. I wrote a paper on this for Alpha at one point in the past. I also believe that theological trainers and church leaders need to weigh what I have just said: if it is true, or even possibly true, then every major church growth initiative/minister training school should have some component somewhere that looks at children and family in the Bible, looks at discipleship amongst children and families and most important of all, examines their own heart towards children. I have found these statements here to have been the most requested material I have ever written.

Further info here: Can Children Be Filled With The Holy Spirit?

And so I need good theology. I need to be well taught. I need to read and reflect because I am often so busy "doing".. I need to rest from work so that I can work from rest (HT to mark stibbe for that line!) for I think I am to help other people catch this vision and therefore I am deeply grateful to my church leaders for allowing me to go.

I am really blessed to be in a place where resources are released to me when I need them, where the leaders are permissioning, where the young are considered, even though I am probably a pain, but please do read as a last word the prophecy by Jean Darnell. I don't just believe it's coming but I believe I am witnessing some of it now.

Splurge over. This all kind of flowed out in a oner so I may just delete it in the cold light of day.....

LICC

Someone sent me this article.
Very interesting ...anyone would think there was something rising up in the nation.....

Nothing but the truth, the whole truth

Some of you reading this may be in churches that use Scripture Union's teaching material, Light.

I could write more about the teaching material choices available in the UK, but I shan't (= limited) and I have bought/used/tried/tested them all. I have written my own for short series but what I am about to write about now is, I feel, a real area of concern.

We repeat ourselves.

A LOT.

Forgive me for this next statement (and it is the title of a seminar I am doing in the future) but telling stories is just not enough. It's not going to build life-long followers of Jesus. I don't mean to single out one provider; I can honestly tell you I have audited a lot of material for my past studies.

Here in the UK we teach children, in the main, about these things:-
* creation/flood
* Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, Samuel
* sometimes Elijah (but not for the last few years!!)
* Jesus birth
* Jesus stories; his interaction with people (preferably not out of John)
* Jesus death and resurrection
* Spreading the news - the growth of the early church

These are good, good stories.
I do have a concern, though, that in the TWELVE years of church activities, we do not, at the very least, open up a whole spectrum of Scripture to children. I remember a class discussion at bible college about 4 years ago about how some parts of Scripture may not be suitable for children with challenging behaviour perhaps (!??)

Judges 3:21-22
Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it

Some things I have been pondering. Why can't we teach.........
- a bit more from the Pentateuch. Covenant is usally solidly covered but I think there is a lot more to be unpacked on the Law which would assist children to understand the uniqueness of the New Covenant more fully.
- is the intimacy of the lover's call to the beloved to draw close not relevant for children learning about the tender love of a heavenly Father? (Song of Songs)
- are the lessons from the evil kings not worth looking at alongside the fear of the Lord that governed the good kings? (Kings/Chronicles)
- One or more psalms might be covered but what about a study of Proverbs? This throws up some great practical advice and lessons on what our own hearts can be like.
- the faithfulness and perseverance of Nehemiah in rebuilding the temple
- Job; for lessons about hard times and the dynamic breaking-in of revelation of the goodness of God who can more than repay
- and oh, oh, oh - the incredible prophetic outpourings which speak to a people in exile, a people who need to return wholeheartedly to the one who has never stopped loving them. I have only ever seen little bits of Isaiah in children's teaching material as it refers to Jesus and very little about the breakdown of the nation of Israel in her rebellion and unfaithfulness and the Lord's response to this. And yet the incredible promises of what was to come in the New Covenant; the new heart of flesh, the coming of the Spirit for all and not just for some, the river of God flowing out, the dreams and visions to come; the time of holding fast and persevering.

I could go on and on .........in 6 years of children and family pastoring there has been very little from the pastoral epistles. Isn't Timothy so relevant to young people? I'm desperate to teach Romans to children. I do a little bit on justification and sanctification with children/family discipleship, so I personally have unpacked a little of Ephesians with children outside of a Sunday morning. I have never seen James in children's teaching material; nor Hebrews. I am sure someone somewhere has - please do post in the comments section with your thoughts or observations on this. But the main UK providers *do* stick to the stories I mentioned earlier.

End times - have you seen any teaching on this? I have yet to see any children's resources that touches Revelation. I can feel some teaching bubbling up in me on:
1. "to the overcomers"
2. "having a heavenly viewpoint"
3. "praise and glory, wisdom and thanks to the Lamb - throne room praise"
::::::::need to gloss over creatures and horns/eyes/flying scrolls - bit too hard for me! :::::::::::::
4. "heaven - joy forever".

I have honestly witnessed children rolling their eyes and saying "not Moses AGAIN!" and while I recognise that the word of God has power and is to be honoured, a part of me has sympathy because I know of the variety and richness within that Word, which points again and again and again to a loving, faithful God who persues human beings to the point where it cost him everything!

Have had a bit of a rant there - please do comment on stuff you have used (the USA has a little bit of a wider spread, perhaps because of denominational differences) or to vociferously agree or disagree.

Quote of the Fortnight

Been very busy, so blogging slowed a little.

However, here is something for you to churn over, quoted by Mark Griffiths, author of "One Generation From Extinction":-

Growing churches do have an effective children's ministry because they deliberately see the children's ministry which they exercise as being very much part of the activity of the mainstream church. This integration mechanism of the children's ministry with the totality of the church activity is as important as the quality of the actual ministry itself if growth is to take place.
Peter Brierley, 2005.

More to follow....

Weekend Reflections

It's been a good but pretty tiring few days but I am very glad for the recent holiday.

I spent a few days at a national denominational assembly and particularly enjoyed catching up with some friends from my YF days who are now pastors as well as my fellow children's champion Lorraine. And I got to spend two nights with my dear friends so we stayed up watching Michael McIntyre clips on youtube :-)

I had an opportunity to lead some corporate repentance using this and was pretty deluged at the break time with people asking where the thoughts came from and how they could get them to their congregations so that they too could repent. We had talked about having group discussions in our planning meetings some months ago but I felt we needed to repent if we were going to see change happen.

I was very moved when an older woman (who looked like she might have been about 96!)walking with sticks came up to me with tears in her eyes saying that she knew she had harboured critical thoughts and ungodly beliefs about children in her mind and she wanted rid of them.

Man, that's pretty significant. I didn't write anything that I, too, haven't felt in the past. I'm guilty of every one of those things at times - which is why I was able to write them! I am LONGING for the floodgates to open wide for a move of God in our nation like we have never seen before. People, get ready. God's deconstructing a lot of our false beliefs in the church in Scotland so that they can be replaced by truth.
Bring it on - it's painful and uncomfortable but we so need it.

My SP preached an absolute stormer today from James 2 verse 14 to the end of the chapter.
I knew a lot of what he was going to say as he had talked a little about it during the week but that didn't stop the tears rolling down my cheeks as I counted yet again the cost of what it means to have true faith. When we consider what we have to give up we often revert to measuring how much we have to give up compared to *them over there who need to give up more*. Why do we indulge in such self-centred reflection?

So it's been a pretty raw weekend.
Staff day away tomorrow. Wonder what that will hold?
As long as I don't have to build a raft out of oil drums and timber planks..........

Unlearning the Unhelpful

I have entitled this post Unlearning the Unhelpful after one of the afternoon sessions from my Vision day on 26 September. It's not out of a book (I know I do use books a lot to help me make a point but I always cite where information comes from and not take credit for things I didn't write); it's a list that came to me on Tuesday 22 September when I asked the Holy Spirit to show me what might prevent him from visiting our churches in greater power. He spoke to me about our love for those with wordly power and prestige; who can make things happen in our churches or donate time and money - and not those who are weak, without a voice and helpless and unexperienced and maybe even unskilled. He reminded me that Jesus let the rich young ruler walk away and yet he sorely rebuked his close friends; his disciples from preventing people bringing their children to him.

I would really love to share the points below more widely within my own church and I would appreciate prayer and guidance on how to do so. We have so much going on (exciting!!) that everything always has to compete a little for time, space and attention and I need to be sensitive to that. I feel tears pricking up in my eyes as I even just think for a second on the kinds of things that happen and are said over children and teenagers every single week in our UK churches.

Last week, at our pre-service prayer meeting, we gathered to pray for the preaching of the word in the service and its effect on the hearers and I felt something rising up within me: WHAT ABOUT THOSE OF US OPENING UP THE WORD TO CHILDREN? Can we be prayed for? Can our youth pastor's team be prayed for too as they teach from the word of God too?

Excuse the capitals, I wasn't angry; having been trained in theological college I utterly agree that preaching is an event where the Word of God is released, but don't the mentions of preaching and teaching in the Bible (proclaiming/declaring/telling/teaching/explaining/announcing.....there are many more!) have something to say about the dynamic relevance of opening up the Word of God to a wide variety of groups of people? I'm totally happy to be corrected and taught by other readers on this one; it is a genuine question I have and one I must ask my SP. He's a good instructor.

I am very grateful to the encouragement a fellow blogger has sent me recently to keep on going; in that they have recognised that there is something driving me, which, in their opinion, could be the missing piece of the revival jigsaw. To hear that from someone I haven't met, who is far away and in a different denominational stream, has meant a lot. Thank you!

Here, then, is my writings on Unlearning the Unhelpful. I post it in order that it may help the hundreds of readers who now visit each week; as you prayerfully go through it I trust that it will help you draw near to God as you renounce things that are not true and replace them with the truth.

I need to stress that there is no guilt in doing so; we live in a world that is FULL of unhelpful attitudes towards children and simply put, we get tainted with this. Today is a time to break free of these and come afresh to Father God to be re-energised with his wonderful heart towards children.

Hebrews 4:14-16
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Things we may need to renounce:-

•not seeing children as made in the image of God (seeing them as to be tolerated)

•thinking that we have nothing to learn from children

•not allowing children to express ideas and opinions (ignoring faith development studies, where children need to ask questions and test what we say against what they say)

•if we are teaching children, -not giving over adequate time for prep (these are all well known stories I know like the back of my hand) and therefore not allowing the Spirit to speak to our hearts as we read from The Word.

•seeing children as bait: if we get them to come to church, we get the adults (the important people)

•believing that squirmy/noisy children are not listening in church when in reality they are taking everything in

•not allowing children to experience God taking hold of their imaginations (hence the resurgence I think, of Jerome Berryman’s Godly Play, allowing children to enter right into the stories)

•limiting children to our own experience, not allowing joy or sadness or excitedness or the experiential dynamism of the Holy Spirit

•being glad when they have left the service; seeing them as interruptions to our own worship

•if you are a kids' leader, seeing yourself as a babysitting service, missing out on the “main event”

•going “phew!” when children leave the room

•believing that all we need are lovely facilities and the best equipment and then children will be happy (and leave us alone to enjoy God as adults together)

•being a lone ranger and not part of a team


Here is a prayer of renunciation and repentance that I suggested could be used on the training day:

Father, I renounce the lie that _______________________________________
I am truly sorry and ask you to forgive me. I choose today to believe today that ____________________________________________________________________________________ (say here something that is the opposite of the lie that you have believed)

In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

The Barna Group

In the words of Monty Python, now for something completely different.

Several times a year since I started this blog in 2006, I like to highlight the work of George Barna. Quite simply, anything the Barna Group publishes is worth reading. They are the Gallup of the N. American Christian/Social Trends scene. George Barna is not a children's pastor, he is a researcher. He is used by God, I believe, in a very practical sense as well as in a prophetic sense to herald things for the church to sit up and take notice of.

I am preparing for my annual Vision Day - why work with children? How can I help children's leaders and church leaders to carry the flame unflinchingly for the necessity of developing children's faith development at the heart of any plan to grow the church? Growing the church starts with nurturing the faith of the very youngest and discipling them to play their fullest part of the ecclesia, the called out, chosen ones, under the guidance and nurture of the family. I have written more on this in previous posts such as here and here.

[If you wish to come to this day on Saturday 26th Sept, email me on children.pastor@gmail.com for further information]

It's far, far too risky to leave this task to chance, to whoever will look after the kids, "fingers crossed" that they will hopefully do an OK job; or to assume that parents new to faith coming out of postmodern vacuous spirituality will know how to disciple their children.

History shows us that the enemy is seeking to - quite simply - get rid of children - in lots of different ways such as high levels of infant mortality in times past, and also through specific events such as the slaughter of Hebrew boys in Moses time, Herod killing children in Jesus time, through "social trends" such as infanticide commonly practiced by Roman fathers, in communist regimes such as China at the height of the One Child Policy ...I need not elaborate further.

“Children are central to the health and future well-being of the church. Reprioritizing ministry to children is the beginning of a revolution.”

So said researcher and cultural analyst George Barna before a strategic two-day session attended by 94 Christian leaders representing 54 organizations, including churches, parachurch ministries, media, and academia, at AWANA Clubs International headquarters in Streamwood, Illinois.

Barna’s clarion call to churches was doubly strong toward parents, as he claimed his recent research shows that “while 85% of parents believe they have the primary responsibility for the moral and spiritual development of their children, more than two out of three are abdicating that responsibility to their church.”

“And very few churches” Barna continued,”go beyond seeing children’s ministry as ‘bait’ that enables them to land the real treasure — i.e., adults. We spend roughly 68 times more money per capita on caring for the average felon than on a church’s ministry to a spiritually hungry child.”

Barna presented the findings of his research on the state of children’s ministry in the U.S., which fueled group discussions concerning the “4-14” window; that is, the critical age timeframe wherein the vast majority of people decide what they will—or won’t—believe. Barna’s findings—and their meaning to a church and family in transition—are spelled out in the book, Transforming Children into Spiritual Champions (Regal, 2003).

“Our children will determine the future, which makes them our most significant and enduring legacy,” Barna proclaimed, “can we afford to let the spiritual and moral dimension of our future leaders be shaped by default?”

A surprising outcome of the gathering was the uniform acceptance of Barna's words of challenge, even among those participants who have appreciated children’s ministry for years,beginning with pastors.

“I’m in the process of rethinking the direction and priorities of our church,” stated Dr. Ed Johnson, Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church in Ocala, Fla. “I’m going home with the deep conviction that children need to be the number one
priority of what we’re doing.”

So strongly did the majority of attendees respond to Barna’s challenge, that they themselves issued a number of calls and challenges.

Specifically, the Forum:
*** Called for churches to strategically place their resources toward ministering to children within this window of opportunity and to assist parents in their role of being spiritual shapers.

*** Called for parents to step up to their biblically directed responsibility to be the primary source of spiritual nurture for their children.

*** Encouraged strategic partnerships among organisations to work together to create awareness of this window of ministry opportunity

*** Called for ministries, churches and parents to adopt a comprehensive system of high quality teaching and mentoring efforts that include meaningful assessment and evaluation of children’s understandings.

*** Agreed to a coordinated ongoing effort at shifting the perception of ministry to children from that of mere appreciation to that of strategic priority in the local church.


Sponsoring organizations for this forum, held April 5 and 6, included: AWANA Clubs International, The Barna Group, Child Evangelism Fellowship, Christianity Today International, Gospel Light, and LifeWay Christian Resources.

Upcoming Event

Ooooooooooooooooooh this looks really good.........


!!!!!

One Year On

We have now been here for one year. Have I made any difference? What's my review of the year contain?

It was long journey to get here, in terms of stepping out big time into the unknown, resigning from not one but two jobs with only one job being concretely offered at the time of resigning, house sale in the middle of a property slump, having to rent and do the whole "store your possessions in a room" thing then renegotiate a lease when house didn't sell, then once it had sold, buying a house and moving into it while trying to finish theology finals blah blah you get the picture if you hadn't been following it.

And that's only the mechanics bit.

We've had to change a lot of our terminology - no-one knows what we mean by a "wall song" here :-), the amount of equipment/resources that have to be moved from building to building, the number of services Lynn attends (this is a multi multi service church) some of the way we relate to others has changed, we've had to make new friends, learn to cope with change in theological practices in a couple of things, cope with a shift in emphasis in others, understand different ways of responding to even more things that crop up in a church in the middle of rapid growth and transition.

And that's not even beginning to deal with the financial implications of moving and the educational issues around our kids, who only now are beginning to feel settled. So why did we do it? I'm not the main pastor, who leads the church. These are the people who move locations cross-country(s) most often. I'm not one of the leadership team of elders. In other words, whereas I can make a difference in some areas, there are big areas of church life where what I do doesn't really influence things - nor should it necessarily?? Its the only negative I can see of "specialist" staff appointments and I speak as one who's been in two.

What next?

To be obedient to God. He loves the children of this church SO MUCH that he called our family to move, to come, to THEM. And I tell the precious children here this fact often, that God loves them so so much and that I do too.

I've had a year of laying down a tight vision and some foundations of children and family ministry, teaching a little on theology as it pertains to children, building teams, getting to know each and every child by name, visiting families, (establishing accurate records and safeguarding procedures!!! So important!) linking in with families in the community and looking to see how we can offer support to family life and most important of all, welcoming the refreshing presence of God into everything concerning the aforementioned. Dry, oft-repeated stories rattled off on Sunday mornings only are not enough any more and I'm longing to see on-fire children, confident of who they are in Christ, standing alongside adults and family members, reaching out into the local community. I've most enjoyed the children's discipleship group and our weekend away where we worshipped freely and tenderly enjoying the Father and some great outdoor activities as well as prayer and teaching :-) Highlight of the year.

But the task ahead of me feels so huge, and there are things I'm praying to see happen that just can't at the moment. I can't specify the constraints here but I'm carrying them alone at this point of the summer vacation. I'm longing for and anticipating more in every sense (more children, more children with support needs who we can help, more families who find a safe place to be together, more team members, more children moving on in their relationship with God, more of God's presence whenever we meet) but I need more hands on deck alongside me. If you're a blog reader and pray-er, please do pray for me and what's ahead this year. It's a biggie and there are some exciting possibilities ahead!

Spring Harvest interruption

We interrupt this transmission from Spring Harvest for the following……

I’ve been doing some work in the afternoons on research on mission expressions and children and also on children and the charismata – the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I have just read something which has had me pounding the table (in a public place as well. Not a good look)

Right at the moment of typing this blog entry, the speaker from the live feed from The Big Top has just said: one thousand young people and children a week are leaving the church. He’s just said: “the church is only one generation away from extinction”. Please, please, if you are just passing by this blog and don’t usually work with children or have much to do with children’s leaders and pastors, please do read on.

I face an uphill journey in changing attitudes and practices in the church towards children. Well meaning as we are, the attitude “out of sight, out of mind” pervades the church in Britain. When new initiatives/church plants/plans are made, don’t just consider the resourcing of the under 18s (though that is a great first step!), but consider putting their needs high, high, high up on the agenda. If the church is statistically one generation away from extinction, then we need to pour our time, effort and money into the younger generation. Don’t just assume that good leaders in that area mean that is all OK. They need YOU! Your interaction. Your prayers. Your talk about The Walk. Please hear me out in what I am going to outline below and which has flavoured this blog from the moment of its inception back in 2006.

I am, at heart, a discipler. I have pastoral training and background. I didn’t start out as someone who works with under 12s – God called me into this out of a more general pastoral context. I have now discovered that when I write about issues for children, like teaching about why we worship and how we worship, I could just as easily use the words “new Christians”. And yet…..sometimes in our churches it feels as if new Christians are more important than children. (are we helping our new Christians grow? Are we meeting their needs? Have we found them mentors? Are we welcoming these new baby Christians into the church?) Do we ask those questions at a strategic leadership level about our children and young people?

I have been refreshing my ex-teacher knowledge of Vygotsky’s theories. Len Vygotsky is a developmental psychologist who has examined the connections between growing children and their culture (or community). He wrote that children’s development occurs in their culture and in turn TRANSFORMS THE CULTURE.

I’m reading about how this relates to a faith development context i.e. the church and I am relating this to the work of Urie Bronfenbrenner who has proposed that the growing human person is influenced by what he calls “a series of nesting structures, each inside the next, like a set of Russian dolls”.

(please bear with me!)

A child’s immediate setting – the home, the classroom, the church, is called a microsystem.
The second level is called the mesosystem; which refers to the interconnections between microsystems (for example, the connection between church and home). There are two further levels but as this is a blog and not a research paper I’ll not outline them further here.

It is proposed by secular developmental psychologists that children grow and develop in all of their Microsystems under the influence of all of the persons within that microsystem. Cynthia Neal writes that the Microsystems contain the building blocks of faith development and I agree. Ongoing, lifelong commitment to Christ is made or broken in these Microsystems.

Therefore, we ignore the child in context of the faith community at our peril. Is at any wonder children are leaving the church in their thousands?
She writes: “children are to be part of a faith community and share in its life”.

Share in its life.
What does that mean to you?

“When we leave Christian education to solely a Sunday school setting, we remove faith from context”.
Absolutely!

“The separation of the Christian faith from relationships and dynamic life gives [children] an artificial understanding of the Christian walk”.
Exactly.

Which is why I have set up intergenerational cell groups in the past. Which is why I want occasional interaction between adults and children and teenagers in the same gathering place for a few minutes sometimes. Not to make people feel uncomfortable at having to be starkly open but because children’s FAITH and COMMITTMENT to this amazing God is cemented when they hear and see adults and older teenagers talking of him, praying, encouraging.

When a child hears an adult praying for God to help them, they learn that its not a sign of weakness to ask for help from this God they have learned about perhaps only from books.
When a child hears an adult thanking God for his faithfulness in x or y, they learn that God is a God who can be trusted and who looks after his people.
When a child sees an adult worshipping, they learn that God is worthy of worship no matter how old one is.

I’ve banged on about this final point in many other posts which you can find by looking back through this blog using labels if you like, but I am going to end with this quote from Cynthia Neal (in “Nurture that is Christian”):

It is a sad commentary when Christian education is relegated to the Sunday School teacher; thereby relieving the rest of the congregation of the responsibility for the faith development of the children of the church. It is someone else’s job (get on with the job, Lynn!)
That is in DIRECT contrast to the scriptural understanding of faith. Fostering an evolving faith community (or microsystem to use Bronfenbrenner’s terminology) requires us to unite the learning of biblical doctrines and creeds with the collaborative sharing of our faith experiences.

Term 2 end

As the school holidays approach, the second "term" of my new job has ended. I have enjoyed the daytime alpha course immensely as I had just the best team and we spent many hours praying together in the autumn before the course started in January. Such a good way to form a team! Our guests bonded really well and we love these women. They are so precious to God. Because I love them I can never force them to accept or believe anything, but trust God who just loves them even more! This is why I like the Alpha course so much as it presents information for guests to mull over/process.

I've also got the prep for the summer club here well underway....finding a venue was a high priority as the current building accomodation is too small. Every venue I tried - school, community centre, other churches...said "no" to a hire for a variety of reasons but I just knew that I needed a space outside the church building to use and I finally got one.........but it's not cheap. I have to say that I really don't care about the money side of it, although I am careful (this is a word to K!)and I do budget pretty tightly for all activities and plans I make year on year in ministry.

I just feel its time to take the church out of the building.

One thing that has really thrilled me this term is a group of 13 children who make up a discipleship group. They are absolutely awesome kids. When they start praying, I can hardly get them to stop. I think taking prayer and Bible study outside of a Sunday (we meet on certain Saturdays) has been the best thing. They listen well, interact well and eat well (we have Pizza Hut pizzas!) I really love them already and I have only been here for a few months. What will I be like when they are older?

(I had a weepy moment this week when I heard of some kids being baptised at Easter in my previous church, Not being there to see that is hard. I feel like they are like my own kids)

I wanted to spend time bringing God's word to the discipleship group kids - time is always so tight on a Sunday - so we are unpacking some biblical truths about how God sees them. I am also using this group as an opportunity to train and release a young man with fabulous potential into working with children. How the boys need to see a guy who loves Jesus so much and talks about him with a passion.

I've also written parent history maker sheets to go along with the things the children are learning and doing so that some time is spent talking and praying adult-child/child-adult during the week. My prayer is that this will really help some of the parents in particular who either don't come to church at all or are very new Christians themselves, giving them suggestions of things they could pray for together or share with one another.

Finally I've started to prepare for a weekend away with all Primary 5s, 6s and 7s and again I am delighted to have such great leaders coming with me. I am REALLY, REALLY excited about the weekend away. Ones in the past (last church) have seen incredible moves of God amongst the children and their faith growing in leaps and bounds.

I am really looking forward to a Sunday off (this week). Followed by some days off to do a few social things, we hope, with some of our new found friends perhaps, and also for me, some reading on "children and spiritual gifts". Got to present a paper on this by the end of May.