Building a children’s ministry team can be challenging. It’s not that everyone is opposed to ministering with children, but many fear they don’t have the skills. Let’s face it, it’s true that not everyone is gifted to be a full-out teacher. Instead, consider a gift-based Children’s Ministry Team.
When God entered our world, God chose to enter it as a child. God chose to identify with children as much as with adults. Children are important to Jesus. The first-person Jesus raises from the dead is a little girl.
When I look, really look, at the immensity of God’s creation from the most distant stars to the smallest seed and everything in between, I am filled with wonder. And when I consider all the intricate interconnected elements of the human body, and the vastness of all the creatures God has made, I am awed by God’s imagination. It is then that I fall to my knees and give thanks to God for bestowing the gift of imagination upon us.
Sharing our stories of faith do not have to be long. Telling our story can begin with sentences interspersed in our daily conversations with others. We might say things like: Without God’s love today, I don’t think I could have loved myself.
God is present in every moment, relationship, and circumstance of life. But when we share the events of our day, we rarely include God in the narrative. In order to share our story with God, we need to reshape the way we look at life and our relationship with God. Perhaps we could consider taking pauses throughout day—giving thanks when things are going well, asking for strength and wisdom when we are struggling, praying for others, and treating those we meet as children of God. It’s not that we fail to share stories, but that we fail to acknowledge God’s place in them.
What is Lent anyway and where did it come from?
The word Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lencten meaning spring and which is related to the verb lengthen, because this is the time of the year when the days begin to get noticeably longer. It was developed by the early church as a time of preparation for the coming of Easter and is characterized as a season of reflection and contemplation, not unlike Advent.
Jesus was the master story teller. He used stories to reflect truth and to provide a window into what God cares about. Stories were also used by Jesus to bring about change in the way we interact with each other, with the hope we would develop an intimate relationship with God and fulfill God’s will in the world.
At the beginning of a new year, it’s a good time to review what safety procedures we have in place to protect both our children and those who minister with them.
After we put away the manger, the straw, the advent wreath, and the Christmas tree in our sanctuaries, we sometimes also put away the children.
I admit I enjoy sports. However, when it comes to discipling children we need to be careful about how we include competitive elements. I don’t see Jesus competing. The disciples yes, but Jesus, no. I don’t think Jesus said to his disciples on the day he fed 5000, “Let’s see which of you can gather up the most leftovers.”
