I know, I know. I don't blog very consistently, but I have plenty of excuses, although, I won't make any.
In my previous posts I explained what I have been teaching to our core group. Now I want to address some other possible legitimate concerns with our church plant.
First question. "What are you doing to teach the children in your church plant?" Well,...
You need to know that I am very passionate about children and youth. I have no intentions of cutting our children short. My belief is that any children who are involved in a church should be taught exactly what the adults are being taught, for the most part, but on a different level, using the same principles. We have currently set up a volunteer led ministry for our children, which is led by two very capable and passionate individuals. By the way, thank you to those two persons! Everyone who is involved in our core group is expected to volunteer about once every two to three months. What are we teaching our children?... well, the exact same thing as our adults. Love God, Love others, Serve the World and Make Disciples. We are teaching them what it means to BE the church. We are teaching them about evangelism, missions, service, Christ crucified and anything else that we teach our adults. I am very passionate about seeing every ministry in a church tied into the vision of the church. Many times we allow our children's ministry to become a baby sitting service and I don't think we should ever be satisfied with that.
One last point to leave you with. Do you think that there were children's ministries in the New Testament churches?... I don't... Well... I don't think there were. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that there was any organized form of ministry to children. How did children learn in New Testament culture? Well, they learned through an apprenticeship program, and their teacher was usually their mom or dad. Kids learned how to do what their parents did. It was built in their society for parents to teach their kids. Who teaches our kids today?... Usually just about everyone other than mom and dad. Now we can get into a whole argument about home schooling and public schools, but that's not the issue here. My kids go to public school and my wife is a public school teacher, but I don't think that should ever be an excuse for me to not teach my children. In today's society I think we want everyone else to take care of what we are responsible for taking care of, like our children. Maybe, just maybe, we should be teaching our children at home and not always expect schools, coaches and the church to teach them everything. If you haven't figured out my next statement yet, here it goes. Our greatest ministry as a church plant is to teach our parents to love thier children with every ounce of their being and to teach their own children about Jesus and what He has done for them. Should we have a children's ministry in a church?... Yes, but it should never stop there!
Exactly!! I've always thought that church should be an extention of what children are being taught in the HOME, not vice versa. AND, if children had parents who were involved in their lives, our schools probably would not have the problems they have today. As a society, we want everyone else to raise our children...just keep them out of our hair! I see it as a privilage and MY and Jeff's responsibilbty to teach our children the things of God. Having said that, let me tell you a cute story. Monday, we were watching Joshua's Camp McCall video. In the video, Joshua is seen "helping" up a counselor, who had just been "ran over" with a HUGE blown up ball. Reagan said, "Awww, isn't that sweet? Joshua is helping that man up, just like we learned in church yesterday. We need to help people who are hurt". I was so proud of her...she understands that it's not about us, it's about others.
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