“Dramatic play” centers like the “block city” & “train/city center” provide opportunities for children to recreate life experiences—exploring the roles of people and structures in their family and community.  This is the teacher’s opportunity to learn about the child, and relate the gospel to all of life.

Use the “Block City” Center:

• Ask Questions: What are you building (tower, fire house, church, school)?  Where have you seen that kind of building before?  Have you ever been there?
• Block buildings fall down.  Teach kids about how things in this world break, but God will build everything again so that it never falls down.
• Kids knock down block buildings.  When this happens, encourage asking for and extending forgiveness.

Clean Up the “Block City” Center: Have the children straighten the blocks, and put toys in the box. Use the Train/City Center:

• Ask Questions: What are you building?  Have you ever traveled on a train? Where have you seen that kind of building before?  Have you ever been there?
• Toy trains derail.  Tracks break.  Teach kids about how things in this world break, but God one day will make all things unbreakable.
• Encourage sharing and cooperation.  When kids argue, encourage asking for and extending forgiveness. 

Clean Up the Train/City Center: Have the children put the tracks, cars, and buildings away in the center drawers.

What do you teach concerning a child’s condition (sometimes called age) of accountability for responding to the Gospel? How would you counsel a parent who is concerned about a preschool aged child who seems disinterested in learning about Jesus? If you had to estimate (and you do), what is the chronological age that most children become fully accountable for their decision about Christ?

Some Christians and Christian traditions maintain that Scripture teaches an “age of accountability” before which young children are not held responsible for sin and are not counted guilty before God.  But several Bible passages indicate that children (even before they are born) have a guilty standing before God and a sinful nature so that they not only have a tendency to sin, but God views them as sinners (Psalm 51:5; 58:3; Ephesians 2:3).  Experienced parents know that children do not have to be taught to do wrong.  It is their natural inclination to disobey, to lie, and to manipulate.

This is one of the strongest motivations for Christian parents and Christian churches teaching the gospel to their children from the youngest age.  We teach about Jesus because children need Jesus as their savior from sin.  As one famous preacher said, “The gospel is meat for men but it is also milk for babes.”  But kids don’t always want to hear about Jesus and trust him.  When a preschool age child isn’t interested in learning about Jesus, there isn’t necessarily a cookie-cutter answer, but here are some areas I’d explore with the parent: (1) I’d encourage the parent to examine his or her own heart.  Does mom and/or dad get excited about Jesus and learning from his Word?  Do they regularly pray and read Bible stories together with their family?  Young children often look to and follow their parent’s example.  Perhaps a parent has a satisfying relationship with the Lord, but it is private and not shared with the child.  Invite the child into your relationship with Jesus.   (2) I’d ask the parent whether or not he or she talks about sin with their child.  Does your child know that when she disobeys you, she is also disobeying God?  Do you just talk about your child’s misbehavior (taking a cookie, hitting his sister, not sharing), or do you talk with him about the heart attitudes and motivations that lie behind that behavior (greed, pride in performance, selfishness)?  When our children have a more honest view of the extent to which sin is rooted in their hearts, they will be more likely to look for and respond to Christ—who provides pardon and provision for that sin.  (3) Most importantly, I’d pray with the parent, and I’d encourage the parent to pray.  Salvation is ultimately God’s work in the child’s heart.  May God have mercy on our kids and help them to repent from sin and love Jesus.

As I stated above, I cannot justify an “age of accountability” from the Scriptures.  John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15).  Since salvation is God’s work in a person’s heart, it doesn’t require any particular level of cognitive understanding or behavioral response to be present and real.  Growth in faith is certainly evidenced by understanding and behavior, but it is not earned (or merited) by them.  Faith is more than a decision, it is a gift from God.  So, Tony, my age estimate is somewhere around conception.

See the answers given by other children’s ministers here.

This post begins a brief tour of the learning centers in our SojournKids classrooms.  I’ll be posting one per week for the next several months.

Preschool Story Circle

This center provides a place for story-telling.  Transition kids to Bible Time each week by using a few simple props.  Show the kids your large story bag (in which you have visual aids and other items you will use to tell the story) then hold up your Bible, open to the Scripture passage and keep it open as you teach.

Use the Center:

• Be expressive.  Memorize the story and tell it with enthusiasm.
  Be familiar enough with the story to tell it without reading it.
• Maintain eye contact and react to the children’s body language.  Are they interested?  Do they understand?
• Explain the terms and describe the setting, but beware of adding extra-biblical thoughts to the story characters.
• Use the visual aids to keep the kids’ interest.

Clean Up: Stack the pillows neatly near the teacher’s chair.

In Coming Weeks: Regular blogging will return in coming weeks with an installment of the Thursday Book Club and another Learning Center.  Also, an edition of the Children’s Ministry Think Tank is forthcoming.  And Advent Resources are right around the corner!

Tuesday/Thursday Book Club:
Perspectives on Family Ministry
“Family-Based Ministry:
Separated Contexts, Shared Focus,”
chapters 7-8

It has been a while (July) since I’ve done any book club posts, but now that the book I was reviewing has actually been released, I thought I’d finish it up in two final posts. If you didn’t catch the first portions of my review, you can link to them here:

• Perspectives on Family Ministry
• Family Ministry Assumptions
• Foundations for Family Ministry
• The Family Integrated Church

Chapters 7-8 of Perspectives on Family Ministry is dedicated to family based ministry.  The advocate for the position is Brandon Shields, who, at the time his chapter was completed, oversaw high school and collegiate ministries at Highview Baptist Church, a large multi-site church here in the metro Louisville area.  Brandon served in youth ministry for 10 years, and he has now take a position as a senior pastor in a Florida church.

It is interesting that this is my first post on family based ministry, because I resonate with it a great deal.  Two key books for the movement are Family Based Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries (Inter-Varsity Press, 2004), and Think Orange by Reggie Joiner (David C. Cook, 2009).  Both of these books are worthy of their own book club installments in the near future.

Two Core Values: Shields begins his chapter by underlining two core values that under gird the family based philosophy: flexibility and balance (sounds a little Zen to me but I guess it works).  Flexibility is core because every church culture is different.  And balance is key because , while encouraging the discipleship efforts of intact families is important, most youth and children today do not enjoy the luxury of an intact Christian family.  “Family-based ministry supports Christian families where they exist while, at the same time, aggressively and intentionally engaging non-Christian families with the transforming message of Jesus Christ” (98).  Another way of describing these two core values is to say that family based ministry recognizes that the church today must consider its culture missionally, and that it keeps the gospel message as the main thing (”the priority of evangelism ought to shape ministry practice,” 1 Cor 9:22-23, page 114).

Family-Based Programming: Family-based ministry does not require a transformation in programming, but rather a fresh mindset–that parents and families are crucial to faith development in every area of a ministry’s program.  DeVries says it this way, “Family-based youth ministry is not about what the programming looks like.  It’s about what you use the programming for.  We try to point as much of our programming as possible in the direction of giving kids and adults excuses to interact together” (quoted on page 99).  Family-based churches maintain age graded and often gender specific ministry programs, but intentionally include inter-generational and family-focused events in each ministry–with the goal of providing a platform for families to catch a vision for discipling their own children and teens.

Taking on Detractors: Shields insists that age-segregation is not the problem in modern student ministry, and he makes a strong case that research into age-organized ministry has been improperly conducted and used.  For example, he insists that the “infamous evangelical dropout statistic” is based more in youth ministers’ recollection and poorly done survey work than in actual reality.  He argues, ” Even if a large number of students are dropping out of church after high school, this does not necessarily mean that age-organized ministry is the culprit or that any certain form of family ministry represents the solution” (105).  Statistics actually change when considering churches where the youth pastor has a longer tenure (greater than 5 years),  the church holds evangelical theological beliefs, and it engages in systematic discipleship.  He concludes, ” Age-organized ministry is not the sole or primary cause of post-graduation drop-out rates” (105).  A better assessment of age-organized ministry is to see it as a missiological opportunity.  “At their best, age-organized programs function as vital missiological tools to touch the hearts of lost students who would not otherwise have a chance to respond in faith to the gospel” (107).

Pitfalls to Avoid: Although Shields is an advocate of age-organized ministry, he recognizes that there are some pitfalls to avoid.  Family-based ministers must avoid activity-driven ministry–programmatically heavy, theologically confused, and philosophically shallow. Family-based ministers should also avoid being uni-generational–working consistently and intentionally to build inter-generational relationships, because the Bible couches discipleship in multi-generational terms (Titus 2).  Finally, they must work to avoid culturally immersed ministry–being culturally relevant without cultural accommodation; not losing biblical distinctiveness or “going native.”

Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing: As I noted at the beginning of this review, Shields maintains that the “priority of evangelism ought to shape ministry practice.”  Family-based ministers recognize that there is a sub-culture of teenagers, and this movement reaches to minister to the teenage sub-culture as a missionary would reach any ‘foreign’ culture.  “Age-organized family-based ministry exists as a tool to address cultural ills in relevant and practical ways” (114).   “Family-based churches are acutely aware of the prevailing youth culture and of the breakdown of the nuclear family.  Such churches see these trends as strategic opportunities for pursuing the Great Commission in the context of age-organized youth and children’s ministries” (116).

Critique: There is much that I resonate with in Shileds’ gospel-centered and contextual focus.  The one critique that does hold is a question asked by Jay Strother (see last installment) in his response, “Does family-based ministry go far enough, in actual practice, in addressing the disconnect between the church and family?”  What do you think?  Can a church reach out misionally (as its primary duty) and equip families in the process?

As a children’s ministry, we’re very good a talking about what we believe. But I’ve been challenged recently to think about what we celebrate. What are wins or victories for our children’s ministry? What gets us excited? Well, here is a preliminary list:

• When the lives of children’s ministry servants are changed by the gospel message we’re teaching.
  We want nursery servants, teachers, musicians, and classroom helpers all to be growing leaders who are affected by the gospel, because we give children our lives, not just a curriculum.
  

• When kids talk about Jesus while at play.
  Because gospel life is more than just the lessons.  We want to do more on Sundays than teach through a curriculum.  We want to relate the gospel to each aspect of your child’s life.

• When families talk about Jesus together.
  When we sit at home, when we drive along the road, beside the bed at night, and while we’re eating breakfast–our children’s ministry must be a catalyst for families having gospel conversations together.

• When families celebrate gospel life milestones with their church community.
  Baby dedication, Coming of age, Baptism–because Jesus informs every stage of life.
  

Gracious God, Giver of all life,
We pray for these parents.
Give them wisdom and patience.
Let Your peace and joy dwell in their homes.
Instruct them in Your gospel truth.
Strengthen them in faith.
Sustain them through prayer.
Order their lives by love.
We pray for these children.
Be gracious to them.
Draw them to Yourself.
Help them to love and trust Jesus.
We pray that You will grow them in faith,
So that they might be like arrows in Your hand.
For Christ’s sake, Amen.

Here is the gift booklet that we gave to each Sojourn family that dedicated their children.  Please take time to read through each family’s testimony.  As a church, we’ve committed to pray for these kids and their parents.  I hope this little booklet will be your guide.

He established a testimony in Jacob
and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded the fathers to teach to their children,
so the next generation would know them,
even the children not yet born,
and they in turn would tell their children.
Then they would put their hope in God
and would not forget his works
but keep his commandments.
—Psalm 78:5-7

This is an amazing passage.  In this text, God makes parents responsible for passing on their faith. He commands moms and dads to remember His words and works and then to teach them to their kids.  According to God’s word, the primary context for your child learning about faith is not in our children’s ministry on Sundays.  It is in your home, in your car as you drive along the road, at your child’s bedside, and at the breakfast table.  It happens in those planned moments when you pull out a Bible storybook.  And it happens in those unplanned moments when your child has sinned or is heartbroken and you correct or comfort your child as a Christian corrects or comforts.  Passing on our faith can’t just be done in one hour each week.  It involves passing on our lives.

And while it is clear that we are responsible for passing on our faith, it is also clear that God doesn’t give this responsibility to moms and dads in isolation. He gives his law and testimonies in the context of a believing community.  Training children is a community project, because we need help. We need one another’s encouragement, one another’s accountability, and one another’s eyes to see what we can’t see.  We need one another’s help, and we need God’s help.  He is the one who opens the womb and gives life.  He is the one who controls the way our children grow up and develop.  And He is the only one who can change their hearts and save them from sin.  If we are going to pass on our faith, we need God’s help.

These are the two reasons why we have a baby dedication service at Sojourn.  Parents are coming this Sunday, October 18th, because they recognize their God-given responsibility, and because they know that they need help.  And they’ve come to ask for that help in the form of a commitment with God and our church community.  Hope to see you there!

Every Christian parent wants to raise children who will grow up to love and trust Jesus.  Parents deliberately search for the church that provides the most opportunities for their kids to grow up in the Lord.  We want Sojourn to be that church!  Yet, as we continue to build our ministry to children, we must not neglect our homes—where children see our faith on real-time display every day.

At Sojourn, we believe that the home is the front line of Christian ministry to children—not the Sunday school or public church gathering.  The practices of a Christian worship service—the Scriptures, prayer, and praise—should be present in the home as well.  After all, the most important teaching moments happen at home rather than at church.   As the church, our responsibility is to encourage and equip you in your parenting role.

We want to empower parents.  One of the ways we’ve done this is by putting together parent handbooks for each Sojourn campus.  The handbook has everything that you need to know about SojournKids’ policies and procedures–including campus-specific emergency action plans.  If you are a parent, you’ll want to take a look.  Grab a copy on Sunday or download them here:

Parent Handbook for the Germantown Campus (PDF)–an overview of SojournKids’ philosophy and childcare policies for those attending Sojourn services at the 930 Art Center.

Parent Handbook for the St. Matthews Campus (PDF)–an overview of SojournKids’ philosophy and childcare policies for those attending Sojourn services at Walden School.

We can’t be too careful as flu season begins, and, as the Children’s Ministry director for Sojourn, I can’t over-emphasize the importance of sanitary practices and proper hand washing.  For those of you who have already read Sojourn’s statement on the flu and our SojournKids sickness policy, here are some FAQs from flu.gov:

How does 2009 H1N1 virus spread?

Spread of 2009 H1N1 virus is thought to occur in the same way that seasonal flu spreads. Flu viruses are spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing by people with influenza.  Sometimes people may become infected by touching something – such as a surface or object – with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.

What are the signs and symptoms of this virus in people?

The symptoms of 2009 H1N1 flu virus in people include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. A significant number of people who have been infected with this virus also have reported diarrhea and vomiting. Severe illnesses and death has occurred as a result of illness associated with this virus.

Take these everyday steps to protect your health:

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners* are also effective.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way.
• Try to avoid close contact with sick people.
• If you are sick with flu-like illness, CDC recommends that you stay home for at least 24 hours after your fever is gone except to get medical care or for other necessities. (Your fever should be gone without the use of a fever-reducing medicine.) Keep away from others as much as possible to keep from making others sick.

If your child is sick, please respect others by keeping him or her with you. If your child shows signs of sickness (including, but not limited to, high fever, vomiting, diarrhea, severe coughing, colored nasal drainage, pink eye, head lice, undiagnosed rash, open skin lesions, and any infectious disease), we reserve the right to ask you to remove him or her from the classroom. We define an infectious disease as any disease that spreads from one person to another person. These may include, but are not limited to, HIV, tuberculosis, hepatitis, etc. We believe that God has called us to minister to all people and will, therefore, strive to provide a safe environment that is safe and accepting of everyone. Children who appear, or become, ill at church will be isolated from the other children, and the parent/guardian will be summoned immediately.

Parents are asked to contact a member of the SojournKids leadership team if their child contracts a communicable disease (such as chicken pox, head lice, fifth disease, etc.) after attending a SojournKids gathering.  The medical condition of any child or SojournKids servant will be disclosed only to the extent necessary to minimize the health risk to the person and others.  Sojourn’s elders and the SojournKids leadership team will be provided with the appropriate information concerning any special precaution that may be necessary. SojournKids will not disclose the health status of any individual without the express written consent and permission of that individual, or in the case of a child, their parent or guardian. Parents of children involved in SojournKids activities will not be privy to any confidential medical information.

The SojournKids sickness policy exists for the protection of the children in our care. We regret that it sometimes means not admitting children that have been brought to our public gatherings.