A Radical Vision
The NSW Moderator has implored his church to start selling its underutilised churches, manses and halls and give the proceeds to the poor and disadvantaged.
Faced with dwindling congregations and conceding the church could all but disappear in 30 years, the Reverend Niall Reid says the church should let go of its “holy, sacred spaces as beautiful as they may be” and work to establish an “underground” community of faithful that connects with the spiritually needy in pubs, on beaches and in shopping malls.
His radical vision was presented at the NSW Synod’s annual meeting last weekend and comes as the church recently valued its property assets including schools and aged care facilities at $3.9 billion. With land, the assets of the church could be double that.
Read what the Sydney Morning Herald wrote on this here
Why do we want children?
I’ve recently been wondering: why do we want children part of our church community? What is the purpose of children’s ministry? And how can we meet this purpose through family ministry?
When I ponder my first question the cynic in me sometimes entertains the thought that some churches want children in their church to fill in the space and give them hope that their church will continue on the way that they created it beyond their life time. However, I’m snapped back in to reality when I see the likes of many family ministries like those in the western suburbs of Adelaide who have many playgroups which meet the needs of families in their area and then go the step further to create a day of festivities, completely free to the public specifically catering for families. Playgroup in the Park is all about the families and showing them love. Then I see ministries such as that close to the city who run a day camp for primary aged children in the school holidays. They provide respite for tired parents, fun for bored kids and care and love and a glimpse of Jesus for everyone attending. I see these examples in the country as well with amazing music and playgroup programs in the South East. The truth is we have some great ministries, not programs, which meet the needs of our community. Are these ministries the answer to my third question?
I better not get ahead of myself. Why do we want children part of our church community? The Uniting Church sums up what we believe Church is about in our vision statement “We seek to be an innovative, growing church proclaiming Jesus Christ, empowered by the Spirit to transform God’s world.” In my mind this translates to us having something to offer the world. What do we have to offer?
1. We have a Lord who anyone, regardless of age, gender, social status, can personally connect with. We offer this Lord by introducing children to him through teaching, prayer and worship.
2. We have faith in a God that is life giving. We can live out this faith through mission, service and fighting for justice in the world.
3. We have love, care and support.
These aspects of our community are so amazing, we should want this type of community for our children to participate, experience and learn from. However, I fear that some of us have been living with these aspects for so long, that we become desensitised to how amazing they truly are. Some of us have got caught up running a church instead of being church. And our creativity in some areas has fizzled, making it hard to create new ways of celebrating the amazing attributes that we have.
So now that we have briefly explored why we want to involve children in our church we should look at the purpose for ministering with families. I would argue that the reason we want them part of our church may also be the purpose for which we minister to them. To disciple, to help children live out their beliefs and faith, and to care for them. We want them to have the best.
The emergent church would look at needs in the community and help provide for them. Maybe this is something that the church could do in ministering with families? One example of this is playgroups where we can offer discipleship by demonstrating in our own actions who Jesus is. If participants want to take it further we need to be prepared to share our faith and knowledge as well as provide appropriate resources. We can live out what we believe with playgroup families by enabling them to participate in mission. Simple things like shoe box of love appeal is one simple way of doing this, there are many others. Pastoral care is so easy to do through playgroups as many families need support. This can be simply through allowing them time to talk, or providing meals when they are going through a rough time, or connecting them with appropriate community services to meet their needs. And just like that we have met the purpose of church. We have invited people into our community and offered them what we have.
This is simply one way we can be church with families, feel free to add your own ideas of how you believe it can be done. I know that there are plenty of examples of how this is done during Sunday worship as well as during the week in the community. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and insights.
Heidi Harding
