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
What in heaven’s name are we singing?
I was at a workshop last week, when the person leading morning worship asked us to sing “Days of Elijah”. This was greeted enthusiastically by those present and they joined robustly in the song – while I stood there open-mouthed wondering, “What in heaven’s name are we singing?”
For those unfamiliar with the words (as I was) here is a sample – first verse, chorus, and final refrain:
These are the days of Elijah
Declaring the word of the Lord
And these are the days of your servant, Moses
Righteousness being restored
And though these are days of great trials
Of famine and darkness and sword
Still, we are the voice in the desert, crying
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord!”
chorus:
Behold he comes, riding on the clouds
Shining like the sun, at the trumpet’s call
So lift your voice, It’s the year of Jubilee
And out of Zion’s hill, salvation comes.
There’s no God like Jehovah,
There’s no God like Jehovah,
There’s no God like Jehovah!
The lyrics raise at least three questions for me about what we sing in worship:
- Why do many of our newer songs, especially those coming out of the more conservative wing of the church, persist in using images from the Hebrew Scriptures (which some still refer to as the Old Testament) as the primary language of worship? We are those who know the revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth and are called to live as Jesus’ followers in bringing to birth the presence of God’s reign. Are we really living in days like those experienced in the time of Elijah, Moses, Ezekiel, and David – or are we living in days of hope because God’s love and grace have been revealed to us in Jesus the Christ?
- Why do we think that cobbling together pseudo-biblical phrases, as in the chorus above, actually means anything? Do people believe that such language is somehow more worshipful? And who is the “He” it refers to? This is just a mish-mash of words that neither honours God, nor elucidates the faith community asked to sing them.
- Why, as in the final refrain, do some parts of the church persist in using the title “Jehovah” to speak of God? It is not a biblical word. In fact it’s not even a proper word being a miscegenation of consonants from one Jewish name for God and the vowels from another. It’s like us taking the consonants from “Jesus” and the vowels from “Christos” and forming a new word “Jisos” as a shorthand name for Jesus Christ. We wouldn’t do it! So why do it to the language of our Hebrew ancestors in the faith?
We can do better than that in our worship of God.
Posted by Rob
Celebrate Refugees
Refugee and Migrant Sunday is this Sunday – August 31st. What is Refugee and Migrant Sunday? It is a day to celebrate and acknowledge the contribution refugees have made to Australia. It is held every year in thousands of churches around Australia. Each year, the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA) produces an Education Kit for congregations and the wider community that contains education sheets and education and liturgical resources to help celebrate the day and take further action. You can download this year’s resources here
posted by Louise
Recycle? No, Precycle!
Its been around for ages. Our grandmothers did it. Some of us have done it for a long time. Even though we didnt know it’s name. Or that it was fashionable. “Precycling” is catching on as the latest fad, a timely manifestation of green marketing.
What does this trendy new buzzword actually mean? It’s apparently another way of saying “conserve.” As in, re-using plastic water bottles rather than tossing them and buying another one. Re-using plastic and paper bags. Buying large quantities rather than single-serving packaging.
Precyclers remove themselves from junk mail lists, read paper-based media online and even carry around “precycling kits” consisting of cloth napkins and silverware—anything to reduce waste and not contribute to the recycling bin.
“It’s not just about how you dispose of [products and packaging] anymore,” said Melissa Lavigne, director of marketing for The Intelligence Group [the people who came up with the word]. “It’s about being conscious about products you buy in the first place. That’s the idea behind precycling.”
Read the full post here
The you can leave a comment to let us know some of your grooviest precycling practices?
posted by Louise
Action B4 faith
I couldn’t quit drinking. My son was a baby and I couldn’t quit drinking. I knew I was drinking too much and I’d always been able to quit before and then all of a sudden I couldn’t. And a friend of mine suggested that I pray, that I get on my knees in the morning and ask God for help keeping away from a drink or a drug, and I get on my knees at night and thank God for keeping me away from a drink or a drug. And I said, ‘But I don’t believe in God,’ and she said, ‘Just do it, just do it mechanically.’
Award winning poet Mary Karr began to pray and from the day that she did she was able to stop drinking. That was 18 years ago. She didnt attribute the change in her life to God and saw these prayers as an appeal to her higher self. One day at a BBQ she confessed to a friend who was an ex-drinker that she was “mouthing prayers”. He suggested that she try thanking God as she went through the day. Mary says that this didnt come easily for her – that she wasnt a grateful person. Without much hope she began to say thank you for things like a good cup of coffee. “All of a sudden“, she says “it was like the world bloomed into being. I realised that I had been so focused on complaint for most of my life that I had just missed a lot of the good things that were going on. My world view, which I had thought of as so ‘realistic’ because I didn’t believe in God, was in fact very warped by a kind of naturally depressive state of mind. It’s almost like the world was black and white and it started to bleed into technicolour before my eyes.”
Yet it was still some years later before she could say that she believed in God. She began to attend church because one Sunday morning her five year old son came and said that he wanted to go to church. When Mary asked why, the child said, “I want to see if God is there”, which Mary says is the only thing he could have said which would have got her to go to church. After that the pair of them started this thing they called God-o-rama where they would go with anybody they knew who attended any kind of church. Eventually Mary joined the Catholic Church. She says that for her “faith isn’t a feeling, it’s a set of actions.”
to ask, a stream welled up inside me;
some jade wave bouyed me forward;
and I found myself upright
inside my own ribs aflourish. There, the arbor leafs.
The vines push out plump grapes.
You are loved, someone said. Take that
and eat it.
- from ‘Disgraceland’ by Mary Karr
Mary was a recent guest on Radio National’s Encounter program. You can read the transcript of that conversation here
Church as minority
Whether we like it or not, the Christian church is no longer a central part of most people’s lives and is now a ‘minority group’ in Australian society. That means we are at risk of doing what minority groups do – building enclaves to preserve our language, culture, music and beliefs. It’s the same process for migrants in a new country and it is important in that context especially where people have migrated out of ‘necessity’ for example as refugees. Maintaining culture in those settings is vital as culture is an essential part of identity, an identity which may have been oppressed or resulted in victimisation presenting the need to migrate or seek asylum in the first place.
It is normally the second generation migrants who as young people, begin to venture out into the ‘mainstream’ society and find themselves developing a ‘mosaic’ identity with components from the old and the new. This is where conflict begins to develop between them and their elders as they begin to talk and act in way their parents are unable to relate to.
Tony Floyd, Director of Multi-cultural Ministry with the Uniting Church talked about this in his recent visit to Adelaide. Tony indicated that it is second generation young people who are suggesting a new paradigm for multi-cultural ministry. One which has an awareness of the multiple factors which go into forming identity and begins with the common element identified in many faiths and cultures, that of Spirit. While we may have been accustomed to starting our conversations with Christ as the centre, this new paradigm suggests that we begin with Spirit as a way of building connection and shared identity with others.
So how does this relate to the church as a minority in society? Well for starters there’s the challenge to ourselves about the ‘enclaves’ we might be tempted to build. Yes maintaining culture is an important part of identity. The language, ritual, music which are part of our tradition, assist in forming our identity. But if we are going to engage with, walk beside and serve in a society where identity is plural, it will only be possible for us to ‘be Christ’ in that setting if we are open and accepting and inclusive of the other. If we go with a preparedness to learn, to listen and to be changed by our encounters, then I would suggest we have the opportunity to ‘be Christ’ wherever we go. But if we go thinking we have all the answers and that it is for us to convince others of that then we may as well stay in our enclaves.
Spirit, God, Christ. It reminds me of the ‘inclusion, control, acceptance’ model presented by David Augsburger from Fuller Theological College on his recent visit to Adelaide. Connect with others through Spirit, the ‘common’, inclusive element which may be expressed through art, a love for the outdoors, physical activity or time in community. Spirit – who some understand as the breath of God, who with that breath forms life. Life which matters and which has the capacity to act, to influence, to make a difference. That’s the ‘control’ part of the model, the part when we listen and encourage others to express their identity and their capacity for influencing the world around them. And then Christ, the one who showed that no matter what your identity is or what others say about you or what you do, you are loved and accepted for who you are.
Ten things top leaders do
The newspaper management guru Jill Geisler has assembled a list of Ten Things Great Bosses Know that draw from columns she’s written in the last decade. She makes quick summaries of her points about leadership tactics, like emotional intelligence, the value of coaching, and how to manage change. Then she links to deeper looks at each of the topics. While we might have bossy people in the church we dont really have bosses but reading the word “leader” or “Minister” instead works very well. Check it out!
Louise
In Search of Faith
Here’s a fascinating project: visit 52 churches in one year and report on the findings. That is some church crawl! And it is exactly what novelist Suzanne Strempek Shea did. Her findings were published in April this year as a book Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith. When Pope John Paul II died in 2005 Suzanne, who had turned away from the Catholic Church of her childhood, saw in his mourners a faith filled passion that she wanted to find for herself. For one year she attended different non-Catholic services across America. She wanted to learn what makes the denominations differ and different from the Catholicism she was raised in, and to understand more about faith and why people go to church.
Near the end of the book she writes, ” the past year has distilled for me the qualities I’d need in a new church home: a community that welcomed me warmly, didn’t give a whit about my politics or lifestyle, gave tons of whits about the social justice needs locally and beyond, contained little-to-no hierarchy, allowed congregants a say in decisions large and small offered a spiritual message inspired by love rather than fear, and did all this in an art-filled space that rang with awesome music.”
A reviewer of this book on the Amazon.com site says this: “By the end of this book I felt I had not only traveled roads to outlandish and inspiring places, but I also felt I had reached a personal revelation of what spirituality could be, whether or not it was tied to a religion, a creed, or a parcel of dogma. As I read I was amused, astonished, and sometimes shocked by the types of worship she observed, and ultimately I had to admit I was profoundly moved by what she showed me about faith and belief. For when we witness others’ faith, we allow our own to grow. “
The book can be purchased from Amazon. com I dont think it is available in Australia yet.
Posted by Louise
Comments on the Pope’s visit
Two articles commenting on the recent visit of the Pope to Australia:
1. Written by Associate Professor Andrew Dutney, senior lecturer in theology at Flinders University and director of the university’s Centre for Theology, Science and Culture.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,,24047541-5006301,00.html
2. Written by Alexander Downer who was Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister, 1996-2007.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,,24085821-22202,00.html
Posted by Charlene
Virtual Church
Good Morning folks,
A really interesting article from this week’s Christianity Today ’s Leadership Weekly Newsletter Leadership Journal on virtual church and the significant number of people who are plugging into this form of religious expression. The article had a three minute U Tube Link which gave an intro to one of the sites.
Shalom
Matt
There is another life beyond this one: a realm where one’s role on earth is a distant memory, where inhabitants have new bodies and can fly anywhere they like. It sounds a bit like heaven. But it’s not. It’s cyberspace.
from the article: The First Church of second Life:What is the role of real Christians in a virtual world? by Angie Ward
Read the whole article here
Visit Second Life’s website here
