In January my senior pastor asked me to put together a corny-every-kid-involved-old-fashioned-children’s-nativity-event for the next Family Christmas Eve service some 11 months away.  I began praying about the ‘who’, ‘where’, ‘how’,‘what’ and ‘when’. I wanted to offer a way to build such an event with more than singing because not everyone likes to sing.  Last spring a team of the best children’s ministry champions in all of North Georgia gathered around my kitchen table for the annual KidMin Ninja Think Tank. Think an ‘un-conference’ where we share table-life with ideas, food, books, prayers, life, and lots of laughter. My dear friend Katie Atcheson spoke about the updated choir program offered at Grayson UMC on Sunday mornings she calls a Glee Club . A couple of phone calls later, continued prayers, talking about it around every table where I sat for months, several creative leaders stepping forward to champion, a couple of leadership meetings through the summer, and McEachern Kids Glee Club was born. We started with a 30-minute Open House with parents and kids. Almost 70 students attended the Open House and their parents.

The word GLEE means exultant high-spirited joy; great delight. It’s a perfect name for teaching little people with intentionality to praise the Lord in song, dance, body prayers, percussion, drama, art, and sign language. We meet for 45 minutes before youth group on most Wednesday nights so our youth choir can serve and build relationships with the kids headed their way. Calling it a ‘club’ provides a sense of belonging.

5:45-5:50 Gather & greet
5:50-6:00 All gather in large group to learn sign language which we all present as one of the Psalms are read with echo prayer in pairs ‘knee-to-knee’
6:00-6:30 3-5 year olds make bell bracelets, angel halos, song motions, and play musical games
1st-5th grades gather in cup circles, drum circles, learn sign language to praise songs, and whatever else helps us praise the Lord with high-spirited joy & great delight. Not everyone likes to sing, but we’ve learned everyone likes to beat a bucket with a stick.

Last week a small group led a repeat-after-me-song learned at their Fall Children’s Ministry Retreat. In October we’ll present at the quarterly Administrative Council Meeting and at the Fall Festival in Tshirts that read ‘I (heart) my Glee Club’ with our McEachern Kids logo. We’ve even learned to ‘floss’ in rhythm as an act of worship!

A surprise? Since 45 minutes is too short a time to leave and come back yet too long to just sit and read your phone, eight Moms who typically serve on Sunday mornings in Children’s Ministry are gathering in small group two floors up at the same time. After dropping off their kids, several Dads have also begun gathering in small group in the room right next door to the Moms small group. These small groups are reading a short devotion, in holy conversation, and in prayer while their kids are two floors below in The Treehouse praising the Lord in their sanctuary. We have an attentive Mom, a dedicated Dad, and an amazing middle school young man who serve as buddies to three students with disabilities so those students can participate. Even the kids who have soccer on Wednesday nights are splitting their time evenly because as one Mom put it, “This is her wheelhouse!” Our Ambassadors who have moved up to youth are serving on the set-up and 3-5 year old leadership team. McEachern Kids Glee Club has proven to offer organic, sacred connections and that is something to celebrate with great delight…with GLEE! Do you see me dancing before the Lord? Well, I am!

“Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise in the assembly of  His faithful people..” Psalm 149:1

During half-time of our alma mater’s season opener Baby Girl and #2 Son, both in their early 30s, asked to speak with Mr. Bob and I at the dining room table. My mind raced. Were they pregnant? Were we the objects of an intervention? As #2 Son began this long, drawn-out back story, Mr. Bob said, “Just cut to the chase.”

My first prayer partner, Chantal, and I spent several years in our time in New England fasting on Tuesdays for our children and their walks with the Lord. We would pray our children, mine then 4 and 6 years old, would love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. We prayed they would be sold out for sharing the gospel with the lost in their worlds and speak of Jesus as their ‘best friend from way-back.’ We prayed for their future spouses. Wayne Watson’s songs, Watercolor Ponies and Somewhere In the World as well as Cheri Keaggy’s Little Boy On His Knees played on our walkmans. We also prayed that God would give us the strength to endure whatever it was He had in store for them as He used us and them for His glory.

To make a brutally honest confession, I really thought that God would answer that prayer like this: Our kids would be healthy and safe. They would get good grades, have good friends, go to a good college, get a good job, meet a good boy/girl, have good children, buy a good house, and have a good life. When at 20 years old Baby Girl heard God calling her to serve in the mission field in Senegal, Africa for 4.5 months, we really didn’t think it would happen. Well, it did. One phone call to her Daddy and he’d have been on the first plane out of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta to go and get her to bring her back. Instead, I asked the Lord to stop/wake me when she needed prayer. He woke me at 3am each day she was gone. When she returned, I thought, “Whew! Glad she’s gotten that out of her system. She’ll finish nursing school and be back on that ‘good trail’ of loving the Lord with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength… right here.” The Lord had given us the strength to endure.

Since then, she married a young man who was looking so hard for the Lord that young man found her. After finishing Bible College they served in youth ministry in the Everglades until the nonsense being sprayed on the sugarcane fields began taking a toll on their bodies. They moved here sick. They found a great church. They found great friends. They found ready babysitters. They found peace. They got well and healthy. They purchased a home and rescued a dog. All right here. The Lord had given us the strength to endure. All right here.

“A woman’s heart should be so hidden in God, that a man has to seek Him just to find her.” Max Lucado

Back to the present: #2 Son has been invited to serve as the associate pastor at a church… in Oregon. They have friends there who were part of a new church start and have grown to the point they need more help. For this gal who never got the geography peg in Trivial Pursuit, I had to Google a map of Oregon. It’s nowhere near here! “Mama, there’s a Bible believing church on every corner here, but not in Oregon. They need the Lord.” Be still my heart. But I can’t keep the tears at bay.

I’d like to write that we jumped for joy, but we didn’t. We will at some point, but not yet. Mr. Bob got up from the table and started doing the dinner dishes.

Baby Girl and #2 Son wanted to continue their back-story. They want to tell us about the prayers, the affirmations they’ve experienced through God’s Word and circumstances. We want to hear all about that, but right now, they’ve rocked our world. Right now I want to climb into my savior’s lap and rest my wet cheek on his chest and just cry. Yes, I trust in our Lord and His leading them. Yes, I want to have a spirit of YES when it comes to following God’s call. But this Mama and Mimi is just sad right now at the thought of them being ‘not right here.’ The cousins not growing up together. Us not able to share in their homeschooling, ball games, pool days, the daily celebrations, the family gatherings which make for traditions and connections. I’m just being truthful.

I wonder how the Mamas and Mimis of missionary saints like Mother Theresa, Lottie Moon, Hudson Taylor, and Evelyn Christiansen did it? Mail was sketchy. There were no smart phones, Facebook, nor Instagram. I feel like a big cry baby just thinking about it. I’m so grateful the Lord saw fit to have me born in this era and in this country. Just sayin’.

I’ll probably feel better in a week or so. Right now it’s 3:36am and I can’t sleep. We just found out five hours ago. This I know: The Lord has indeed answered our prayers that she’d love the Lord with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength. She is indeed sold out for sharing the gospel with the lost in her world. God has given her a partner, friend, and co-laborer as they live out before their children the example of discerning and following the voice of God. AND the Lord will give us the strength to endure whatever He has in store for them. He’s a good God like that. He loves like that. He’s a Father with a mother’s heart, so he gets my sadness right now. For THIS is what we’ve raised them for…..WHO we have raised them for.

Pray for them. Pray for us. Looks like we’ll be finding out more about Oregon. But right now, keep the tissues coming.

“But Jesus immediately said to them, ‘Take courage. It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Matthew 14:27

Taking 3rd-5th grade students on a weekend retreat is a rite of passage. It could be a student’s first time away from home or first time away from family. Both students and parents have lots of questions and lots of uncertainty, but their desire for their child to have a closer relationship with the Lord trumps all that when they fill out the paperwork and arrive for send-off. The trust factor is high and I don’t take it lightly. This is why students should be able to answer the big question of, “How was the retreat?” with more than “Awesome!” even though it was, or “Great!” even though it might have been. It’s an investment of family finances, time, and heart to send a student on a retreat, so families are due more than “Awesome!”

The North Georgia United Methodist Church Conference offers an intentionally developmentally appropriate 3rd-5th grade fall weekend retreat at the beautiful Camp Glisson in Dahlonega, Georgia. Here are the blog posts about the past retreats to give you an idea of how it’s presented.

The 2018 Children’s Fall Retreat was based on John Wesley’s 3 Simple Rules of DO NO HARM, DO GOOD, LOVE GOD. Throughout the teaching times, Wesleyan devotional ‘method’ practices, and even meals (family style) the students learned and practiced how to live out this Wesleyan way of growing like Jesus ‘in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and man.’ (Luke 2:52) while creek walking, lake swimming, hiking, trekking, field gaming, and more.

Beginning Saturday afternoon, we share and role-play how the students will answer these four questions:
1. What did you do at Camp Glisson that you’d never done before?
2. Who did you meet or get to know better sharing their name and something amazingly wonderful about him/her/them?
3. What did you learn about Methodism and John Wesley?
4. What is your plan to continue to grow in wisdom (not just knowledge), stature (how your body works/what your body needs), and in favor with God and man (living in peace and obedience to God’s Word) in the Wesleyan Way?

The students shared in a small group of 4 first, followed by one person from each small group sharing their answer to each question with the entire group, moving one question at a time. We role-played on the bus on the way home with our seat-mate. The first of the week, an email will be sent to the parents inviting each student to write down (or dictate to their parents) their answers to each question giving testimony to their experiences. In the Wesleyan Way, the large group is like the Church. The Small group is like a Class Meeting (these are smaller groups of people who came together to share their spiritual journey and receive support and supervision.) The Seat Mate is like a Band (Bands were the smallest gathering of faith-filled Methodists who would have ‘close conversations’ which help us be stronger and more resilient, kinder, and gentler, growing in love and holiness). These ‘written testimonies’ will be read aloud by the students, as they wear their retreat tshirt, at the next Church Administrative Council Meeting in October. Our Church Administrative Council meets quarterly with the first 15 minutes highlighting a particular ministry AND the meeting is located in that ministry’s space on campus. October’s meeting will be in The Treehouse highlighting ministry with children.

Followup matters whether it’s after an event, after each Sunday, or after a retreat. How will you followup with your students and families?

“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” 1 Samuel 3:9

This week’s guest blogger is Hannah Harwood, Children’s Ministry Director at Sam Jones United Methodist Church located in the Atlanta suburb of Cartersville.

I love Summers in ministry! The rest of the church might slow down but Kid’s ministry is full steam ahead. One of the biggest events during the summer is Vacation Bible School. About halfway through the week I received the kindest compliment from another member on staff that made me smile for the rest of the week. She told me that after talking with one of the youth volunteers that one of my spiritual gifts is empowering teenagers. The young man had told her that he felt he was able to use his own gifts and that he had a crucial part in VBS. He had been in charge of collecting all the crew rosters, taking attendance, and updating records throughout the week. He was a computer pro and because he was able to use his gifts, I was able to put out necessary “fires” and spend time with leaders and children. We had two Eagle Scouts serve as crew leaders and even a member of the high school baseball team lead worship. Young men and young women from middle and high school were crucial members of the team. They led worship, assisted in crafts, served as crew leaders, and were examples for each child.

As adults, it is so easy to forget that our lead pastors and ministry leaders were once children and youth in churches. When we empower and guide our young adults by learning their gifts we are able to reach not only the current church but the future church as well. It takes listening to the Holy Spirit and trusting God’s call on their lives. I would not be where I am today without the mentors God placed in my life early on. How am I as a Children’s Director seeking out those that need mentoring? How can I walk alongside them and offer support and guidance as they serve in children’s ministry?

In John 6, we find Andrew speaking out to Jesus on behalf of the young boy. He could have easily told the young boy that his gift was not enough and shooed him away. But he didn’t. Not only did he share with Jesus that the boy had offered what he had, but he also revealed his doubt that it would be enough. Each year right before Vacation Bible School, I go through a similar thought process. Do I have enough? And every year God reminds me that as long as I keep looking for the five small barley loaves and the two small fish, HE will take care of the rest.

8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up,9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” John 6:8-9

You can connect with Hannah by emailing hccoady@gmail.com.