This week’s guest blogger is Hannah Harwood, Director of Children’s Ministries serving the families of Sam Jones United Methodist Church in Cartersville, Georgia, a suburb of the Greater Atlanta area.

I had the incredible blessing of being able to participate in an online Bible Study this summer on the book of Acts. I felt as if it had a lot of relevant lessons to teach us as the Church is navigating through COVID 19. One of the areas that stood out to me was the amount of traveling that Paul and the early church did to make disciples and share the good news of Jesus. What if I applied that same concept to Children’s Ministry? What if instead of the children traveling to me, I traveled to them?

During the month of August, we invited our families to host a Popsicles and Praise Pop-in. First, we set it up in our church’s registration program to invite families to host the Popsicles & Praise Pop-ins. We asked our host families to sign up for a morning or afternoon session on the date of their choice. We provided several different date opportunities. Each session consisted of praise music, a specialized lesson, and fun activities right in their own front yard. Social distancing was incorporated into the fun.

With our current curriculum we use for kid’s worship, we offered a lesson with supplies in individual brown bags which included a clipboard, construction paper, coloring sheet, set of four crayons, leftover VBS bracelets, and a special light since the lesson was about Abraham. We also provided poster board, post-it notes, hula hoops, a pool noodle, a fun umbrella, and popsicles. The umbrella provided shade so the musical guest who traveled with me didn’t have to stand in the sun.

Each parent/host was responsible for obtaining signed permission forms and the kids brought a towel to sit on. The host family provided the front yard and invited friends from the neighborhood. We noticed how several families had chosen a couple of friends, cousins, and neighbors they felt comfortable being around to socialize during COVID-19, so the host family would invite them to the Popsicles & Praise Pop-in. We did ask that numbers would not exceed 10 children per location to ensure social distancing during the lesson. The host family let us know the exact number a couple days before the event.

I arrived at the host families’ house about thirty minutes early to meet with the family and setup each area. Every student got their own hula hoop and bag of supplies. My Senior Pastor was one of my volunteers and brought his guitar to open up the service with music. With a lesson on Abraham, of course we had to play “Father Abraham”.

We started with a couple of songs and followed it with our lesson. After the lesson, we passed out yummy popsicles. The entire program lasted between 30-40 minutes. The parents enjoyed the time of fellowship and the kids loved getting to see everyone. 

Hannah Harwood is a wife, mom, and loves her coffee. Hannah can be contacted by emailing hharwood@samjonesumc.org.

“Some time later Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.'” Acts 15:36

Connection is happening in a whole host of new ways in 2020. Where we would typically pour ourselves out into a Sunday, we now get to pour ourselves out into families in a more personal way with the words of the Lord. I’m no Bible scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but I am a satisfied customer of the scriptures.

I earned my degree from Louisiana State University (Geaux Tigers!) in Political Science with a minor in Greek and Roman History because of the power of words to move people to action: spoken and written. Words spoken into and over my life as a child, by the people in my family and world over time, have been re-written by the scriptures. They have brought me courage as a girl, strength as a single woman and student, encouragement as a wife, guidance as a mom, endurance as a leader cut by stained glass, and armor as I grew from a girl of the church into a woman of faith called by God to teach. I even have a ring of index cards filled with the scriptures which have molded and carved me into who I am today. The best part? I added a new card just this week because the scriptures continue to whittle. 

This ring of scriptures written by my own hand have walked with me for more than thirty years. My handwriting has changed a bit. My journey has been nothing what I imagined, but this is evidence of my walk with Him and His walk with me through all the seasons so far. When our daughter spent 4.5 months in Senegal, Africa between college and nursing school in the mission field, she carried this ring of scriptures with her. When I have endured spiritual warfare in various heavenly places, I now know what it looks like, smells like, sounds like, and acts like to armor-up for the long-haul. There is great power in these scriptures. There is power in His word.

Pointing the families I serve to the Jesus of the scriptures has been my goal especially over the last several months. I reach out on Sunday mornings with scriptures to everyone in my phone whom I love by text. I reached out on the first day of school by text with scriptures and prayers. I reply on social media with these scriptures. I run to them when I’m lost. I hold them close when I need to be reminded that I’m beloved and called for such a time as this.

Pastor Matt Crane taught in a sermon recently about five growth stages of the Christian life:

• Babies – aka the born again Christian who needs milk (1 Peter 2:2; Hebrews 5:12) What is the milk babies need? Belief in Jesus (faith) & Love.
• Little Children – Growing in a lifestyle of daily discipleship of Bible reading, prayer, generosity, and other holy habits over time. (John 13:33)
• Young Men/Women – Zealous newbies in ministry who are strong warriors, energetic, engaging in a life of spiritual adventure. They may not get it right and there are some things that, according to Pastor Crane, might burn down. But what they lack in wisdom they more than make up for in zeal, spontaneity, risk-taking and a fresh fire to share the gospel. (1 John 2:13) They ask with eager anticipation, “What does God want me to do?” and are willing to just do it.
• Fathers/Mothers – Established in the ministry progressing in their study of the Word beyond youthful impulsivity with their priorities changing from “What does God want me to do?” to “Lord, do with me what You will.” (1 John 2:13) Disciples making disciples living out Titus 2. Reminds me of Paul with Timothy, Anna & Elizabeth with Mary, Naomi with Ruth.
• Old Men/Women (the aged) – Have reached the end of their life having lived a pattern of faithful discipleship for the good of the Body of Christ, beyond knowledge, with great intentionality to tell the stories of God’s faithfulness. (Titus 2:2-5; Deuteronomy 4:9)

These are just a few of the questions I’m asking myself as we begin to move into this next and new season of ministry: As I serve our families, am I investing in their lives with scripture and a legacy in mind? If you are a young man/woman in the faith, how can I help fan your fire in the Word? If you are a father/mother, who am I investing in to point to the Word? If I am in the season of the aged, how am I telling the stories of God’s faithfulness? Can I lead an online Bible study to invest in a small group? What are the scriptures which have changed the trajectory of your spiritual life? How do I pivot from providing programming to children to walking alongside my families on a more personal level…a discipleship level to the remnant…in exile?

“Truly, my soul waiteth upon God: from Him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be greatly moved.” Psalm 62:1-2

Camp Meetings are part of the heritage of the Methodist movement. Think a church family reunion with all the food, the messages of hope, the music, and a revival of the Spirit. Camp CHAIR meetings will be our next step to share life together for September and October. With the time change in November, it’ll be too dark to meet outdoors which will offer a natural ending.

We will leverage the time and space of Thursday Drive-in Church for families to engage in small groups where children are fully integrated members of the inter-generational small group. For 30-minutes, 6-6:30pm, three families will meet in camp chairs in various locations to engage in an ice-breaker, a discussion question, and then break off into even smaller groups for prayer, all as an extension of the previous Sunday’s sermon message. the pilot groups will take place in the shaded back parking lot on campus. After a closing benediction, everyone will return to their homes to be challenged the next day by email with an action step that extends the small group experience even further into the weekend to move from the seat to the street.

Modality integration will look like this:
– Sermon delivered on Sunday in-person/online.
– Post sermon on podcast or closed Facebook page for Camp Chair Meetings to be viewed/reviewed on-demand on Monday/Tuesday.Post/email ice breaker or thought question on Thursday.
– Meet in camp chairs as a small group with opening prayer, ice breaker, discussion question, break up into prayer cells within the small group of women, men, and children (children will be led by the oldest who we will train and train up), dismiss with benediction/refrain.
– Follow-up action steps by email/posted on Friday to live out the discussion/message through the weekend.

Goals: Build connections between families (however the family unit looks as 10 or 1) and invite children to be fully integrated members of the inter-generational small group.

Joel Comiskey’s Children in Cell Ministry: Discipling the Future Generation Now speaks of intergenerational small groups as a group of three to fifteen people who meet weekly outside the church building for the purpose of evangelism, community, and spiritual growth with the goal of making disciples who make disciples that results in multiplication. (pg 51) The first step deals with a sermon/message (HEAD). The second step focuses on Bible application, prayer, games (HEART). Third step takes it from the seat to the street in Christian service in living it out and telling the story/testimony (HANDS & FEET).

We have eight families who have attended the drive-in church services on a regular basis who are not in our database. The stories are incredible of how they found out about what we were doing and became part of the parking lot sanctuary. This may be the vehicle to leverage Thursdays since that time is already part of their family routine to take the next step to building relationships with others in the church family. If folks connect in one way then into another, with others, that’s success.

“On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.” Acts 14:27

Recruiting and family engagement has taken on a whole new level of relationship-building. Or has it? Motivated by a spirit of compassion, love, ‘we are still in this together’, and a respect of how each person will live out their call to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, AND love their neighbors as themselves, we proposed a Chill & Chat About McEachern Kids (MK).

Promotional Vocabulary: Children learn best to love Jesus by spending time with people who love Jesus. That’s you! McEachern Kids Dream Team’s training with Tropical Cafe’ smoothies will be on Wednesday, July 22 5:30pm-7pm.
Bring your camp chair and we’ll gather at the McEachern Kids entrance to CHILL & CHAT about the many different opportunities to serve Jesus on the McEachern Kids leadership team and have some fun.
This is for you if you’re all in, if you want to get more connected, and even if you’re just curious and unsure of making the commitment to serve when we open our doors to in-person gathering in The Treehouse.
For more information, contact dreilly@mceachernumc.org.
RSVP at…

We ordered Sunrise smoothies from the local Tropical Smoothie and with camp chair in-hand, we set up outside with appropriate social distancing. Everyone got a smoothie, a pen, a copy of the calendar hot off the presses, and an index card. The index card was to write notes to me of thoughts, ideas, concerns, dreams for MK. Earlier in the day I’d sent a text to everyone in my phone asking a set of 3+3 questions: What 3 things do you LOVE about MK? What 3 things do you WISH for MK? Our new senior pastor had asked these same questions of the staff as part of his on-boarding. My phone blew up all day with responses. Those who couldn’t respond by text and those who popped in out of mere curiosity were able to follow up with emails to the 3+3 later or write them on the index card and leave the cards in a basket for me to review after the meeting.

I’d asked two servant leaders to take notes and one to take pictures.

We chatted about small groups and tossed ideas onto the table for returning to in-person children’s programming beginning on Labor Day Sunday. We chatted about looking into the next 2.5 years. We chatted about Faith Milestones, Parenting with a Purpose classes, why we chose how we did Drive-in and Drive-thru, Christmas Eve children’s services, what CLUB345 and GLEE Club could look like. I shared stories of why we would start Grandparenting with a Purpose classes and what Camp Chair Meetings to come in September and October will look like. This team is the first to hear about Camp Chair Meetings so I needed to be clear and begin stirring much energy as they are the connectors to spread the word much better than a social media campaign could ever do. We took a tour of the Children’s Ministry spaces inside the building for the first-timers and first-lookers explaining the staging chaos for Drive-in services with the Ambassadors present telling their stories of the spaces and taking pics. “This is my favorite supply closet. This is where Ms. DeDe stores the snacks and especially the Rice Krispie Treats!,” shared by the fabulous Miss Olivia who started as an Ambassador and is now an MK intern. 

Then the ask: Would you prayerfully consider serving on the McEachern Kids servant leader team next year?

Let’s get this party started!

“Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!” Matthew 23:32