Last Friday night we offered a Prayer Warrior Bootcamp for women from high school through adult. A small group of ladies, including four guests, gathered to learn to pray together, overcome the fear of praying out loud, and practice a plan for praying with intentionality and boldness.

Cyndee Ownbey is the creator of the Women’s Ministry Toolbox online community and the founder of Women’s Ministry Toolbox (www.womensministrytoolbox.com). She has a slew of resources to support and lead women in ministry. With almost 8,900 members, it’s a safe place for sharing resources and encouragement for women serving women around the world in the local church and beyond. I purchased both the leader and participant workbook to copy and didn’t change a thing. 

Our goal was to offer training for a holy habit to be practiced in Christian community AND leverage as an onramp to the Bible studies and small groups beginning two weeks later. 

Promo info: How’s your prayer life? You don’t have to settle for an okay prayer life or be filled with fear and dread when it comes to prayer. Ephesians 3:12 tells us we can approach our great God with boldness and confidence! Come learn how.
Ladies of all ages and stages are invited to the Prayer Warrior Bootcamp on Friday, August 25, 2023, 6-10pm in Oaks Hall.
Adult tickets are $25 per person and includes dinner.
Student tickets for high school through 25 year old adult ladies are $5.
Sponsored by McEachern Women’s Ministry.

We ordered Chicken Salad Chick for dinner delivery, invited ladies to wear camo or workout clothes with a pop of pink color; offered all the teas and cucumber lemonade (my favorite summer beverage).

Three different ladies were the ‘personal trainers’ to lead the different sections adding a chatty response of sharpie painting prayer rocks just before the closing. Chatty response = our hands are busy with a creative response to what we’ve learned while we chat and grow in relationship with one another. 

Our event design team will gather soon to offer another holy habit teaching workshop, but first we are rolling out Bible studies and small groups and we couldn’t be more excited.

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Romans 12:12

Each Women’s Bible study and Women’s Ministry small group (Women’s Ministry is my lane, too) was invited to participate in a service activity before their last group meeting last Spring. One service opportunity was to bring new/gently-used outdoor play items to fill laundry baskets to be dropped at local green spaces and neighborhood playgrounds the first time the weather forecast shows three great days in a row.

A sign on the laundry basket read, “FREE TO PLAY WITH & KEEP: We hope you are enjoying this beautiful day the Lord has made from your friends and neighbors at McEachern Memorial United Methodist Church!” 

Part of being a good neighbor is unwrapping everything so that every item is ready to play and there is little to no trash/debris. Items included sidewalk chalk, bubbles, balls, bats, hula hoops, play animals/dinosaurs/ people, and more.

GOALS:
1. Be a good and generous neighbor to delight littles and their bigs where they play. No bait and switch, just being a good and generous neighbor.
2. Give small groups an opportunity to serve and practice generosity alongside one another.

We’ve been waiting for those three great weather days since May and the Lord provided them here in the Atlanta area last week in the middle of August. 

Three of us made deliveries last week. The timing was perfect because the website is updated with all the upcoming fall small groups as well as the youth and children’s calendars of events for the school year. I’m getting videos and pictures of delighted kids playing with plastic bugs and jumping rope shared almost daily from the community Facebook pages from our own church folks who live in the communities.

How are you being a good and generous neighbor to the littles where they live?

“A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” Proverbs 11:25

Serving at a local church with multiple buildings on the same campus, I can see first hand that families can get easily frustrated if it takes 15 minutes to drop off all the littles all over campus before Mom and Dad can get where they need to be on Sunday mornings, especially if they are serving. This is why we opened a Kid’s Welcome Center for K5-5th grade. Every event, even Sunday school, will give parents a one-stop location to sign in their children and see their children immediately engaged in games and ‘friendship stations’ to begin the day/event. It also helps our church greeters to direct guest families to one location. And the benefits continue.

Adults engage in fellowship and community over coffee. Little people do the same over a shared game. If their hands are busy, their minds are calm. The Welcome Center is set up with various ‘friendship stations’ so little people can play together. Playing together builds a sense of belonging. Learning to play together well builds connection to our peers and other members of the family of faith. Only a game can encourage even the shyest kids to talk and participate.

We add something new each season and even make a snack station with a water dispenser for those who are hungry and don’t have time to eat before arriving. A container with colored plastic cups is always the building go-to, but these are the latest additions:

Bluetooth DoorBell – After children check in, they ring the doorbell. Everyone looks and waits to see a friend enter and shouts out his/her name. Kinda like our own Cheers moment. (I probably just dated myself.)

A Globe – As we talk about traveling and missionaries and such, having a globe handy is fun for kids to chat through locations. We found ours in a long-lost storage closet.

Head Hoop Basketball Party Game – The older boys are constantly wanting to toss a ball. This satisfies their need to toss a ball and my need to keep some safe space for the others in the room.

Straw Connector Set – I discovered this box of straws and connectors at a kidmin training event where Vanessa Myers was leading. I’ve used them at a Women’s Retreat, as centers at Family VBS, with staff meeting devotionals, and in the Welcome Center. Each box has ALOT making one box easy to split to use on tables and even the floor.

The bonus is for our parents who so faithfully lead a Sunday school class as a small group leader. They can register and drop off their littles, then head to their classroom to review the upcoming lesson or adjust the supplies that are provided…in peace. When Sunday school is scheduled to begin, the small group leader returns to the Welcome Center to gather their students to escort them to large group. When Sunday school is over, the students are returned to the Welcome Center so the small group leader can tidy their spaces (we all share space with other ministries with children) and return unused supplies to their class carts. All I need to do is look down the hallway to see if their class roller carts are outside their doors to know if all the classes are finished.

If you look closely, there is usually a parent, grandparent, or a Sunday school teacher in the mix…chatting and building with Lego bricks (donated by older boys cleaning up their bedrooms), setting up the Giant Jenga game again, playing Otrio or just touching base with a student who offered up a prayer request last week. The Welcome Center system has worked well and serves as an opportunity to extend extravagant hospitality and a sense of belonging. Brittany Nelson of Deeper Kidmin calls this the chips & salsa of Sunday morning. We just use it every time kids are on campus.

What other systems are you using to make for a smoother Sunday morning for your families?

“Lord, I love the house where you live, the place where your glory dwells.” Psalm 26:8

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The first thing God said was ‘not good’ was for man to be alone. (Genesis 2:18) Here Adam was, the king of the world, and both God and Adam knew they were missing something.

Are you missing something? Are you feeling like no one knows what you’re going through? Are you working your tail off hoping someone sees all your great effort? Do you feel you are shipwrecked on the sea of ‘it’s just me’? I have a few ideas.

“The question for all of us as we navigate the demands of ministry and our relationship with Jesus and the Church is, do we understand the original assignment?” Natalie Runion, from Raised to Stay: Persevering in Ministry When You Have A Million Reasons to Walk Away

The marching orders of all Christians is to “go and make disciples of all the nations…teaching the new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.” (Matthew 28)

1. Go to church – When we are invited on staff and the honeymoon of a ‘new thing’ is over, no one tells us how to figure this one out, so I will. We are still a child of God, not His employee. We still need to gather regularly and serve and learn in Christian community. Listening to podcasts and sermons online won’t cut it. If there is an earlier service offered, get up and go. If there is a service offered in your community on a different day/night, go. Set a Sabbath day of the week and guard it as the day you do things or meet with others to remind you you are His and He is good.
2. Go to Bible study – The Holy Bible is the library of 66 books which teach us about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. We are always students of the triune God. Verses here and there won’t cut it. Rev. Dr. Tony Evans said, “Christians today have changed books.” My daughter and I went to Hobby Lobby to find a wall hanging for a gift with scripture. We traveled row after row checking the printed scriptures with our phones and more often than not, the scriptures printed for sale did not match the plethora of Bible versions on our phones. Whoever is in charge of your adult education would be thrilled to have you co-lead alongside another. But if they don’t, look online for a study being offered by another church near your home and make some amazing new friends-in-the-Lord.
3. Go to a networking opportunity – There is no way in the world I’d still be in ministry if I had not made a monthly lunch with others in Christian education a priority. It is an investment in Christian friendship with others and in myself as a Jesus gal who needs other Jesus folk to share the journey. The distractions will be hot and heavy because the fruitfulness is guaranteed to be sweet and mighty.

It’ll take a sacrifice of time, a sacrifice of preferences, and it will not be convenient. You’ll have to guard it as a priority, but it’ll totally be worth it. 

Over the last month I’ve been adding to our weekly curriculum a slide or two about why we go to church. I thank Brittany Nelson of Deeper Kidmin for the inspiration. We go to church to ‘spur one another on to love and good deeds’ and we don’t forsake gathering together as per Hebrews 10:24-25 though it will look different than before we were on staff.

Isolation, despair, and loneliness is the complaint I read about all over the kidmin sites, especially lately. My heart hurts for them. It’s preventable. Go. 

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25

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One of the delightful finds in this summer’s reading is a resource for families to grow their faith at home together, Grow At Home: A Beginner’s Guide to Family Discipleship by Winfield Bevins, published by Seedbed. 

This small, green, 110-page little paperback book is filled with practical places to start and even continue loving families to Jesus ‘as they go.’ (Deuteronomy 6) This book goes beyond Christian parenting and jumps into the deep end of real, true, family discipleship. I’ve never come across a book that packs such a punch (1) without being overwhelming, and (2) written in family-friendly language.

Dr. Winfield Bevins serves as the director of Asbury Seminary’s Church Planting Initiative, yet his primary ministry is being a devoted husband and father. This book turns upside down the expectation that local church involvement alone will spark a fire for a robust, defendable faith in Christ Jesus. The local church is absolutely necessary (don’t forsake gathering together) but not enough. Prayers before bed and at meals are a great place to start with your preschooler, but hardly enough for your preteen who is ready for more than a Bible story.

“We have produced a generation of consumeristic, and not radically committed, disciples of Jesus Christ. Consumeristic Christianity sees the church as a place that is all about me, my wants, and my needs; a place of goods and services, instead of being a place where we are challenged to grow, serve, give, and go back into the world in mission.” p. 4

When I see my own church families committed to the Saturday recreation department, the weekday preschool, scouts, and parents-morning-out, I struggle with the model that we have become more service-providers and less disciple-makers. When church is more about where we go for Christian services and less about where we grow in Christian community, I see the need to help our families along the way so mom and dad are the primary disciple-makers providing non-overwhelming ideas for incorporating faith formation into their daily routines of the home.

This book introduces and makes handy the holy practices of …

Family Worship – ‘Your home is like a little church.’ Family Worship (worthship) is simply coming together as a family and worshiping God in the home. This chapter has just enough examples and ideas without overwhelming the reader.

Reading the Bible as a Family – The Bible was always meant to be read in community. 

Teaching Children Truths through Catechism – Catechisms are basic summaries of the church’s teachings to ensure that all members of the church understand the essentials of the faith for themselves using a question-and-answer format…an invitation to learn the doctrines of grace. The book provides 40 such Q&As along with two Christian creeds to teach/learn together. Bible stories are good, but not enough to put into words the foundational basics of the Christian faith in Jesus.

Cultivating Character through the Fruit of the Spirit – Joy is a deep gladness that comes from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Learning to Pray the Lord’s Prayer – Jesus reminds us that prayer begins with God, His kingdom, and His ways with a breakdown of each section’s meaning in a kid-friendly way.

Becoming a Missional Family – Sharing our faith in Jesus is the duty of every believer, both young and old…partner with others who are already doing ministry in your church and community.

Following Jesus Through the Church Year – The seasons of the Christian year have been a wonderful discipleship tool that the church has historically used to celebrate the major events of the life of Jesus and the kingdom of God for centuries.

Introducing Your Children to Jesus – Y’all! This was worth the price of the book AND my very favorite chapter.

The book on its own is fabulous, but there’s more. I discovered there is a 9-week DVD with 4-5 minute introductions for each chapter to take this to the small group level. I also discovered five used books on Thriftbooks. If the book is too expensive, purchasing the PDF of the book and printing might be the best resource for a small group. I’m looking at offering this as a generational small group with kids and parents/caregivers taking the class together, if even for a short-term Sunday school class.

I loved this little book and the huge impact it can make. It is a perfect addition to the family resource wall alongside with the family resource we share from Discipleship Begins At Home: A Blueprint from the fabulous folks at Women in Apologetics until I can get it on the roster for adult small groups.

What is a resource you offer for family discipleship at home.

“Our family is our first church.” Grow At Home, pg. x