We offer faith milestones for littles with a big-who-loves-them to make for a sticky faith memory with some accountability as a platform to teach the holy habits of growing our faith in Jesus. Most are 45 minutes long. Most include a teaching, a practicable interactive element, takeaways, a certificate, and a class photo. Most, especially the Communion and Baptism milestones, will include a collaborating clergy. If offered as a workshop, we begin by lighting an LED pillar candle and repeating, “We light this candle….as a symbol…of God’s presence with us…and around us.”

The schedule looks like this:

K5 – I Can Go To Sunday School (August) … A meet and greet with tour into McEachern Kids (K5-5th grade) the Sunday prior to Promotion Sunday especially for rising kindergartners led by the Ambassadors

K5 & 1st – I Can Receive Communion: Bread & Juice Class (Sept) …. Holy Communion 

1st & 2nd – I Can Pray (February) … Prayer stations with takeaway tools to use at home

2nd & 3rd – I Can Love My Church (Nov) … Group treasure hunt to locations throughout campus and learning vocabulary like narthex, pew, along with local church history

3rd-5th – I Can Serve (August) … Acolyte training

3rd-5th – I Can Follow Jesus: Baptism (March) NEW

4th & 5th – I Can Lead: Ambassadors (August) … Leadership Training 5-7pm w/dinner

4th & 5th – Road Trip Retreat (March) … Fri-Sun shared event with other local churches retreat at local state park (alternate Ambassadors Road Trip and Disciples Road Trip)

5th grade – Moving On Up to Middle School (March) … begin transition to youth group

5th & 6th – Wonderfully Made: Loved By God (January) … Human Sexuality & Jesus w/parents; 3 days

K5-5th – I Can Worship With My Family – various worship services with intentional teaching of worship elements specific to our denomination and honoring of our local church

K5-5th – I Can Go On A Mission Trip: Family Mission Trip (July) NEW

I started these years ago to make special for families a time/place for intentional teaching and practice what I considered the most important practices of our faith in Jesus. I chose these elements since they were practices of Jesus. Each year we edit to excellence with shared language and interactive elements. I started with three in the first year.

As a great number of new families are moving into our state and into our community, offering these faith milestones help us…
1. Find common language with those new to the faith and new to our part of the country/world with shared experiences with new friends-in-the-Lord. Moving from other parts of the country/world, these experiences practice our commonalities and give space for sacred conversations.
2. Give the littles and their bigs access to the spiritual leaders in our church Teaching for a little and a big-who-loves-them, the big learns alongside their little, removing the anxiety which could be part of joining a new faith community. Young parents today are looking for integrity and truth in their spiritual leaders. Faith milestones give space to begin and grow those relationships.
3. Remove the expectation that a robust faith in Jesus will be ‘caught’. Faith milestones give intentional space for developmentally appropriate faith formation family experiences. This generation of bigs of our littles want to learn alongside their children. Faith milestones sets the table for bigs to be the spiritual heroes in their little’s lives.

Want to take it a step further? Blessing of a driver’s license, Confirmation, Bible Ninja Warrior, first job, biblical finance, etc. You get the idea. I’m responsible for K5-5th grades, but so much more could be accomplished if shared throughout for 0-26yo.

How could you set a table for faith milestones in your church family?

“My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside.” Job 23:11

Milestones are the significant cultural and developmental markers that we experience throughout our years of life. They are our firsts. There are ordinary firsts of steps and teeth, walking and talking. There are also firsts of our faith life: baptism, beginning Sunday School, receiving a Bible, our first retreat, making decisions for Christ, and more.

Faith Milestones are those firsts as we grow in our faith experiences because we know it doesn’t happen just on Sunday mornings.  It’s part of all we are and all we do as God’s beloved people.  Attending a CEF (Christian Educator’s Fellowship) national conference last year gave me the jumping off point to identify intentional firsts, presented as Faith Milestones, for our little people journeying through children’s ministries.  A huge thanks goes to Donna Draeger, Minister of Disciple Formation at Centennial UMC in Roseville, Minnesota and Deb Johnson, Children, Youth, and Family Minister at Spirit of Hope UMC in Golden Valley, Minnesota for leading the workshop that got this ball rolling around in my head.

It was important these Faith Milestones were in partnership and shared with the whole family as we sought to help families find ways to grow in their faith together.  We wanted shared spiritual experiences for our families and decided to put a few ages together just in case a family missed it the first time.  I calendared throughout the year based on our church’s rhythm of activities and wanted to introduce as much faith-filled vocabulary as possible for these firsts.

I put out a brochure (old school, I know, but it has all the dates on it for the year and that seems to work best for my parents to be able to keep up with it, especially those with more than one child.) I also put it in the monthly newsletters, bulletins, and sent a personal invite as well as a personal email a few weeks out inviting families to preregister if a meal was involved.

Ages 3 & 4 and any new rising kindergartner students: Welcome to Sunday School – Scheduled the Sunday before fall’s promotion Sunday from 12:15-1pm.  Program: What does Sunday School mean? What do we do there? Through story, song, and hands-on activities, learn what a fun place Sunday School is!  I invite a couple of the Sunday School teachers to participate so the families meet & greet and learn the routines.  We play some songs, tour the children’s hallway, decorate a cookie, and we give out a copy of The Berenstain Bears Go to Sunday School to each student.  The following week, I send a personal, handwritten post card as follow up inviting them to Sunday School.

Age 5/Kindergartners and 1st Grade: I Can Pray – Scheduled on an October Sunday from 12:15-1:30 and includes a snack lunch – Children and parents/grandparents learn the parts of prayer and when and how to pray through word and song.  We’ll have prayer stations the families can share similar to the Praying On The Go Bags that are prepared each month.  We’ll make a prayer list and trace hands in a prayer journal for the family to share together…to be left on the kitchen counter for everyone in the family to write blessings or prayer requests and read throughout the comings and goings of their family.  Their take-aways will be the family prayer journal and a glory bell…something to place in the home to ring when they want to praise the Lord!  We hit it and shout, “Glory!”

1st & 2nd Grades: Touch & See My Church – Scheduled on a Spring Sunday from 12:15-1:30 and includes a snack lunch – A chance to explore the sanctuary ‘behind the scenes’ and learn more about worship.  The students and their families will go on a scavenger hunt in the Sanctuary (What is the name of our pastor? How many pews are in the Sanctuary? What’s in the baptismal font? What’s bigger…the pastor’s office or church library?, What’s the color of the Sanctuary doors?, etc) I invite the worship leader, a musician, our senior pastor, a worship singer, an acolyte, and the church secretary to be a ‘station’ where the children ask each of 3 questions:  What do you do? How did you get to do what you do? Where do you do what you do? Students receive a sticker at the end of each station because little people like stickers.  Their take-away is a search book of bible stories.  This milestone is more involved, so I’ll post about this one next week.

3rd & 4th Grades: I Can Serve – Scheduled on a Sunday before Advent/November an hour before our CLUB345 gathering and led by our Senior Pastor.  The students learn how they can ‘help’ in the worship service and practice communion, lighting and extinguishing candles, get a tour of the chancel/stage area, etc.  The students also get their first hands-on teaching on the sacraments of baptism and holy communion.  This is also a very specific time when our students spend time with their pastor.  Anytime I can build their relationships with our pastor, I’m all in!

3rd – 5th Grades: A Bible of My Own – A student late night 6pm-9:30pm to learn about the bible and how to use it in daily living.  I’m in the process of writing this one now, so check out the blog later.  Our church gives Early Reader Bibles to students entering 1st grade and NIV Red Letter edition bibles to those entering 3rd grade (they’ll use these for CLUB345) on the Sunday during worship before the first CLUB345.

4th – 5th Grades: A Day Away At Ms. DeDe’s Retreat – Scheduled on a Tuesday in July practicing personal spiritual disciplines which help grow our focus and love for the Lord.  Deep & Wide Retreat

The scriptures share that Moses prepared the people of Israel to enter the Good Land by asking them to remember and tell the ways that they had experienced God’s love and care. In this way, he knew that faith in the God of Israel would live on.  These shared spiritual memories are special and we have sought to set them apart as such.

Deuteronomy 6:6 “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them…”

 

Faith Milestones are those teaching workshops offering developmentally appropriate faith formation experiences for kids shared with someone they love and who loves them. Children’s Ministry offers multiple faith milestones each year specific to holy habits such as prayer for 1^st and 2^nd graders and their families.

Promotion: FB event (2 months out), bulletin (1 month out), posters (1 month), personal mail (3 weeks), fliers home from Sunday school (1 week), large group announcement (2 weeks), talk about it everywhere (3 weeks), email (2 weeks)

Set up a quiet room with two chairs at each station

• Photo station with Jesus
• Names of all registrants on a jumbo post-it note where I can see it (prompts me to use all kid’s names in attendance; know who’s not yet arrived)
• Start on time; end 5 minutes early
• Starter activity: kids pick up an empty bag; squishy Jesus; handout; ink pen

Schedule

5:45-6pm             Welcome; write-in the blank handout (big fills out the blanks while littles watch/listen and hold squishy Jesus); act out 2 prayer stations; surround room with pictures of kids praying artwork
6-6:15pm             Self-directed remaining stations
6:15-6:30pm       Review 4 steps of prayer (Greet God, Thank God, Ask God, Close in Jesus’ name); invite each child forward to receive their certificate (read one aloud so they know what the certificate says; students receive their certificate AFTER they tell me aloud their favorite station – as they speak aloud I tell them “I LOVE hearing your voice! God wants to hear your voice EVEN MORE!”; close in repeat-after-me prayer and group photo

Handout: How To Pray

Prayer is t_____________________ and l__________________________ to God. (talking; listening)
Prayer can be shared

1. In your m_________________ (mind)
2. Out l__________________ (loud)

For meaningful prayers, it is best to pray

1. By yourself and in a q___________ place. (quiet)
2. With someone you t__________ and love. (trust)

When we pray we speak to our Lord God, three in one:

God the Father Creator.

                Jesus, God’s only son, our Savior and friend.

                                The Holy Spirit, our helper and comforter.

G______ the Lord. (Greet) – who are talking to?

T______ the Lord. (Thank) – grateful for God the giver of all good things

A______ the Lord. (Ask) – after thanking God we can ask for help

Close in Jesus’ n_______. (name) – We do this because Jesus is our Savior, our mediator and go-between between death (physical and spiritual) and eternal life. We also close with saying AMEN because it means we accept or agree with what’s been said.

Pray for f___________ (forgiveness)

Pray in a g__________ (group)

God will answer prayers with a Y____, N_____, and a N______ Y_______. (Yes, No, Not Yet)

Prayer Stations (stations prepared from ‘What’s in my closet? What’s already in my hands?’)
Prepare signs for each station AND prepare a take home paper with same info/images to their take-home bags so they can implement clearly at home.
Journals – composition books; trace hands of those you love (as you pray, place your hand on the traced hand)
Glory celebration bells – celebrations of ‘glory!’ to praise the Lord (place in a room where everyone meets)
Berenstain Bears book on prayer to take home (read aloud book is super kid-friendly)
Prayer cubes leftover from last Easter (hardy, hand-held item with prayer language)
Fidget spinners – thankful prayers while it spins until it stops; waiting prayers for in line or waiting on appointments (encourages longer, unrushed times of listening and talking with God)
Mini scented playdoh (aka prayer-doh) – when hands are busy, minds are calm (God’s favorite smell = our prayers! Psalm 141:2)

What’s already on your shelf or in your supply closet? Make it simple, limited text, add an image of what you’re doing and kids can take it from there with someone they love sharing the teaching and practice.

“I call to you, Lord, come quickly to me; hear me when I call to you. May my prayer be set before you like incense, may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.” Psalm 141:1-2

Faith Milestones are those moments in time when we can stop to say, “This skill is important for me to learn and understand to continue to grow in my faith in Jesus Christ.” Celebrating these specific faith milestones helps bring an awareness of God’s presence into our homes and highlights the rituals of daily faith formation experiences shared by the family of faith. Just as learning to tie shoe laces, learning to pump your legs on the swing, riding a bike without training wheels, and learning to drive, milestones give us the confidence to say, “This is important and I can do this!”

For 2018, this is the schedule:

January – I Can Pray (1st grade) 1/17 5-6:30pm
Engaging children and families to grow in relationship with Jesus through various prayer practices. Establishing prayer as a normal part of a family’s daily routine and tradition for passing on and experiencing the Christian faith.

February – 5th Grade Rock Solid Retreat (5th grade) 2/3-4
Outdoor ministry is a memorable, formative, and vital part of a child’s faith journey. The experience of going away to camp can renew and enhance spiritual growth.

February – I Love My Church (2nd grade) 2/28 5-6:30pm
Families are invited to come for this special event where they tour the church, learn more about things like baptismal fonts, Bibles, Sunday School rooms, and choir. Memories are created reminding your child of this special place where they hear God’s promises and learn to live and love like Jesus.

March – Bible Ninja Warrior (3rd-5th grade) 3/18 3-5pm
Learn how to use your Bible with the skills of a Ninja, both physically and mentally. At each station resembling the TV show American Ninja Warrior, students will learn the basics of studying the Bible as part of every day, thus building their spiritual muscles as a follower of Jesus.

Princesses of the King 3rd-5th grade Friday 3/23 7-9:30pm Secret Keeper Girl Mother & Daughter Conference @ FBC Woodstock

May – I Can Serve (graduating 5th graders & middle school youth) 5/16 5-6:30pm
Graduating 5th graders, as well as middle school youth) can serve as co-leaders in VBS after learning how to lead and serve our smallest disciples. Students will learn Safe Sanctuary guidelines and appropriate child care-giver systems.

July – Day of Service Retreat With Ms. DeDe (rising 5th & 6th) 7/17 10am-5pm Ambassadors will prepare spaces and supplies for fall children’s ministry programming and last week of summer kid’s camp happening the following week along with fun, fellowship, and learning what the Bible says about being a true blue friend.

July – I Can Go To Sunday School (K4) 7/29 12:15pm-1pm
A special time to welcome preschoolers and their families to Sunday school. This meet and greet event includes hearing a Bible story in The TreeHouse, singing songs, and meeting Sunday school teachers.

August – Blessing of the Backpacks (all K5-5th grade)
Wear your backpack to the Children’s Message at any of the worship services and receive a special blessing as the new school year begins.

September – Fall Camp Glisson Retreat (3rd-5th grade)
Outdoor ministry is a memorable, formative, and vital part of a child’s faith journey. The experience of going away to camp can renew and enhance spiritual growth. Students will attend overnight camp from Friday pm through Sunday midday with other students from North Georgia Conference local churches.

October – Bread & Juice Class (K5 & 1st grade) 10/10 5-6:30pm
Learn the how and why we say, “Yes!” to Jesus as He invites us to the table as his friends for Holy Communion.

November – Ambassadors (4th-5th grade) 11/7 5-6:30pm
Students are offered an opportunity to take on various leadership roles in the year to come. Expectations and learning to serve using their gifts and graces in their home church and in the world.

What else would you add?

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

We began last year to intentionally provide training along age lines as rights of passage for students called Faith Milestones.  I Can Serve offers an invitation and an expectation to include and engage children in worship for students in 3rd-5th grades. This year, we kicked it up a notch.

We have a Sno Cone machine, a Popcorn machine, and a Spin Art machine to add that little something special to events, hot summer after-church-times of fellowship, and great fun to ministry with children. Including training and practice with these items invite the students to share in hospitality to other students.

Teaching one machine at a time included set-up, safety features, possible dangers, how to speak to others we serve, and the all important clean-up. A job done is only done well with training and practice. To everyone’s delight we taste-tested everything and spoke about partnering with one another to serve well as Jesus never sent out his disciples one at a time, but two and three at a time.

We started the event at 3:20pm and finished out at 5pm just in time for CLUB345. The closing bingo game gave us a chance to elaborate on logistics of serving communion; personal hygiene; arriving 30 minutes ahead of time to set up and get any final instructions before serving; to always be on the lookout to be safe and provide a safe environment for those we are serving (where the electrical plugs go, which way to face the machine, setting up a floor mat, etc.); appropriate dress code when serving; serving like Jesus in extending over-the-top hospitality in our words and face; we begin serving as a 3rd grader because our hands are strong enough to hold the full challis and tall enough to light the candles on the communion table; by 6th grade they have practiced and followed directions well enough to serve as a student leader in VBS; and vocabulary=an acolyte is a ‘helper in church.’ We took the pledge…’raise your right hand’…and they are chomping at the bit to know when they can begin, as Ashton said, their ‘duty.’

By the end of the day, students have been trained and practiced lighting the candles on the communion table, serving the juice at communion, speaking into a microphone, running the sno cone machine, spin art machine, and serving from the popcorn machine. How are you training up the current and future leaders in your church in service and hospitality?

“Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people.” Ephesians 6:7

We’ve saved this Faith Milestone until November  as we prepare for Advent and other special Sundays that seem to fall in quick succession in the Liturgical calendar year. We invite the students 3rd-5th grade to attend training with our Pastor to learn the ins and outs of serving in the worship service. These acolytes (helpers) learn what to say, how to give eye contact, the logistics of where to go, and the specialness of serving the Lord in community worship.

We promoted the event through social media, the bulletin, the monthly newsletter, and by individual snail mail invitations. I include a brochure outlining all of the Faith Milestone events scheduled throughout the year to impress our intentionality of our partnership in their children’s spiritual journey.

I opened our time with the story of Samuel. He served in the temple as a young child. He probably did every small job you can imagine: emptied trash, cleaned up after others, dusted, swept, made beds, etc.  He would also know all the secret places in the temple. He’d know all the warmest places in the winter and coolest places in the summer. And when God called him into ministry, he had grown such great relationships with the leaders at the temple, he went to them (Eli) for clarity, knowledge, and direction. This is what we hope for our students: they’d know the spaces and places and grow in such strong relationships they’d be connected to the local church for life.

Then we played a game of tag of multiple items in the sanctuary so they’d be reminded or learn the vocabulary of the worship space: chancel area, organ, mic stand, communion table, back worship table, narthex, piano, keyboard, lecturn, pulpit, flower table, baptismal font, tech booth, etc.

Pastor took the remaining time teaching them the symbolism and logistics, giving ample opportunity to practice, of lighting candles, offering communion, and using a microphone.

Lighting candles: why we light, when we light, when we extinguish, why we bow, where to go, where not to go, how to light, what happens when it goes out, walking too fast, walking too slow, which aisle to travel, which stick to use, etc.  And then we practice.

Offering communion juice: why we use the elements of bread and juice, when we come up, when we finish, where do we look, how do we walk, where do we go, how do we clean up, what do we say to each person, how we smile, etc. And then we practice with a full chalice.

Next, we learn to use a microphone. How to speak, when to speak, when to clear our throats, how to address the microphone, where do we look, how do we hold things and speak, etc. And then we practice with a live microphone.

I jump back in to finish the training explaining the act of hospitality they are doing when serving in the worship services. We address appropriate clothing to wear, shoes to wear, readiness to serve, their freedom to say, “Not today,” when invited to serve, and personal hygiene. When we serve, we don’t want anything we do to be a distraction. So, yes, I went there about brushing teeth, combing hair, taking a shower, and using deodorant. They thought it was funny, but they’ll remember it.

Parents were not invited to stay for this Faith Milestone since we scheduled it right before CLUB345. This gave the students who had never come to CLUB345 a natural ‘in’ to start. This is the night we pack and stack the Christmas shoeboxes. We had a full house!

“Then the Lord called Samuel. Samuel answered, “Here I am.” 1 Samuel 3:4

Kindergarteners and 1st graders are very image-led so it seemed the perfect age to learn to pray and practice praying with visual prompts with their families. When we set the date for this Faith Milestone, we chose a few months after school began so we could use centers and circle time spaces the children had grown familiar with at school.

We announced it in the bulletin, sent personal emails, and a formal invitation. We set up the room with several round tables as centers, a place to eat cheese, crackers, and grapes, and a circle time space to begin filling “Prayer Kits.” The students gathered first at the circle time space to get their red bags to fill as they moved from center to center with their parents. I asked them “Do you pray?”, “Where do you pray?”, “Who do we pray to?”, “Why do we pray?” which made for precious conversation.

I read the first few pages of The Berenstain Bears Say Their Prayers and invited them to pick up a yellow clothespin to be clipped at home near their toothbrushes so they are reminded to pray when they brush their teeth. Then we sent them on to the prayer centers with their parents.  This first I Can Pray event proved especially delightful to me as my students were all boys and it was their dads who participated.  Pure sweetness!

We ended at the snack table where the students prepared a snack for each member of their families and prayed with their dads. After a few minutes, I joined the table as we enjoyed an echo prayer that I found from Mark Burrow’s ‘Children In Worship’ listing of action prayers and closed it out with elbow prayers (we touch elbows and echo a short prayer of thanksgiving.)

They brought home their prayer kits that included a bottle of bubbles, a silly putty egg, a Berenstain Bears book, a starter journal with hands traced, a yellow clothespin, and a glory bell.  It took all of about 45 minutes immediately following the 11 o’clock service.

I’ve heard from one of the dads since the event who shared that his son came home and shared everything with his Mom and they are sharing in prayer every day. Could I ask for anything more?

“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.'” Luke 11:1

Our students worship with their families. We offer nursery for students up to age 4, but we continue to involve and make our worship services family friendly with visuals, participatory experiences throughout the service, call and response moments, moved the sermon to the middle of the order of worship, and invite many voices as part of our services. We wanted our children to know about what they saw, so we made Touch and See My Church a Faith Milestone for our 1st and 2nd graders.

The goals of Touch and See My Church, held a few weeks before Palm Sunday, are to familiarize the children with worship components and connect them to the people in worship leadership. The students also learn why and how active participation in worship is important for them.

Meet & Greet – the students move as a large group and interview several folks in worship leadership asking 4 basic questions: 1) What do you do?, 2) Why do you do it?, 3) Do you like what you do?, 4) How did you get to do what you do? (volunteer, pray about it, went to seminary, etc.)  The students interviewed (in different places in the Sanctuary) a worship singer, a musician, an acolyte, a worship leader, our pastor, and the church secretary.  The students get stickers as they move in a group from person to person because it gives us a sense of accomplishment and all kids like stickers!

Snack Lunch – meatballs in the a crock pot in hot dog buns (how we do meatball subs) with cheese balls and ice water is a snack as we show a teaching segment on something in the sanctuary from Chuck Knows Church.  Families get a chance to chat with other families and we read a few sections of Come Worship With Me.

Scavenger Hunt – sending the children to ‘discover’ the sanctuary with their families makes for some great conversations and teaching moments for the parents to do the best teaching to their own children.  Some of the scavenger hunt questions: What is the name of our pastor? How many keys are on the keyboard played by our worship leader? How many pews are in the sanctuary? How many pictures of Jesus are in our sanctuary? What color is the church’s front door? Who has more books, Pastor J or the church library? How many crosses are in the sanctuary? What is one item always on the altar table? What is in the baptismal font? Along the bottom of the list it reads, “Answer all the questions and return for something special to take home and share with your family. Psalm 122:1 ‘I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.””

We laughed through the debrief and we offered a Look and Find Bible (purchased in bulk inexpensively from a Children’s Pastor’s Conference) for the student to take home and share with his/her family.

We sent an email 3 weeks out, sent a snail-mailed invitation 2 weeks out, then reminded with text messages the week of.  Scheduled it for immediately after worship while the leadership and the ‘physical items’ were still in place and the sanctuary was just recently used, 12:15pm-1:30pm.

What else would you add?

It’s Fall Break in the school systems of North Georgia. While others are headed out of town or enjoying a staycation, it’s the week I set aside to get organized for the fall and advent season. Everything was calendared months ago, published on July 1st. Now it’s time to put some details on the Advent google docs to be shared with the lead teams for each event and campaign when they return.

Parenting With A Purpose – with a focus on Apologetics (giving God our minds to defend our faith in Jesus) we will share a Blueprint for Discipleship at Home for the fall and a teaching of what God teaches us about work in a world that only wants to play for the spring.

Grandparenting With A Purpose – with a focus on engaging in sacred conversations we’ll have a table chat in both the fall and spring with other grandparents who have navigated the hardest conversations with their grands.

New Faith Milestones
I Can Tell the Story (one for Advent, one for Lent) which will be Messy Church events using images to tell the birth story of Jesus and the resurrection story of Jesus. For Advent: soup & bread, activity themes from Matt Rawle’s new advent study, The Heart That Grew Three Sizes: Finding Faith in the Story of the Grinch. It’s a post-pandemic look at the Grinch taking the redemption story to a whole new level. The adult videos, only around 10 minutes in length are so rich I was able to write the Children’s Moments, the event stations, and a lot of the Christmas Eve service from Rev. Rawle’s materials speaking of phrases kids get like hate, words and people redeemed by Jesus, truth vs lying, and the power of music and memory.

I Can Worship With My Family – interactive, intergenerational worship service for kids with adults in the room. We bring our teaching services from the summer parking lot to Big Mac (the sanctuary). It’s a teaching service at 11am in Big Mac for worship, prayer, giving, singing, Apostle’s Creed, doxology and more when the whole family learns together why we do what we do and what makes Big Mac, Big Mac. Opening a registration link for kids and families who want to take a lead lets us communicate expectations to families and not just kids. Clarity and communication builds trust. All of the other Faith Milestones we teach separately will be now be lived out in community with our church family, not only the Children’s spaces.

Part of that organization is also getting some shopping done so the resources are on hand and we’re not scrambling hoping to find what we need.  The complete details are not on the google doc yet, but today I placed orders for….
Advent Blocks (purchased in summer at deep discount/added another church to order for even more discounts)
Red squishy hearts imprinted with “Jesus loves me”
Red, green, white, lime chenille sticks
What the Bible Is All About Handbook for Kids
Discipling Your Grandchildren: Great Ideas to Help Them Know, Love and Serve God
Prayer buddies in pompoms
God Is Three Persons
Family Advent Pop-up Calendar

Let’s not forget to be clear of the goals and the why of each experience. Every experience must be a developmentally appropriate faith formation experience. Ministry leaders are not event planners, but disciple-makers who take every opportunity and effectively use what’s in our hands to give testimony to God’s goodness and His faithfulness to His people. Determine when, where, how, who, and the discipleship follow-up for sharing the good news of Jesus and His plan of redemption and restoration in truth as the priority not the add-on or side-note. Write it down so not to be distracted by a negative comment or an expectation expressed after-the-fact. Measurable goals offer clarity, purpose, and let you set priorities to filter the could-haves and should-haves. The experience is part of your over-all strategy for faith formation, not a one-and-done.

Partnering with families means they can trust that we will be prepared to be a blessing as their calendar begins to turn into fall. Partnering well with our leadership team means they will not be overwhelmed and will have on hand the tools to be successful.

How do you get organized for the next season?

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart and be thankful.” Colossians 3:15

We were flying by the seat of our pants last summer when we came up with the summer drive-in services. Our goal was to offer a weekly gathering of developmentally appropriate faith formation experiences for littles with their bigs in the vehicle so that our community wouldn’t grow accustomed to doing life without us, the local church.

Each week was a theme, a Jesus story, games to build visual, sticky memories for kids, and short teachings, with practice, for bigs to lead their littles in the holy habits of prayer, conversation, music, service, and play. At the end of the summer, we offered weekly camp chair meetings on Thursday evenings and Sunday morning programming in the parking lot. Still doing whatever it took for our families to not grow accustomed to doing life without us.

With the incredible fruitfulness of last summer of new families becoming active in our local church and already-connected-families growing more in relationship with each other and the local church, we chose to continue the summer drive-in services in 2021 in place of the typical vacation Bible school with edited criteria in mind: 

1. Summer-long theme of We Are Family 
2. Celebrate different members of our families
3. Invite other ministries to be highlighted by serving and speaking each Thursday

The drive-in services we saw were for adults with kids in the car. Ours was for kids with adults in the car. 20-30 minutes in length (because it’s hot and considering the attention span of a little), at 6pm and 7pm (because families have different schedules), every Thursday rain or shine (because families need dependable and trustworthy expectations), and we just provide the environment (big visuals, kids want to come, parents/grandparents are the heroes, and we are just the coaches).

All of these have hit the mark. 

It’s the bonuses which have helped us sharpen our intentions moving forward:

1. Every week we have new families.
2. Every week our families are inviting other families.
3. Every week we have purposeful intergenerational relationships growing through service similar, but greater than, a week-long VBS.
4. Every week we have current ministries growing because they’ve had a new platform to introduce and ‘work the parking lot’ in extravagant hospitality with the community.
5. Every week we have new servant leaders joining the children’s ministry team as they learn we are prepared, organized, have trustworthy systems, are irrational in hospitality and innovative faith formation. And we laugh our heads off.

What’s next? 

An innovation ideation team has formed to add to our Faith Milestone initiative… Faith Milestone: I Can Worship With My Family. 

We’ll start by bringing in the developmentally appropriate faith formation experiences of the summer to an indoor space filled with visually traditional elements for the first Sundays in October and December. Both Sundays lend themselves to intentionally using all five senses (World Communion, Advent). 

Resources we’ve studied include…

Mark Burrow’s Children First at Ft. Worth
First UMC, Sadie Wolfhart’s Children’s First in Bentonville, Arkansas, and Kevin Johnson’s UMC Discipleship webinar.
Children First: Worshipping with the Family

In answer to, “What’s in our hand?”, we have the original sanctuary we can use to make a small group feel like critical mass. We will have Ambassadors leading different elements, American sign language for the Apostle’s Creed and Gloria Patri, irrational hospitality by our families intentionally inviting another family they share life with to experience worship as a family. It’ll be an intentional on-ramp to what our much larger sanctuary service offers in the weeks immediately following the Faith Milestone. Other Faith Milestones are already in place, so this would be a place to practice all of those in a teaching environment for little people. Intergenerational in message delivery, doctrinally-sound energetic song choices with motions upper elementary kids will love, and in 45 minutes. With color and interactive throughout, older kids will serve, little kids will learn, new families to our rituals will share in the experience so that we learn in a safe setting not just that we gather but why we gather: Jesus.

All discipleship programming should offer an onramp or an invite to take the next step in discipleship, another relationship within the local church. How has your summer discipleship programming made a way for families to take their next steps in your faith community?

“Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your  mighty acts to all who are to come.” Psalm 71:18