Grandparents hold a special place in the hearts of the grandchildren. It goes both ways. Grandparents are part of God’s continuing plan to grow up disciples of His son Jesus. Take a look at Deuteronomy 6 and Psalm 78 to get a small glimpse of that plan.

We are leveraging that relationship and intentionally helping with a Grandparent’s toolbox to share their faith through a closed Facebook group entitled Faith Grandparenting and four in-person opportunities each year to share stories and resources to help them along their way we call Grandparenting With A Purpose. “You cannot be a Christian family if you are not a disciple-making family, because your family can’t truly follow Christ if you are not doing what Christ commanded – trying to become more and more like Him and leading others to do the same.” (Family Discipleship by Chandler & Griffin)

Last week’s Grandparenting With A Purpose: Holiday Edition, shared in-person and through a Facebook Live event on the closed Faith Grandparenting Facebook group, was a very special time to share life and some great ideas.

We serve a God of celebration! Through festivals, special food, visuals, decorations, and community we stop and remember the faithfulness of God: Passover, Festival of Tabernacles, Feast of Purim, Harvest time, Holy Communion. We celebrate with our five senses with special sights (lights, tablescapes, decorations), smells (food, spaces, candles), sounds (music, words), tastes (food), and touch (clothing, expressions of affection). Traditions offer rhythms for connection and belonging for which we are wired by our Creator.

Holidays like…
Thanksgiving – table cloth with names of who has shared the Thanksgiving table over the years; favorite foods and the magic of the “how” to make it; handwritten recipes and sharing the faith of the ones who started the family recipe.
Christmas – Ask “What three things will make Christmas Christmas?”; three gifts (Magi)
New Year’s – Do overs; time capsules; goals for physical, spiritual, family faith experiences.
Mardi Gras – Looking for the baby (Baby Jesus) in a King Cake; masks (God knows all of our mysteries).
Valentine’s Day – The greatest love story in all the world is John 3:16.
St. Patrick’s Day – story of St. Patrick; the color green reminds us to ‘grow in our faith’ continually and discussion of how we will do that this spring.
Independence Day – visit patriotic/historic places and share the stories of the faith of our founding mothers (Harriett Tubman, Abigail Adams, Susanna Wesley) and Christian heritage (John & Charles Wesley, George Washington Carver, Jimmy Carter).

Milestones like…
Birthdays teach our kids to celebrate others. On #1 Son’s 16th birthday we collected gifts of tools from Godly men who wrote him notes of wisdom for the tool they gifted. On Baby Girl’s 16th birthday we collected letters of wisdom from Godly women, teachers, and local officials we knew who knew Jesus and compiled a ‘Book of Wisdom’ she carries with her to this day.
Anniversaries teach kids to revisit big family moments. We will share that #1 Son and his lovely wife went to church for worship on their first date after greeting her at the end of the preschool Sunday school class she was teaching.
Spiritual Birthdays – annual celebrations of making their decision to follow Jesus with a gift, donuts (life without Jesus is like a hole in the middle of your heart), balloons (God is round about His people), they tell their faith story of when they decided to follow Jesus and how they’ve grown in the last year as we prepared a plan to move forward in the next year.
Gotcha Day – celebrating when an adoption came through to become part of the family.
Driver’s License – hold a ‘blessing of the license’; laying on of hands and speaking truth of this new responsibility.
New Home – praying through each room before moving in; a New Year’s home blessing.

Moments like….
Rediscovering the wonder of the everyday – my granddaughter remembers me when she smells biscuits and bacon.
Time to linger – breathe & sip; chill & chat
Gifts of time – my step mother checked me out of high school just to take me to lunch and we talk about the great issues of my teenage life.
Gifts of words – handwritten notes; postcards; journals; recipes; scribe the scriptures; gift a Bible.
New skills – teach about tea; take a cooking class, power tool class; shadow a church saint (Baby Girl shadowed an ER nurse from her home church to discover if nursing was really what God was calling her to. It WAS!)

For those in-person, they enjoyed an ice breaker with The Visual Faith Project, took home confetti cannons and their own Share the Love Drive-thru bags of goodies we’d prepared for our Children’s Ministry drive-thru that had taken place the Sunday afternoon before.

If the average age of a first-time grandparent in the USA is 47, this is a demographic who is leaning into Christian Grandparenting with tenacity. These are amazing disciple-makers and I want to be on their team.

How else can you build up your grandparents with a purpose of intentionally sharing their faith with their grandchildren?

“We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, His power, and the wonders He has done.” Psalm 78:4

Listen to this and other posts on the In The Trenches with DeDe Reilly podcast.

Parenting With A Purpose classes offer tribe-building among our families with shared values and intentionality. The 90-minute classes include a parenting hot-topic, some dessert, discussion time, and no judgment. We started in 2018 with Sharing Your Faith With Your Family. As our families are navigating COVID-world, there is an even greater need to equip parents to be disciple-making-disciples. 

• Promotion Information: Parents, grandparents, and caregivers of children are invited to a discussion of practical ideas to navigate holy habits at home as we lead our children to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength AND love our neighbors as ourselves on Tuesday, 6-7:30pm. Dessert will be served.
  
• Take Away: Power of a Praying Parent by Stormie Omartian
• A McEachern saint’s famous homemade fudge. (Thank you, Rebecca McCoy!)
  
  Primary Resources:
• Resilient: Child Disciples and The Fearless Future of the Church by Valerie Bell
• Faith for Exiles: 5 Ways for a new Generation to Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon by David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock (Barna Group)
• Settle For Nothing Less: Engaging Kids in a Lifetime of Faith by Jana Magruder (Lifeway)
• Stride: Creating A Discipleship Pathway for Life by Mike Schreiner and Ken Willard
• Biblical exiles who ‘won’ at following God (Joseph, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, Ezra, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Daniel, Esther, Peter, John)
• Plenty of personal stories

The goal of the evening was to give research and personal testimonies to the resilient disciples who continued to remain in Christian community and a growing relationship with Jesus through the remarkable moments of life at all stages and in all ages. There is more than enough information about children who left the faith or left the church once they aged into their teens or twenties. I wanted to share the remarkable stories of those who remained faithful to grow in their relationships with God and in Christian community. These exiles are the resilient disciples who lived, are living, in the tension of culture and have continued to love Jesus and His people through it all.

A person is described as resilient who is able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions. A resilient disciple is a follower of Jesus who remains active in Christian community and Christian service when culture and geography would encourage them otherwise. The biblical prophets write throughout the scriptures of the remnant of God’s people who sought to live faithfully loving God for the rest of their lives no matter what their circumstances. We tell the stories of these brave few with wonder and admiration. There is not a Christian parent or grandparent who doesn’t want that for their own children, but what does it take for us to grow those muscles in our kids? What really matters, over time?

Major info to share:

Three practices of soul training which equip disciples to make the greatest strides in their faith in Jesus:
– Bible Reading
– Generosity
– Service

The #1, by far, best predictor of spiritual health for young adults is regularly reading the Bible as a child.

Screens disciple.

That which dictates our schedules, finances, and conversations is a family liturgy. The local church can provide the resources to equip families so that whatever they do, they can do all of life to the glory of God.

What does a resilient disciple look like?
(1) Meaningful relationship with Jesus: through community and holy habits they find JOY in Jesus. Bible Reading & Prayer
(2) Cultural discernment: they participate in a robust learning community where they can think and talk of the scriptures.
Share testimony and stories of God’s faithfulness
(3) Meaningful intergenerational relationships with Jesus-loving people: the best way for kids to learn to love Jesus is to spend time with people who love Jesus.
Active in community
(4) Vocational Disciples: a theology of work, activity, leisure, time, learning/education
Calling to honor and please the Lord
(5) Countercultural Mission: a resolve to live differently than culture though a full-on participant in culture as the light of Christ.

In this season where children are part of the Body of Christ, though not together or included in many local churches, they are indeed exiles. This research is a perfect starting point to determine priorities in the local church’s partnership with parents/grandparents to disciple their disciples. Lord, let me be found faithful to equip my families to have a robust, vibrant, joyful faith that will fuel how they nurture their children into resilient disciples: to love Jesus their whole lives for the rest of their lives.

“We want to welcome you to the resilient church of 2050…the church that has been loving Jesus for all of their lives.” Valerie Bell, from Resilient: Child Discipleship and the Fearless Future of the Church, pg 205

One of the most spiritual experiences of my life was the minute I delivered Baby Girl in Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I prayed that very minute that she would choose Jesus as Lord of her life at a very young age. Twenty months later, I prayed the same prayer when #1 Son was born. The Lord honored those prayers with a resounding YES! because I was on a mission to do all I could to make that happen. On April 6, 2012, we revisited that simple prayer the moment our first grandchild was born. More like a blessing over each one, all four grands were prayed for and God’s word spoken over each one anytime I get my arms around them.

Our culture leads us to believe that having fun, baking cookies, and gift-giving make us good grandparents. As followers of Jesus, there’s so much more. In Deuteronomy 4:9 God’s people are instructed to “Watch yourselves closely so that you don’t forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children AND TO THEIR CHILDREN AFTER THEM.” (emphasis mine) We have more than a one-generation mission to share our faith, we have a two-generation mission to intentionally tell of God’s great deeds.

Most of us learned how to grandparent by how we were grandparented. My paternal grandmother was a Sunday school teacher in her local church, but she was harsh, demanding, and that corset made her far from huggable. My maternal grandmother had the struggles of marrying at 14 in the hollers of the West Virginia coal mines. She was kind and generous though I don’t recall any conversation about Jesus. I learned much wisdom from her over a flour bowl she would use to make home-made biscuits in three times each day every summer from the time I was 10-16 years old. There was a family Bible on the coffee table and picture of a Guardian Angel on the wall of her home, yet that was their extent of grandparenting with the purpose of making Jesus Lord of my life.

The average age of a first-time grandparent in the US is 47 years old. If the best time to begin a Christian legacy in a child’s life is at the beginning, the best time to begin a Christian legacy in a parent’s life is at the beginning, it would behoove us to begin a Christian legacy in a grandparent’s life at the beginning of their tenure as a grandparent. Outside of parents, grandparents have the #1 influence in a child’s life because they typically have more time over time (long-term involvement), they’ve been around the block (offer greater wisdom), they’ve got great history with the Lord (stories of God’s faithfulness and forgiveness), and they care more that their grandchildren would have a faith in something greater than themselves. Grandparents enjoy a sweet spot in a child’s life. 

What can we do to better equip and support these disciple-makers through family ministry?  This demographic of discipleship is lacking in most local churches. I aim to be a catalyst to change that. 

“My people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth…things we have heard and  known, things our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done…which he commanded our ancestors to teach their children, so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God.” Psalm 78:1-7

With the goal of building tribes among our children’s families with shared values and intentionality, we’ve begun offering Parenting with a Purpose classes this school year. The 90-minute classes include a parenting hot-topic, some dessert, discussion time, and no judgment.  The first was Sharing Your Faith With Your Family where we shared practical ideas for holding sacred conversations, spiritual traditions, and sticky faith-formation memories for parents to initiate at home to live out Deuteronomy 6:4-9.

The second class entitled, Parenting Technology and Cell Phone Safety, invited parents, grandparents, and caregivers of children to a discussion of practical ideas to navigate parenting in a digital and electronic world as we lead families to live out Mark 12:30-31. Two hours before the event, I received a text. Our planned special guest was at Urgent Care diagnosed with strep throat. I had two hours to pull something together.

Once I caught my breath, I called on a prayer warrior to pray for me and with me. I had been reading several books on the very subject over the last several months and had just gotten one in the mail a couple of days before. I prepared a handout with a few of the items I’d underlined in each one. We opened with “What was your first experience with a cell phone?” and our discussions took over from there. These were the resources we spoke through:

• Collin Kartchner – TEDxTalk a social media activist, TEDx talk presenter, husband and dad who travels around the country speaking to parents and kids through the organization Save The Kids.
• The Screens and Teens by Dr.Kathy Koch
• Glow Kids by Dr. Nicholas Kardaras
• Viral Parenting by Mindy McKnight 
• Kirk Cameron – Right Now Media “Engage”; Netflix “Connect”
• Smart Phone Sanity by The Axis Team (newest book with practical exercises)

A few questions to ask to find out if your child is mature enough to figure out the best habits for themselves when it comes to Smartphone usage:

• Does my child proactively let me know where they are going and when they’ll be home?
  This is a great way to gauge their sense of responsibility and the respect they have for open communication.
• Does my child have a tendency to lose things?
  Phones are an expensive investment and showing a sense of care for their personal belongings means they’ll also show care for their phone.
• Does my child respect other rules like when to turn off the TV or computer?
  Knowing your child understands why boundaries are necessary can help quiet the fear of phone addiction and over exposure to radiation/blue light.
• Does my child show signs of empathy towards their siblings, animals and friends?
  While we all love our little darlings, it’s important to observe the way they treat others in real life. The hope is that they will carry empathy and kindness with them with their online activities.
• Does my child know that while most people are awesome, there are people with bad intentions that prey on the young online? 
  While this is a super scary and complicated topic, having open and honest conversation about these risks and how to spot red flags is the best way to prepare any child from online predators.
• Does my child know they can come talk to me about anything? 
  While there are years when teens and parents can feel the strain of communication we must let our children know and show them that we can be a safe space for them when they need us, to help or just to listen—even with the tricky and scary stuff.

Though not what I had planned, the event was fine. The goal of tribe-building without judgement was met. In complete transparency, this is the second time a special guest committed to me in the last six months, but was not able to follow through at the last minute. From this point on, I’ll prepare a backup program every time because my parents who have registered see these opportunities as a priority over all the other things they could choose. They deserve the best I have to offer and my job is to make sure they get it.

“You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.” Proverbs 19:21

Parenting Relationships and Friendships is a class offered through a Parenting with a Purpose initiative which has been in my heart and mind for several years. The goal is to offer a 90-minute class filled with stories, laughter, sacred conversations, and tools to grow in our relationships within our families, our community, and with Jesus. Information about prior classes can be found here.

Healthy and effective communication skills was the focus of Parenting Relationships and Friendships. We have a counseling center on campus led by an associate pastor and several counselors. They are the first responders of our local church when life happens that would leave a family in grief, chaos, uncertainty, and needing next steps. I wanted my parents to meet these gifted and trained folks before all that, ‘before-before.’ I wanted my parents to know they have access to resources provided by their church family to walk through whatever comes and before whatever comes, comes.

Class agenda – opening/greeting of the purpose and goal of the class
• Associate Pastor spoke of the intentionality of dialogue rather than lecture with small group scenarios and tending to a restored relationship over perfect behavior.
• Transitioned that the next 10 minutes would be really uncomfortable, but we’d be better after which led to the Counseling Center Counselor sharing about suicide: differences between mood swings and depression, warning signs, domain, length of season, etc.
• Last thirty minutes I led them through a Holy Listening Stone exercise with a small set of stones prepared ahead of time by my amazing assistant.
• Closed with my personal testimony of prayer for my children using Stormie Omartian’s Power Of A Praying Parent. This book has thirty short chapters with fabulous prayers to be claimed for your child(ren) for each day of the month. The prayer vocabulary and the systematic way to pray through your child’s seasons is made so much easier with a tool like this book. There are things that won’t happen unless we pray for them. There are things that may happen unless we pray against them. I don’t know any Christian who feels they have adequate prayer vocabulary. This is a must-have-parenting-resource.

Each participant was able to take away multiple handouts from the speakers, a pre-made set of Holy Listening Stones, and their own copy of Power of a Praying Parent. This I know: each Christian parent wants their child to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength AND love their neighbor as themselves. Let’s give them the tools to do it!

What are the tools and resources your local church can offer your families to battle the war for the hearts and minds of their children AND the children you influence in your world?

“Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others.” Proverbs 12:15

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

We have many churches with dedicated champions for ministry with children, yet not at a place where a paid staff member is feasible. These devoted folks need some tangible ways to reach out, so here is a quick list of things to give a start:

https://vanessamyers.org/family-prayer-list/?fbclid=IwAR1HMHP054Goz6uyUgl7v5t7ZCxAn1HUviJO92tA0sE-6us4zJ510RhbqfU

https://vanessamyers.org/12-month-family-scripture-challenge/ I use this one to help me prepare a monthly Bible-reading challenge for families in my ministry. March is filled with scriptures that tell us some of what we can learn about forgiveness. Find the scripture, read the scripture, talk about what you read.

http://www.vibrantfaithathome.org/

www.faithkidz.com

BibleAppForKids and https://bibleappforkids.com/parents/videos

https://radio.keysforkids.org/

What am I doing?

• Family Faith Kits – We will be preparing family faith kits available for drive thru pick up each Tuesday morning 11am-12noon at our church’s children’s entrance. Yesterday was the first day with a lesson on Daniel and St. Patrick of Ireland. It’ll be our new normal until we get back to normal. Short and sweet we shared on paper…
  St. Patrick, like Daniel, was taken from his home to live with people who did not believe in the one true God. Like Daniel, St. Patrick spent his life sharing God’s love with all the people he met. St. Patrick used the clovers which filled every field to share aspects of God: 
  1 Corinthians 13:13 – Faith, Hope, and Love
  Matthew 28:19 – Father God, His Son Jesus, and the helper Holy Spirit.
  Micah 6:8 – Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.
  Read these scriptures in your Bible, and then look for items around your house that can connect you to God like St. Patrick used the clover. Sometimes a clover is called a shamrock.

This idea came from Kate Morris of Acworth UMC: she offered the first drive-thru Sunday school kit last Sunday for families to pick up on Sunday morning during the Sunday school hour. She’s already hit all the Dollar Tree stores in the area for Bible story sticker books and is prepared for enough Sunday school drive-thrus through April. 
We prepared Family Faith kits for the next eight Tuesdays with items we already had on hand including supplies for Holy Week and Easter Sunday previously ordered and received. A trip for sidewalk chalk and bubbles, my trunk is loaded and I’ll be writing devotions with the items we had on hand like small packs of M&Ms, Sun chips, cheerleader pompoms, Easter eggs with plastic Jesus inside, silly putty prayers, dice, etc.

Ordered a ukulele – My daughter and her family live in Oregon where you can be cited for gathering in groups of 25 or more. She’s been following a quarantined guy who lives alone in China on Instagram who has shared what he’s been up to on instastories: convict exercises (exercises for inmates in solitary confinement), turn on the TV only after the sun goes down, writing letters to EVERYBODY, and he decided to learn something new…a musical instrument. I’ve played clarinet from elementary school onward, but though I can’t sing a lick, at least I’d feel cool playing an instrument I can use in ministry. It should be here by the weekend. Maybe.

Spending No Money – Outside of groceries, I decided to not make any purchases personally or to be re-imbursed by the church. Not even VBS. We will use what we have and dive into the deep end of the creativity pool.

Daily challenges on our Facebook page & emails – Not all of my families, including grand parents, are on Facebook, so I’ve got to reach out to them in ways of counting it all joy.

Grandparenting With A Purpose – Discovering that the average age of a first-time grandparent in the USA is 47, this was already the year for research so to put some things on the calendar for the next school year. I’ve got a stack of books and articles I’ve collected and now I’ll redeem the time with a focus on this untapped area of ministry.

Family Worship – Find your best seat in the living room, on the back porch, or around the kitchen table together.
Everyone gets to bring something to hold. If our hands are busy, our minds are calmer.
Say a prayer.
Let your little choose a song to sing and everyone joins in. (ex: Jesus Loves Me, God Is So Good, etc.)
Read Psalm 103 and chat about all the things we can be thankful for. Take it slow, line by line, for as long as you can.
Write or draw a note of thanksgiving to set on the table before you as an offering of thanksgiving.
Make a prayer list…everyone adds a name.
Say a ‘repeat after me prayer’ as a hand touches each name.
Say the Lord’s Prayer together.
Let it be noisy, let it be chaotic, let it be memorable.

Tea With Mrs. DeDe – Working out the kinks, but am preparing short, energetic, joyful, Bible study videos for kids and families. Will probably begin next week. 

If you ever wanted to edit and relaunch what your ministry with children could look like, now’s the time. What are you thinking about?

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

Christian educators are everywhere and it thrills me to spend time face-to-face and across the table with folks from other parts of the country. I was invited to Minnesota to share ideas to get some creative conversations to take place. Totally in my element and among friends, I walked through our discipleship plan for K5-5th graders of Meat, Milestones, Mountaintop, and Marvelous Moments. Each of these four Ms are laced with Bible reading, generosity, and serving elements. Why? Because of all the spiritual disciplines we practice as followers of Jesus, research tells us that these are the three that cause us to make strides in spiritual maturity. (Ken Willard, “STRIDE”) I want to be about making strides and moving beyond baby steps in building the faith of little people. Oh we include other spiritual disciplines in our teachings, but these three take priority in our filter for what makes a true partnership with families.

Partnering with families means we only offer what is excellent, not filling up the calendar, offering low-hanging fruit and easy wins for parents in the eyes of their kids, and Jesus in everything we do.

Meat elements – That which happens on Sundays. It’s our bread and butter. It’s what we’re known for. Sunday school, Childrens’ Church, CLUB345, Ambassadors, Parenting with a Purpose, and I’m currently working on Grandparenting with a Purpose. The average age of a new grandparent in the USA is 47 years old. This is a whole area and season of ministry that I’m deep-diving into right now.

Milestones – Those intentional teaching moments that are developmentally appropriate for specific ages/grades which are foundational to building a relationship with Jesus in the local church and at home. Holy Communion (Bread and Juice), Prayer (I Can Pray), Church language (I Love My Church), Wonderfully Made (faith and sexuality education), Moving On Up to Middle School, transitioning from nursery to children’s ministry.

Mountaintop – These are those full-on-sharing-the-gospel-experiences like VBS, retreats, and Ambassadors.

Marvelous Moments – These are the one-offs, the once-a-year or once-every-two-years specials which are invitational for next steps in discipleship including shared events like Faith Field Trips, Winter Ball Invitational, Splish Splash, Messy Church, Bible Ninja Warrior, etc.

Each local church has a culture and sustains a community, so how do you choose what might be a successful marvelous moment? (1) Dashboard research, and (2) lots of personal conversations.

Dashboard research requires a drive around the community at different hours of the day to find out what businesses are plentiful, what are the traffic patterns, how far will people drive to remain in the community, and find out what other ministries are already available by checking out online the closest churches to your church.

Engage in personal conversations asking questions of the connector folks in your church, but also the locals: grocery story clerk, the deli clerk, the coffee shop barista, the UPS store, the dry cleaners, librarian. Ask questions about what evening nothing is happening (when), when do the school buses run (start time), when do your kids have to go to bed on a school night (end time), what tv shows do you like (themes), where do you go out to eat (favorite foods), where do they go to church (tell me about your church), extracurricular activities (over scheduling is not partnering with parents, but rather burdening families), where does the local school need volunteers (outside service), and the possibility of fee-based ministry outside of Sundays and Wednesdays (recreation, fine arts, music, tutoring, relationship-building).

With the knowledge that people are always interested in new things and meeting new people, shoot some bullets before you shoot cannonballs. (Jim Collins from “Good to Great”) Try something based on your dashboard research AND your personal conversations with a specific goal in mind and JUST DO IT! Give yourself lots of grace and an understanding that you are in it for the long haul. Gather a partner or two to share in the labor because as we labor and serve together, there’s a lot of laughter. And we all need more laughter in ministry.

I woke on presentation day in Minnesota with the temperature of -11 degrees. Yeah…11 degrees below zero! But inside the home of my hostess and the church where I met these amazing Christian Educators, was the warmth of the Holy Spirit on fire for sharing Jesus with little people. Thank you Minnesota CEF for the lovely invite and your amazing hospitality.

“Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still; teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.” Proverbs 9:9

Each January we gather for a pasta dinner as a leadership team before the first Sunday of the year. We met at Olive Garden last year, but our team continues to grow so we met at a team member’s home this year. We picked up fabulous take-out of meat lasagna and spinach tortellini with all the yummy bread and salad from a local Italian restaurant so we could easily move around, chat, share holiday news, and enjoy each other’s company.

To open our leadership conversation, I passed out several index cards, the 2020 Super Summer Sunday idea list, and the five major celebrations of the previous year to toot our horn about. We invited everyone to write on the index cards any thought, idea, or suggestion which came to mind to turn in at the end of the evening. Included on the celebrations sheet were our planned and scheduled experiences designated as Meat, Milestones, Mountain Top Experiences, and Marvelous Moments for McEachern Kids.

Conversations…
– 5 major 2019 celebrations (toot their horns) See last week’s blogpost
– June through August Summer special Sunday brainstorming (why?)
– Idea of a monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly thirty-minute Children’s Ministry Open House immediately following the last Sunday service to enthusiastically introduce how we can join in a family’s quest to grow closer to Jesus AND offer a tour of our environments, spaces, and routines.
– Idea of a Summer Book Club for K5-3rd grade (index cards came in with book suggestions and people to talk to)
– Ideas of more inter-generational opportunities (index cards came in with suggestions and people to talk to)
– 2020 Family Christmas event
– Ideas for topics for Parenting With A Purpose classes

The stack of handwritten index cards were filled with ideas, drawings, dreams, and requests to get together soon to discuss further. I read them over tea the next morning and I couldn’t quit smiling. I share life with the most amazing Jesus disciples.

Next Monday I’ll be making a bunch of phone calls to reserve foam pits and Ice Cream trucks. Now I’m ready for the Family Ministry team meeting next Tuesday to calendar the summer and much of the fall with room reservations and online registration forms ready in February. Wednesday and Thursday we will gather images and map out the communications plans for the year for those Marvelous Moments especially.

How do you get to brainstorm and celebrate all of your children’s ministry team’s pasta-bilities?

“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

Sunday comes every seven days and now that Christmas has been a huge success, it’s time to think about Easter. Let me stop you right there inviting you to take thirty minutes to do two things:
1. Write down five major accomplishments and successes of the last year to report anywhere you can, and
2. Write down five resolutions – lenses through which you’ll look in the year to come.

First, the five major accomplishments/successes of 2019…for me?
1. Parenting With A Purpose Classes for parents and grandparents as we walk into the challenges we face to lead our littles to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength AND love our neighbors as ourselves.
2. Initiated a God & Me and God & Family program for 1st-5th graders to share with their parents who will be recognized on 2020 Scout Sunday in service with brunch.
3. Began an exclusive monthly experience for 3rd-5th graders in play, Bible study, and service we call CLUB345.
4. Offering three Christian education and relationship building, developmentally appropriate experiences for 11am service: K5 & 1st grade Children’s Church, 2nd & 3rd grade Bible Black Belts, 4th & 5th grade Well-Versed Kids deep diving into the Holy Habit of journaling.
5. The incredibly committed leaders who faithfully prepare and execute these experiences and more. I’m surrounded by the most amazing team of Jesus guys and gals! Our team is built not on tasks to be accomplished, but friendships to be made.

Second, the five areas of resolve as my responsibility as a leader in 2020…for me?
1. Jesus every time, every Sunday, all the time.
2. Get trained in community. Attending a training/conference on my own only helps me. But in community, the partnership is plentiful, the brainstorming is relevant, and the implementation is shared so to equip my church and other churches through shared events. #bettertogether
3. Remain in upgrade mode, tossing or passing along what we can not use from the closets, and asking more questions than making statements in every conversation.
4. Stay in the word: The Bible. A regular diet of God’s word lets me know His voice when it’s time to shoot a cannonball or eat a frog. Bible Reading is the holy habit that reminds me He is who He says He is, and I am who He says I am.
5. Offer developmentally appropriate experiences which are sticky where children and families can build relationships with Jesus and one another straight-up…not a stretch…not an afterthought…not just a goal, but the purpose.

Ministry Architects calls this exercise ‘balcony time.’ “In balcony time, we step out of the wild, rushing current of doing ministry and step into a place where we actually work on our ministries. It is in the balcony that we gain the perspective to work on our ministries, not just in them. In the balcony, we find the leverage to move our ministries forward; it’s in the balcony that we learn to say no to secondary priorities in order to attend to the most essential ones.”

Can you schedule some balcony time before you start a new year in ministry?

“Better is the end of a thing than the beginning: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” Ecclesiastes 7:8