Mission trips are only for youth and adults, or so I’ve been told. That said, I took the challenge and have been praying for a space and place where little people WITH their big people could stay and serve in developmentally appropriate ways, not too far away, overnight, and inexpensive so the whole family could attend.

We succeeded last July. 

This Family Mission Trip was an important part of our Soul Food Summer. As one youth mission team from Key West was giving testimony and just returning, we were honored with a prayerful send-off during a shared 11am worship service. With a sandwich lunch immediately following, we loaded up and headed out to Buckhead, Georgia.

North Georgia has a hidden gem in Camp Collinswood. It’s a property on Lake Oconee built out specifically for persons with mobility challenges. It’s flat, located off a major interstate highway, with family-friendly cabins. It’s perfect for a 24-hour family mission trip.

We partnered with another church which does handy-work regularly at the camp. They brought the amazing cook and everyone brought a bunch of power tools with work plans throughout the camp.

We were tasked with building an ADA compliant Gaga Ball pit with a sun-protective sail and replacing termite-eaten wooden benches around the lakeside fire pit. We were also tasked with trimming bushes, magic-erasering light switches and doors at the cabins, cleaning lakeside restrooms and life jacket storage areas, landscape clean up, and pressure washing the lakeside walkways and gazebo.

Our families did it all. The adults included the children in every task.

The camp is used by multiple special-needs clubs and groups during the week and over the weekends in the summer, so our coming Sunday after church into Monday afternoon fit their schedule and ours. We brought lawn debris bags, lots of kid-sized work gloves, magic erasers, and two eager 10-year old boys made good use of cabin brooms on cobweb duty.

Before each meal we heard a short message based on Psalm 34:3, “Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together,” by a dad at dinner, a mom at breakfast, and a student at lunch. With $400 support from our missions committee, we were able to charge families $30 per person with a $100 family max to cover t-shirts, supplies, food, and lodging. Each cabin can house 25 individuals with 5 per family in each ‘room’ off the main gathering room which includes a kitchenette.

The youngest was 5 years old and the oldest was 84.

After all the work was done and just an hour or so before departure we spent some time in the lake for some holy play and lots of laughter. The camp has paddle boards, kayaks, canoes, and plenty of life jackets.

We’ve already scheduled the family mission trip for next year. Lots of projects can still be completed by littles and bigs together at Camp Collinswood. We can’t wait!

“Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible.”  – C. T. Studd

Karl Vaters is an encourager of those who serve in a local church. He speaks from experience and has plenty of stories to tell. He regularly speaks from what he calls a ‘smaller church’ perspective. I first met him at my first Children’s Pastors Conference a LONG time ago. Thankful for social media and his website, he’s a good resource when it comes to living and working in the trenches of the pew, the fellowship hall, and the parking lot, not just the stage.

He posted a blog in March 2022 entitled: How To Be A More Innovative Small Church (3 Starter Principles). These are my questions and thoughts for each principle:

1. Connect the congregation to it’s innovative heritage
   – How can I learn about the history of the local church I serve? How can I share that history with the current church families in such a way that they find belonging and connection to those saints?
   – Be sure to read the history on the church’s website; chat with the longest-serving staff member; Dig deeper into the names on the plaques all over campus.
   – I Love My Church Faith Milestone: every year we tour the church, learn vocabulary for church spaces ex: “We call this a _____ because _____,” and the stories of the people on the plaques.
   – Every other year, on the last Sunday before the time changes so it’s daylight, we tour and hear the stories of our church cemetery with our 3rd-5th graders with a church saint who is the caregiver or knows the most. I call them ‘the keeper of the stories’. I’ve served at two local churches with cemeteries onsite or across the street and those are indeed sacred spaces of great information. The kids love to hear the stories, they’re outside, and church saints can answer all their questions. I get to add that many of the names on the grave markers made decisions that made it possible for the kids to enjoy the church they call ‘home’ today, were active in their jobs and families AND their local church and community.
2. Strip away everything but Jesus
   How many times do I say His name in the course of my teaching? No matter what I teach, do, share, pray, how do I make sure everything is all about Jesus?
   – Even the best curriculum doesn’t point to Jesus every week, but I must. So I study and practice pointing all things and people to Jesus for every message. HE is the message of greatest importance. Everything we think or believe we are as Christians and as the church is only because He rose from the dead to forgive us of our sins. He is indeed the author and perfecter of our faith. Jesus all day, everyday!
   – I’m on the lookout for images of Jesus in all types of art and creative expressions. I’ve learned much about how the greatest artists of history were given space and finances to paint, sculpt, and draw what we now regard as some of the greatest pieces of art in the world.
   – Bread & Juice Class is a Faith Milestone we offer to Kindergartners and 1st graders early in the school year. In a church-wide space audit a huge picture of the last supper was discovered which was given to the children’s area. That artwork is an important part of our teaching and our end-of-class picture.
   – At Preschool Chapel and in our large group space, The Treehouse, we have a constant visual companion in a 6ft cardboard cutout of Jesus. “This is NOT Jesus, but it is how an artist took all he/she knew and thought He might look. For us, it’s a reminder that Jesus is with all of His followers all the time.”
   – We light an LED pillar candle when we gather together at the beginning of every large group, every Faith Milestone, every meeting, and every everything with a repeat after me, “We light this candle. As a reminder. That God is with us. And around us. Always.”
3. Engage in more conversations.
   – How do I make myself available, accessible, and offer margin to have conversations with those I serve, those who I serve alongside, and those who I don’t know yet? What is my posture? Where is my face? Do I linger? Do I arrive early enough? Do I stay late enough? Do I have a ‘place’ where I am found?
   – Just a few weeks ago we enjoyed a Rally Day event to intentionally welcome folks back to church after the last worship service of the day with an outdoor picnic, homemade lemonade and ice cream, and burgers/dogs. I never eat at these events, but rather walk table to table and chat. My dad called it, “working the room.” I learned from the best. On Rally Day I pulled a wagon behind me with hand fans (it was HOT!) with sunglasses (Top Gun theme) and bubbles (everybody likes bubbles) for the kids and the kids-at-heart. So many great conversations, answers to questions I asked about new family schedules, thanking the guys at the grill and the tech station, relieving the face painters to take a bio-break so a little girl could delightfully paint my face as we waited. 

How would you address these three principles to be more effectively innovative in your house?

“Jesus Christ was the most revolutionary, innovative, world-changing person who ever lived. His followers should be the same.” – Karl Vaters

At Sunday’s Administrative Council meeting, committee chairpersons and staff leads were invited to offer celebration reports. In the midst of all the ‘what ifs’ it felt good to be in a room filled with folks who are cheering on the mission and ministry of the local church. I have never felt more encouraged and optimistic for the bride of Christ.

Why?

1. No matter what’s reported by the local, national, and denominational news agencies, there will always be a remnant of God faithfully living in this world though not of this world. Always. I believe I know how the story of the world ends and God will always be with His people here and beyond in Glory. I’ve got my marching orders. Thank you Bible Study Fellowship study of Revelation.
2. The local church is an historical organization which has endured more than 2,000 years of chaos, strife, conflict, and the horrors of evil openly hostile to the things and people of Jesus. Yet the Bride of Christ still stands as a critical means of growth for the health of all Christians. So I will serve with all the creativity, gusto, and vigorous joy of one who is saved as if I’m serving my Savior Jesus, because I am. Theologian Krista Bontrager shares, “When you are born into the family of God, the local church is your family. You have a weird uncle, a crazy aunt, and brothers and sisters you didn’t ask for. But these are your people!” Thank you Theology Mom.
3. I’ve got plenty of stained glass scars, yet I’m still standing. Though sometimes limping or dragging a leg, I keep moving forward. There are saints in Glory who personally outright pushed me modelling a robust faith in Christ like Rowena Stephens, Bev Wing, and Linda LeSeur. I’ll be facing them one day standing alongside Jesus beyond those pearly gates and I fully intend on finding them and hugging them until their eyes pop out. Disappointing them and Jesus is not an option. Thank you Stephen Ministry and Preschool Directors Assn. of North Georgia.
4. My table just got bigger. I’m now leading Children’s Ministry K5-5th AND Women’s Ministry which offers a much bigger and cohesive family table. When our local church lost two elders due to family circumstances and reappointment mid-summer, our church leaders invited the current staff leadership to take on some of their roles which could offer greater connection and impact through systems and processes. After praying through it for six days with trusted prayer warriors, I didn’t wait to be assigned something, but rather offered to sit at the table for the Women’s Ministry because trusted relationships were already in place, effective systems and processes for communication and leadership could smoothly transition, and language would be similar. In the last month the Lord has provided prayerful leadership in twos for Women’s Bible study in-house and in-neighborhoods with weekly check-in support; the ladies retreat design team has formed, set a date and contracted a location for 2023; marketing efforts have been accelerated supporting book club, the holiday brunch, a heart & cookie exchange in February rather than December; intentional assimilation strategies of high school ladies; and a new Secret Hallelujah Sisters ministry has begun led by a high school gal and a local attorney. There’s still a learning curve, but I’ve joined several closed Facebook groups and I’m reading two books. I can learn what I don’t know. The Lord is alive and active in His local church!

Studying the book of Haggai in the fall of 2020 I heard this prayer, “Lord, give me fresh traction under my feet.” Always appreciating some good, new prayer vocabulary, I’ve been praying ever since, “Lord, give me fresh traction under my feet for discipling families.” 

What does ‘fresh traction’ look like for you?

“Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Psalm 51:12

We all have a THEM. THEM could be real people or perceived as real people. Either way, we deal with THEM all the time. At every meeting. At every table. In every parking lot. THEM have multiple faces, always good intentions, and most times a lot of wisdom. 

We submit to THEM. We meet with THEM. We lead THEM. We serve alongside THEM. THEMs fill our schools, media, churches, and homes. My best relationships and greatest joys come from THEM.

MAKE THEM TELL ME NO is a mantra I repeat in my head and use, in prayer, to guard my heart when I want buy-in for an idea. I play out in my head, “What’s the worse that can happen?” and the answer is always, “They could tell me, ‘NO.’”

But that’s just the first NO. 

NO is a perfectly good answer, but it doesn’t have to be the final answer. That’s up to me, not THEM. It’s just the first NO. The NO for now.

I can be disappointed, but it’s not personal. I invite the Holy Spirit to do His work in me and in THEM.

I remember reading in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point that there is a chemical released in our brains as soon as we say YES and a different chemical for NO. It’s physiological. Once that YES chemical gets released, it’s almost impossible to turn it off and reverse it. Same for a NO. When the answer is NO, a chemical is released in the brain running through the body that is almost impossible to reverse. That’s why I can accept a NO as only the first NO.

After the first NO, I’ll do more research. I’ll offer more teaching about it.  I’ll pray through it further. I’ll chat with other stakeholders and networkers to keep the conversation going with THEM. I’ll pray for another opening with THEM, and I’ll ask again.

It’s been my experience THEM like to represent others who aren’t in the conversation. My THEM want to answer for their THEMs always leaning on the side of love for their THEMs and typically with caution. It sounds like, “We’ve already tried that,” or “They won’t like it,” or “Not everyone is on a computer,” or “We used to do that,” or, you get the picture. A NO can come is a lot of packages and be expressed in lots of ways.

If I get another NO, that’s just the second NO.

When I go in for the third time, I have now heard all the reasons for NO and I can come prepared with WHAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR YOU TO GIVE ME A YES? 

This I know….

• I can not assume a NO from THEM. So I won’t let the enemy talk me out of it before I even pitch it.
• I’m gonna make THEM tell me NO.
• If I get a NO, it’s just the first NO for now.
• If I get a second NO, it’s just the second NO for now.
• If it’s worth the effort and goal, I’ll always go in asking for MORE and let the negotiations commence. 
• It’s not personal.

Devin Gordon is an enthusiastic, disciple-maker and a skilled attorney. We partner in ideating innovative disciple-making opportunities for family faith formation in my local church and beyond. He tells stories upon stories of his season as an entertainment attorney constantly operating in negotiation mode to a mutually-satisfying end.  I hear his voice in my head to go in asking for MORE than I think I need to give room for negotiation. If I come in with the bare minimum ASK and the negotiations take place, and they always do, I’ll be disappointed and the devil gets a toe-in because I come away with less than the bare minimum. I’ll feel hurt by the words and whittling of my brothers and sisters in my church family and relationships will be strained. No matter what, I want to grow relationships rather than strain them within the body of Christ. Going in asking THEM for MORE keeps the devil out of the details and helps me actively guard my heart and my mouth. (James 3:5-12; Proverbs 13:3)

The Holy Spirit constantly surprises me with the prevenient work He does among God’s people within systems, practices, and attitudes with extraordinary intention, energy, and creativity. He can be trusted. Will I be faithful to do the hard work it might take with THEM?

Make THEM tell you NO, and see how our awesome Lord we serve works it out.

Then tell the stories!

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

My local Chick-Fil-A Operator’s team is super creative. They just offered a pajama party event at their restaurant, but not for kids. The event was a sleepover for a kid’s stuffed animal. As I watched the night play out on their Instagram, more like stalked, I saw pics of kids with the CFA cow in its jammies, with their stuffed animal friend, security bracelets matching a kid with their animal, and fun pics of the animals in fun poses all over the restaurant. Some pics included sleep masks on the stuffed animals and others posed at tables enjoying some CFA snacks and dinner.

The children were given a drop-off window around dinner time 5-7pm and a pick-up time around breakfast 8-10am for more pics and fun staged with the cow reading a night-time story to the pack of animals, pics of the chaperones, at the drive-thru in a toy car (think Toy Story), and at other locations in the restaurant.

It got me thinking about offering a stuffed animal church lock-in over a Sunday night, when there isn’t school on Monday, all the places a stuffed animal friend could be posed throughout campus, doing stuff that kids do at church, scheduling hourly posts on social media throughout the evening and morning….

If we offered the friend’s lock-in the Sunday/Monday of Thanksgiving week, we could anticipate new families joining the closed kid’s Facebook group to check out the lock-in shenanigans right as we begin to promote and encourage families for the season of Advent. The algorithms could actually work for us to roll in their feeds during advent. It’s the perfect time to grow the online community for Advent.

It would also give us a way to communicate and practice our systems for security when the kids are the bigs of their little stuffed animals.

Rarely do I come up with an original idea, but inspiration can come from lots of places. Where do you get your inspiration to roll out new things with a purpose?

“We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 1:3

What is YOUR plan for this next school year to move closer to the center?

The holy habits listed around the target are the most impactful holy habits which grow our love and faith as followers of Jesus. Practiced by the saints who came before us, we have amazing tools today easily accessible to practice every single one.

Mark where YOU think YOU are around the target in practice. No judgement here, just a realistic place from which to start.

Then choose one area/holy habit to make the move closer to the bullseye over the next school year. Moving one step closer to the bullseye is reasonable and realistic and achievable.

What next? Make a plan to take a class, read a book or two or more, grow a deeper relationship with a colleague skilled in that area, subscribe to a podcast with that specialty, wake up or go to bed an hour earlier to make margin, and stick it out until the end of May 2023. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at your movement over time because following Jesus is a lifetime journey, one intentional season at a time.

Elisabeth George, A Woman After God’s Own Heart, calls it ‘building a faith file.’ 

Ken Willard, Stride, calls it ‘creating a discipleship pathway for yourself.’

My volunteer/servant-leader team goes through this exercise every year as part of our Taco ‘Bout, Chill & Chat, or Winter Pasta-bilities Dinner. They don’t turn it in. Each leader keeps it for themselves as a reminder they are on their own discipleship journey and get to choose how it will go. This year we’re using Top Gun vocabulary since it’s part of our church’s Basic Training fall campaign.

Top Gun Training Officers are always better than their students because they practice their skills more. What skill will you take to the next level this school year? Share this as part of your team training, but this is also about you as a child of God growing in your own Jesus muscles as a way to beat the Devil who will be at you like fleas on an unprotected, unprepared dog. (I’m from the South and we like using dogs in our expressions for emphasis.) Remember you are a child of God, not His employee.

May 2023 will be here eventually, short of the Rapture. We’ll get closer every day we wake up. Thank you, Lord! Let us not look back and hope we just float into a robust faith and trust in Jesus when life hits us hard. Be ready. Be prepared. Join the holy habits of the saints who have gone before us with the tools the Lord and the Body of Christ has provided today.

How can I help?

How can we help each other? 

Tell someone, so you can celebrate together. Jesus never sent out His disciples one at a time, but rather, two, three, or seventy.

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Colossians 2:6-7

I was just out of college when the OG came out. I was driving a 1970 VW bug and it sounded just like that jet. Loud. So of course, I adjusted and checked every knob on the dashboard as if I was indeed a Top Gun Pilot. Today I’m a bit older and my SUV doesn’t make as much noise, but listening to the consultants and people involved in the making of the sequel, I recognize some parallels which have challenged me in my own Top Gun life with Jesus.

Goal – Training Officers and the littles we serve to take the next, best step to love Jesus with their whole heart for their whole lives.

The dogfights are practiced in F18s because it’s the only adaptable aircraft with two seats.

• Jesus never sent out His disciples one at a time, but two, three, and seventy. Ministry is meant to be shared. Who’s my Goose? Who’s my Maverick?

The commander of a team of pilots chooses the one to attend Top Gun, typically one per year.

• The parents of the kids we serve are their commanders. They have chosen their children to participate in my local church ministry for a whole host of reasons. I am in partnership with these disciple-makers to support the local church AND the home. How will I support these commanders and their team of pilots, ‘as they go’?

It is a pilot’s learned and practiced skills which bring them home, not better technology. 

• We have lots of great technology to share faith formation experiences, but it’s the relationships through shared experiences over time which model and grow a robust faith in Jesus when the dogfighting of life begins.

Dave Berke was a Training Officer for Top Gun and a consultant for the movie Maverick.  He was inspired as a 13 year old to fly jets and fly them on and off carriers. A 14 year old who watches the film today could be a Top Gun pilot within the next 10 years. 

• When Titus 2 men and women tell their stories, littles and bigs are inspired to take their next best step to following Jesus. When our kids see a Christian life modeled and lived out well, they know what that looks like, sounds like, acts like, lives like, and feels like and they see it as achievable and possible.

G-loc is gravity-induced loss-of-consciousness. G-loc is real and dangerous. BUT a pilot can physiologically condition specific muscle groups and practice various breathing techniques to prevent it. The harm comes when a pilot is surprised and not prepared for it.

• Life surprises us often with loss, disappointment, anger, despair, hurt, injury, diagnosis for ourselves and those we love. It’s important to lead our families to be prepared for troubles through the practice of holy habits of worship and praising the Lord, not forsaking gathering together, and trusting the One and Only to turn all things to good for those who love Him. Don’t be shy about it.

There are 7 categories of jobs on an aircraft carrier that are categorized by the color shirts the people wear. With many people working together, the shirts are a big help to keep up with what’s going on. 

• Elisabeth Eliott was a missionary to the tribes of Ecuador alongside her husband, Jim, who was killed by the very tribesmen he was trying to reach for Jesus. She writes in “Discipline: The Glad Surrender” ‘A sense of place is important for a Christian. We are people under authority at all times, owing honor and respect to a king or a president, to parents, to master, teacher, husband or boss, to ministers and elders and bishops, and of course always and most important, to Christ.’ (p. 86-87) Different situations will call me to wear shirts of many colors. All are important and are to be served out ‘as unto the Lord.’ Lord, let me ‘not settle for mediocrity, indifference, or a tolerable adequacy.’ (Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, p. 170)

Training Officers are always significantly better than the best students. Why? Because they practice more.

• As I prepare the ministry calendar for the families I serve, what does it look like for me and my fellow Top Gun training officers (servant leaders) when it comes to the holy habits of worship, study, prayer, giving, and service? When I share at this year’s Taco ‘Bout, our leaders will be marking for themselves the target they wish to reach this year from Stride: Creating A Discipleship Pathway For Your Church by Mike Schreiner and Ken Willard. If you don’t know your target, you’re just flying a plane.

Why am I even thinking about this? Our church will be operating in a Basic Training campaign in the sermon series about the Apostle’s Creed and a fall kick-off event. The children’s ministry team will be kicking it up a notch with a fall theme of Top Gun Sunday Training, Training Officer volunteers, a content deep-dive into the 10 Commandments for CLUB345, Prayer for the new K2 Club, and more.

“So the soldiers took up their positions.” Joshua 8:13

Summer programming is dedicated to Sunday morning small groups, Special Sundays (National Ice Cream Day is July 17, so we have reserved an ice cream truck for after services), and onramp family events like the Tall Small Archery Party. With the weekly Thursday drive-ins in June, July extends an invitation to ‘come on in’ beyond a Sunday and here are a few reasons why:
– New families want to experience life and faith together.
– Current families want to bump elbows with new families.
– Faith formation experiences outside Sundays says we honor your profession and family which calls one or more parents to work on Sundays (retail, medical, hospitality, law enforcement fields, etc.)

Coming from “What’s in my hand?”, our staff includes a great dad who is an archery coach for a private school, Shaun Nguyen. Coach Shaun began his interest in archery on a mission trip almost ten years ago. He applied for a grant to purchase all the equipment and his team now competes. I invited him to ‘set the table’ for smalls with their talls who love them as part of our Soul Food Summer campaign.

Promotional: Tall/Small Archery Party is for children kindergarten and older (small) with an adult who loves them (tall) on Thursday, July 7, 6-7:30pm in the Gym.  Register online. Sponsored by McEachern Kids

We set out snacks which ended up ‘for the road’ because they didn’t want to stop.

We used a QR code on a stand-up sign for check-in rather than a paper sign-in and it was fantastic. For anyone who had not signed in at the June drive-ins, we now could capture their information all inputted by the tall. Smalls wrote name tags for themselves and their tall, which gave everyone something to do as we waited to enter the gym enmasse to begin the teaching piece.

Coach Shaun took 15-20 minutes to introduce himself, teach vocabulary, equipment, and safety. With mom/day/grand right there, each little had their own personal coach when it was time to hit the line with their equipment.

Littles AND bigs took turns learning together, using only fingertips to pull back the strings, chatting, and encouraging one another. With an element of danger, everyone was paying lots of attention and the frowns of “I can’t do it” soon transitioned to hearing the thud of hitting the target. They stayed and talked each other through it. Just like families do.

At 7:05pm, we stopped for a 10-minute break and I shared a younger version of the sin talk, we prayed, and hit the line again with Coach Shaun attaching balloons to the targets this time.

Next time we’ll go until 8pm since we went a little long. We sent them on their way with a blessing and two gifts: (1) a child’s book on The Lord’s Prayer, and (2) faith conversation cards to share at their tables as they continue to enjoy a Soul Food Summer wherever they are.

This was one of the best events and we hit the target on all goals, all levels of hospitality, and with 11 families, we had lots of elbow-bumping to make new friends. Follow-up is the roll-out of a new Sunday school curriculum which has a fantastic parenting piece families can access on their phones, National Ice Cream Sunday for a free ice cream truck after church, and a Tall Small Paint Party on the last Thursday of the July.

“For the sake of my family and friends, I will say, “Peace be within you.” Psalm 122:8

Amber O’Neal Johnston is an author, blogger, and world-school mom. A world-school mom is a mom who practices homeschooling with the world as her classroom, specifically the cultures and people of the world.  I had the pleasure of meeting her at our Exploring Homeschool special event in April. She opened a brand new box filled with her brand new book that evening. I purchased two then and have purchased multiple copies for colleagues and friends since.

A Place To Belong: Celebrating Diversity and Kinship in the Home and Beyond offers amazing insight for those of us in ministry with children and families specifically to set the table of ‘belonging’ for today’s families in a family of faith. The five pillars of practice on which our ministry with children and families stands are Worship, Grow, Serve, Belong, and Tell. 

“Every child longs for a place to belong. A place where cultural awareness, self-acceptance, celebration, and kinship are the norm. And this natural yearning for affiliation and attachment is best satisfied within the context of home and family life. Home is where lifelong attitudes are rooted and affirmed, where children learn the values that will inform how they move through the world.” p. xvi

Amber writes about curating a diverse library of books, exploring culturally-rich art and media, and significant, life-giving history. Reading her words through a children’s ministry lens, how can we ‘set the table’ for belonging for all children in the local church? Here are a few ideas I’ve implemented….

Speak and teach that our identity and worth comes from the God who created us as His image-bearers in the world. The first books of Genesis matter because it sets the tone for every child’s value no matter how they feel in the moment. God knew them before they were born and He sent His one and only son Jesus to invite every child into the family of God through faith and trust in Jesus. “I do hope that my children always feel magnificent in their skin. Not because they’re convinced that they are somehow more special than others, but because they embrace their differences while recognizing that we’re better together.” p.8

“Given the opportunity to be themselves in a safe space, people will gladly show you all of who they are.” p. 19 We are a Safe Sanctuary church. We annually evaluate and consider the best practices and systems possible in our local context to provide spaces safe from harm. We are beginning the evaluation process of teaching, training platforms, and considerations this fall to implement next spring which will be the 25th anniversary of what the United Methodist Church knows as Safe Sanctuary. When was the last time your church pulled out the Safe Sanctuary guidelines? Who will sit at that table to discuss best practices to reduce the risk of harm in your local church now?

I want to make resources and conversations easily accessible to parents so they become the ‘askable parent’  for their kids. “Our goal, as parents, should be to become our children’s number one go-to person when they aren’t sure how to process things or when they want to know more about something they’ve heard or noticed.” p. 27 We recognize that kids need a safe space for working through their private thoughts aloud. We’ve secured a new Sunday morning curriculum which includes a major parenting piece from a Biblical worldview to encourage all kinds of conversations for families wherever they are because we all know we typically can’t schedule those sacred, pivotal conversations.

“Children who spend all their time gazing at themselves in the mirror risk entering adulthood with an incomplete view of the world and an overdeveloped sense of self.” p. 73 One of the given standards for living as a Christian is to live as ‘I am no longer my own’. The apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.” Paul’s audience had a reputation for claiming spiritual superiority over one another, suing one another in public courts, disrespecting the communal meal, and accepting all kinds of misbehavior unbecoming of one who follows Jesus. Each Sunday this summer, we’ve invited Titus 2 men and women in our local church (bigs who have been following Jesus longer than the littles) to tell their story of their dependence on God and their prayer habits. I also take time to frequently speak of biographies I’m reading of real people doing remarkable things for Jesus in weekly large group and the children’s moment.

Amber’s writing was easy to hear in most places, but difficult in others. I was ready for it and grateful for her tenderness. Want to learn what belonging could look like and what it doesn’t look like? Read the book or listen on Audible.

Christian education for how to live as a family AND how to live as the set-apart family of faith in Jesus will have the most profound impact when practiced at tables, with art pads and pencils, among a variety of people and cultures as well as in the community of those where we can relax and not have to work so hard. Moms and dads, grandparents, and the local church are commissioned to go and make disciples of Jesus and we are better together, intentionally setting the table for belonging in an anxious, fearful, awkward world desperate for authentic connection.

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”  Revelation 7:9a

Liturgical = relating to public worship. Agility = ability to move quickly and easily.

The updated edition of Bishop Robert Schnase’s Five Practices of a Fruitful Congregation has been the book in two summer book clubs I’m part of. An in-person, brown bag, small group at my church on Tuesdays at noon following lead staff meeting (for the purposes of shared vocabulary), and an online small group through Zoom on Wednesday mornings at 8-9am (for the  purposes of what this shared vocabulary looks like in other local churches). We discuss a chapter each week.

Last week was a discussion on the chapter entitled “Passionate Worship”. Coming from a kidmin perspective, I have no seat at the big church table. But when I read it from a kidmin perspective, I do sit in the seat to help ‘bridge the divide’ from The Treehouse (basement) or Food Truck Church (parking lot) to the Sanctuary (big church) for my families’ so that….

1. New families can find places and spaces of familiarity to decrease their anxiety level for entering a new space with its own rituals, and
2. Current families can explore multiple worship practices with their littles.

“Thank God for his (John Wesley) spiritual maturity and liturgical agility! Our rich Christian heritage of worship comes to us through many convolutions of style and practice. Outdoor camp meetings, frontier revivals, high-church liturgies, African American spirituals – these are but a few of many streams of practice that flow through our history.” Robert Schnase, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, pg 60

My first step was to watch a month or two’s services of my church’s ‘big church’ to find the pieces of ‘regularness’ in every single service. I took really good notes as if I was a first-timer each week. I compiled a list of those regular elements.

The second step was to evaluate the elements to determine one or two to intentionally teach at some other place and space in a participatory, developmentally appropriate way.

Worship experiences and practices are typically not taught, but caught. With the average attendance of faithful church attenders in my area of the state being 1 out of 5 Sundays which include Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve, we’re unreasonably expecting little people and new big people to ‘catch’ our rituals of weekly worship less often than twelve days out of 365.

One place we teach these regular elements is through Faith Milestones. Each year our children’s ministry offers developmentally appropriate faith milestone events at 45 minutes for a little with a big person who loves them specific to…
(1) Bread & Juice Class – Holy Communion served in various ways and how we typically offer it at our church, ex: intinction, an open table and the logistics of before and after the actual practice. K5-1st graders
(2) I Can Pray – Offering prayer stations for individual/family prayer as well as what corporate prayer looks like in Big Church, ex: The Lord’s Prayer, journaling, glory prayers. 1st & 2nd graders
(3) I Love My Church – Spaces and places of worship on campus and the stories behind them, ex: Choir loft, who wears a robe and why, and vocabulary such as the difference between a pew and a bench. 2nd & 3rd graders
(4) I Can Serve – Acolyte training and Ambassador Training, ex: timing, dress, lighters, hospitality. 3rd-5th graders
(5) I Can Worship With My Family – the opportunity to learn ‘on the job’ about two or three elements of regular worship, ex: Signing the Apostles’ Creed and Gloria Patri; speaking into microphones, and other opportunities for physical participation like passing offering plates, instrumentalists, holding signs for the word-of-the-day, active visual elements, small-group/family prayers, processing in and out. K5-5th graders

Worship experiences and practices are typically not taught, but caught. I think that is why there are such deep, emotional attachments to how worship is presented and why most American worshippers think only the music is the worship part. American worship experiences today range from Vacation Bible School large group to Camp Meetings, from amateur musicians who passionately love the Lord to professionals in lighting and musicianship, from spaces of well polished wood furniture to a parking lot filled with cheeseballs. 

“Multiplying the opportunities for worship is about allowing God to use us and our congregations to offer a more abundant life for all.” (pg 70)

Several years ago I was invited to participate in a week-long planning and teaching for interactive and innovative worship. I participated alongside the worship leader and senior pastor of the local church I was serving. The week-long event was led by Dr. Marcia McFee and Chuck Bell. My greatest takeaway from the whole week was to set the table for participation for and by all God’s people…which means planning far in advance and collaborating with the Christian educators who are trained in developmental practices with the new attender in mind. Bishop Schnase calls it liturgical agility. 

I also regularly glean from the teachings of the fabulous worship artist Mark Burrows who I hear in my head say, “What’s good for kids is good for everybody,” when it comes to setting the table for participatory worship.

There are many of us in conversation about innovatively setting the table for worship with littles in children’s ministry, large group worship, as well as family worship. We’re going to get together to share ideas and experiences at a Children’s Worship Think Tank on Thursday, July 21st hosted by Alpharetta First UMC in Alpharetta, Georgia, 10am-12noon, sponsored by the North Georgia Conference Children’s Ministry Network. If you want to be inspired and can get there, you are invited to a seat at the table because we’re better together.

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