CM White Paper Reflections

Archive - CM White Paper Reflections RSS Feed

What If the Parents Aren’t Christians? | CM White Paper Reflections #10

January 30, 2012 in Children's Ministry, CM White Paper Reflections 1

This is the tenth and final post in a series of reflections on a Children’s Ministry White Paper written by Doug Paul from Eikon Community (you can view the original document here).

The strength of having a space like Missional Communities is they allow people to enter more freely into each other’s lives without the pretext of “church” and all that can sometimes come with it. For kids who have parents that aren’t Christians, this is particularly important. It allows a family to invite that child into their rhythms (assuming the family isn’t hostile to their kid hanging out with them, which usually they aren’t).

Missional Communities work because they can integrate many types of people and there is the opportunity for kids to have spiritual parents who aren’t their own. This is particularly helpful for MCs with children because they are often neighborhood based and parents don’t have to worry about dropping their kids off at a place (church) they don’t attend (with people they don’t know).

For children and teenagers who want to be a part of the family of God, but whose parents do not, the community of faith gets to sort of adopt them. In short, we are called to nurture faith as spiritual parents.

Encouraging these students to be a part of regular children and youth programming at church is a start. But these students need to SEE faith lived out in the context of average, everyday human interaction. With parental permission, inviting them in to a small group or a “missional community” would sort of substitute for what they lack in their natural home environment.

This is tricky if your church is outreached focused like Hayward Wesleyan. We get a lot of students who want to follow Jesus, but then go home to a home that doesn’t have affection for Christ. Trying to get all these hungry students connected with mentors and surrogate families is daunting and overwhelming. Now, not everyone is hungry for the things of Christ, but we do have more students seeking than we do adults willing to stand and fill in the gap for these students.

Interesting problem to have, eh?

Parents Disciple Their Kids | CM White Paper Reflections #9

January 29, 2012 in Children's Ministry, CM White Paper Reflections 2

This is the nineth post in a series of reflections on a Children’s Ministry White Paper written by Doug Paul from Eikon Community (you can view the original document here).

To me, this is my favorite post in the series. Why? Because it gives me a window into some practical, engaging practices that I can do with my family. It takes the abstract philosophy and brings it to my everyday life. That’s not to eschew the under-girding beliefs of a parents primary role, but the practical routines and rhythms help me to “live it out.”

Based on our research, we recommend the following family, spiritual rhythms for parents. Parents can certainly do more, but we believe this is a baseline to help actively shape their kids. It is an intentional process that will shape the lives of their kids. You will notice that most of these are not that time consuming and they don’t need to be. They just need to be consistent and real. As you read these, you will see how Classroom, Apprenticeship and Immersion are playing out.

I love that they’re establishing a “baseline.” One can certainly do more, but here are the beginning basics that we are advocating.

I also like that they are called “rhythms!” Meaning: these are things that aren’t checklists kinds of things, but intentional practices built into the fabric of your family routines.

Daily Practices: Two intentional spiritual touch points

1) Scripture reading and prayer together as a family at either breakfast or dinner (use an age appropriate Bible. We highly recommend The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones).

Shaping the family prayer time:

Everyone shares something they are thankful to God for

Is anyone sick/not feeling well? Pray for them.

Is anyone worried or anxious? Pray for them.

Pray for our families Persons of Peace. (People who are spiritually open)

Pray for your Missional Community.

Read a Bible story together to learn about the character of God in His Word and participate in God’s world via the Scriptures. And then pray together.

2) Goodnight word and prayer.

Tell your kids who they are each night so they go to sleep knowing this. An example: “Do you know who loves you? Mommy loves you. Daddy loves you and Jesus loves you most of all. Do know what you were created for? Love. Joy. Relationships and Adventure. We will always love you and always believe in you and nothing will ever change that.”

Prayer: Pray over them each night while they are young out loud, and as they are able to, have them pray.

Our family has been practicing this for the last couple of months (ever since I first read this CM White Paper). Read more about that here. It’s amazing to repeat truth to your kids night after night!

Weekly Practices

1) Sabbath.

Have one day a week where everyone in the family is off work and the day is spent playing together. No yard work. No email. No chores. Maybe put their best toys aside and on that one day they play with their best toys. Make their favorite foods on that one day. Find out what they enjoy the most, what gives them the most joy and do those things on days of Sabbath. Sabbath is a day of re-creation, of having fun and enjoying the relationships that God has given us.

Whew! This is tough stuff!

2) Missional Community.

Be on mission together as a family, existing for a purpose outside of ourselves. This language might be helpful in explaining MCs to kids: “Why do we have a MC? It’s because we want to bring heaven to earth and want our friends to experience it too!”

We are part of a terrific small group full of young children. We have incredible babysitters for our children that do a great job of discipling and caring for them while the adults are talking. I know this is different than what this CM White Paper is referring to, but it works really for us right now. I wonder if, as our children get older, if we will transition to doing more and more things with our children more intentionally…

Bi-Weekly Practice

Once your kids are in 3rd grade, begin Huddling them every-other week so you are actively teaching them the basics of following Jesus and engaging with the two central questions of Christian spirituality:

What is God saying to me?

What am I going to do about it?

Answer those questions with them for yourself in your Huddle with them. These Huddles can be led by the parents of the kids or by another adult in the Missional Community (again, research showed a very high importance on adult relationships outside of just parents). Both are very effective in discipling kids. The crucial element is in it being a person they interact with outside of the context of just Huddle. They need to be able to observe their life outside of “God time.”

This seems to be more intentionally organized once every other week, which is good scheduled time. I like the idea of “huddling” as being when the teachable moments of life come about. When lies are uncovered. When contentment is challenged. When character needs to be refined and shaped. And don’t think that I am just talking about children here. As you disciple your children, I have found, at least in my experience, that my character is shaped and molded just as much as theirs is.

Organic Practice:

Regularly talk about what God is doing in your life with your spouse in front of your kids. Don’t do it so that you’re doing it “at them,” but so that they are overhearing a conversation and are almost getting to eavesdrop and listen in. This allows them to see that this is simply “normal” for their parents to talk like this (and hopefully it is normal).

More is caught, than taught. Amanda’s told me before (chided me at times) on the way I treat and talk with her, because our girls are watching, and how I treat Amanda is modeling to the girls what to expect from a man on how they are to be treated. Woah!

I know our children are watching us, but there are times when I don’t realize how much they are picking up on that I don’t realize.

Make this time count!

The Church Equips | CM White Paper Reflections #8

January 28, 2012 in Children's Ministry, CM White Paper Reflections 2

This is the eighth post in a series of reflections on a Children’s Ministry White Paper written by Doug Paul from Eikon Community (you can view the original document here).

We see these happening most naturally by creating structured, spiritual environments within the church with:

1) The worship service.

Elementary schoolers will be in the “adult” service for about half of the time. They will be able to sing with their parents, take communion with their parents from time to time and regularly hear stories about how God is moving (and have an opportunity to share stories of their own!). We can’t overestimate the importance of kids regularly hearing stories from adults where God is moving and working. They will then have a time that is specific to their age where more of the classroom teaching happens. The curriculum for this age-specific time is tailored to what is being learned at home and with the same language so it is reinforcing how the parents are discipling their kids.

I am not advocating that these are the things we HAVE to do @ Hayward Wesleyan, but I am advocating thinking through why we do children’s ministry the way we do it and looking at what we want to accomplish in the discipleship of children and their families (and how to encourage it).

The author of this document has in mind a particular end in mind. No matter what style of ministry is old or new, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you do practically implicitly and explicitly informs the recipients what your values and intentions are.

It would be great to have our community weigh in on these thoughts. I know I could come up with some practical outworkings of our children and youth ministry values, but it would only look like what Jeremy thinks and experiences rather than some significant representatives of our faith community. I don’t think we need an entire overhaul, but I do think we need to shift some emphasis and resources.

I like the idea of involving children in the worship service with the adults. I like the intentionality of it. Right now most of our children’s ministry students on Sunday mornings only come to church for one hour and then go home. They don’t participate in a worship service. This option seems like it could combine worshiping together, and then sending the children during the adult sermon for a children’s specific sermon and small group connecting time with their peers. It’s a neat idea worth exploring. If we were to do something like this, then we could easily do this at all 3 of our services instead of just the middle service.

But there are other ways to make these things happen…

2) Missional Communities.

Kids will have a chance to be on mission with their parents, friends their own age and other adults. They will have the opportunity to contribute to the success of the vision and contribute to the spiritual well being of the MC. They will be integrated into this community which meets 3-4 times a month, treated as equals in mission with adults, and be immersed into a spiritual community and have the opportunity to regularly interact with other adults and learn from them.

This is happening in a few of our small groups @ Hayward Wesleyan, and it’s neat to see the children’s involvement. Again, this is a programmatic solution to an organic structure. Programming family stuff on a regular basis is difficult to do, but it is possible.

At the very least, I think empowering and resourcing families to begin to do the primary work of discipleship in their home is the first step. The next step could be putting various families together with other like-minded families in missional small groups for the purpose of doing discipleship with each other (adults and children) in community together.

Interesting implications…

How We Will Do Children’s Ministry | CM White Paper Reflections #7

January 27, 2012 in Children's Ministry, CM White Paper Reflections 1

This is the seventh post in a series of reflections on a Children’s Ministry White Paper written by Doug Paul from Eikon Community (you can view the original document here).

Based on what we’ve covered (and other findings not covered in this short paper), the following should actively shape how we do Children’s Ministry:

1) Parents must act as the primary disciplers of their kids, taking responsibility for their spiritual development.

Parents being primary post is the basic foundational element to this. The church can take responsibility in the parents absence or abdication, but the familial environment is were the primary responsibility lies.

We’re talking about this a lot right now on this blog, but we can move forward in its application soon. We don’t need to keep harping on this “parental primary” over and over again. But we do need to make it a part of our DNA.

And the church, while it has the best intentions to disciple and help, needs to remind and gently encourage parents in this regard, and not just take over.

(It’s funny to me that I am speaking to myself and how I do things at church while I write this stuff!!)

2) The church much structure Children’s Ministry around this central idea.

This is the shift for me as a children’s pastor. And this has come about not necessarily from reading, but from experience and back to the numbers game.

When I first came to Hayward Wesleyan back in 2003, I was excited to structure sustainable, fun, and Bible-centered programming for children and teenagers. And to a fairly successful degree, that has been accomplished.

About 4 years in I started to realize how little time our ministry programming had with children and teenagers. This became very clear to me while working in the middle school arena. I would work with teens on a Wednesday night, correct some behavior as needed and would go home at the end of the evening thankful for the opportunity to shape young hearts and mold character (often times via creative discipline). Then I would come back the next week and what I now call the RESET button was pressed and the students were back to pre-last week. It was as if no conversation or correction had taken place.

Now there are many reasons why teenagers don’t obey, and I’m not going to tackle all of those at the moment. But my point is this:

What We Want Our Kids to Know | CM White Paper Reflections #6

January 26, 2012 in Children's Ministry, CM White Paper Reflections 1

This is the sixth post in a series of reflections on a Children’s Ministry White Paper written by Doug Paul from Eikon Community (you can view the original document here).

As we think about our kids being disciples, when kids finish 5th grade, we would like them to know and be able to live into the following:

1) Know they are God’s kid and he loves them no matter what. (Covenant triangle and baptism)

It’s a comforting thing to know that your parents are your parents, and that they love you no matter what. Many children and teenagers don’t have this luxury, but even when humans fail, our Father God in heaven does not.

I remember a statement I heard from my youth pastor growing up: “I’ll always love you no matter what. There’s nothing you can do to make me stop loving you.” I like that… it reminds me a lot of what God REALLY does!

2) Know that they represent their dad and are part of his grand adventure to put the world back together. (Kingdom triangle)

Not only do we belong to God, but we are a part of the family business! Hopefully we (as parents and spiritual mentors) can model and help guide these young hearts toward participating in God’s work in this world and the “grand adventure to put the world back together!”

3) Be able to pray confidently and see things happen as a result.

Teaching your children to pray is vital. Showing your kids how to pray is even better. Having your children catch you praying early in the morning when no one is looking… now that is a parent who believes in the power of prayer!

Children, and arguably adults as well, need to see concrete, tangible results of prayer. We need to talk about the answers to prayer that happen and celebrate them. But we also need to persevere in prayer, even when we don’t see things happen as a result.

4) Have balance in their relationships (God, God’s family, those who don’t know him yet) (Triangle)

I think this is something we all struggle with doing well. But something our children need to learn from our example.

5) Natural rhythm of rest and work (Semi-Circle)

Repeat: I think this is something we all struggle with doing well as well. But something our children need to learn from our example.

6) Love of scripture and the story of Jesus

Read the Bible. You need to do this yourself. You need to do it with your kids. Enter into the world of Scripture and the stories of our redemptive and restoring God. Tackle the life, miracles, teachings, and events in the life of Jesus.

I’ve been around church and the stories of the Bible since I was little. That’s over 30 years! I teach the stories of the Bible every week in my job, and I don’t get tired of them in the least… and, honestly, I’m almost always convicted and challenged by the writings of Scripture as I teach them. It’s incredible how the Bible continues to teach no matter how many times you’ve read it or heard it.

7) Hearing God’s voice and seeing him at work in their lives (Circle)

Hmmm…

Feel comfortable and even encouraged to ask questions about their faith

I think dynamic faith is an examined faith; one that is tested and continually questioned and re-answered and studied and approved! I love asking God the tough questions! We need to allow our children to ask God the tough questions, too.

Parents of teenagers: Your high school students are going to frustrate you with their questions and challenging of the faith. Don’t be threatened or worried about their questioning. Engage them. Walk alongside of them and help them find answers, or at least try to continue to steer them toward God’s answers.

What else would you add to the list?

I know you’ve got some ideas…! Please add them to the comment stream below.

Role of the Church | CM White Paper Reflections #5

January 25, 2012 in Children's Ministry, CM White Paper Reflections 2

This is the fifth post in a series of reflections on a Children’s Ministry White Paper written by Doug Paul from Eikon Community (you can view the original document here).

Our research found that there are 8 factors that churches can do to help parents shape children’s faith development:

1. A hospitable climate

Welcoming, open, “there’s a place for you.” Perhaps environmentally safe and secure.

2. Inspirational worship

Worship that leads to great thoughts and feelings about God, in adoration. This seems to be a “feeling” or “emotional” piece.

3. A caring environment

Old adage: A child doesn’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care. Supportive. Emotionally safe.

4. A thinking climate

Is there substance behind the inspiration? What is the undergirding philosophy, core values and a sense of mission and purpose? Is only fun to be had, or is there an intentional learning taking place?

5. Families who help families

Communal, relational, the opposite of isolation. Perhaps getting families to talk to each other… not forcing a conversation, but providing space and an environment for dialogue and connection.

6. An emphasis on prayer

We have to be dependent on God. If we only depend on our plans, our thoughts, our creation of various environments and feelings, then it will not touch or transform our deep, humanly fallen, hearts that need to be redeemed and restored.

7. Intergenerational service efforts

What would it look like to serve or rub shoulders or play with each other across the age spectrum? Children sitting at the feet of grandparents hearing stories. Teenagers serving at an elderly care facility. Etc.

8. A sense of mission

Enacting, doing, participating in the work of the kingdom of God. That it doesn’t stop with facts.

How People Learn | CM White Paper Reflections #4

January 24, 2012 in Children's Ministry, CM White Paper Reflections 2

This is the fourth post in a series of reflections on a Children’s Ministry White Paper written by Doug Paul from Eikon Community (you can view the original document here).

Sociologists say that there are three basic ways that we learn.

1) Classroom style teaching: Passing on facts, data and information from a teacher/lecturer to a student. This is very familiar to us as our Western educational system is built around this method of learning. Whether it is elementary school or college, we are lectured to and expected to learn what we are taught. Similarly, much of the Bible and the basics of faith are taught to kids in the same kind of way.

Information processing. I, as the teacher, input information and facts into you, the student, and I, as the teacher, expect you, the student, to be able to re-articulate, what I, the teacher, communicated to you, whether visually, auditory, or kinetic means. One of the reasons this model of education is the primary method of instruction is that it is efficient. You can get more facts and information across through this method than laboriously guiding the learners to discover them themselves. It is also popular because it is easy to assess. Because the tests are largely objective (right or wrong answer) versus subjective (which would take a human to decipher and determine), they can be quickly assessed and the students evaluated whether or not they “learned” something.

This “classroom style” approach is not necessarily how we learn, it is a method of education. Becuase we have used this style of education we have shaped students to “learn” in particular ways: memory tools and techniques, neumonic devices and acrostics, “cramming” for the test and forgetting it all the next morning, note taking, etc.

Didactic instruction (I speak, you listen) creates a certain kind of learner. It is not good or bad, it just is, and we have to know and be aware of who and what we are creating based on the techniques we are using to teach.

2) Apprenticeship: You learn to do something by learning from someone who does it well. So if you want to be a surgeon, you apprentice yourself to a surgeon after med school and enter into a residency. You learn by having them show you how to do something. So for instance, rather than telling a child how to pray, we should be showing them how to pray and doing it with them.

This could be called the “Showing rather than Telling” technique. Definitely not the “do as I say, not as I do” method!

Parents as the Primary Disciplers of Their Children | CM White Paper Reflections #3

January 23, 2012 in Children's Ministry, CM White Paper Reflections 9

This is the third post in a series of reflections on a Children’s Ministry White Paper written by Doug Paul from Eikon Community (you can view the original document here).

In the past 30 years of church work we’ve seen the rise of Consumer Christianity where people come to church to consume religious goods and services. Children’s Ministry has played heavily into this mentality. While rarely articulated, it is subtly implied that parents expect their local church’s CM to spiritually form their children. The pervading view is that it is the church’s job to disciple them, provide events for them, spiritually form them, teach them the Bible, etc. By and large, most parents have abdicated the responsibility of discipling their own kids and passed this responsibility on to the church. The church, trapped by the desire to keep these families attending their services and giving financially, has by and large acquiesced and assumed the role. While many churches do provide resources to parents for “at home” use, these have very little impact as the parents consider them supplementary to what is taught at church, rather than the primary source of spiritual formation for their kids. It should also be noted that parents need to be true disciples as well if they are to be the primary disciplers of their kids, so that faith is simply “normal” in the family environment. Given the weak state of discipleship in most American churches, we have found that in the majority of cases neither the parents nor the children are being adequately discipled.

This is a vital concept to adhere to. If you believe that the church is responsible to teach and spiritual form children and youth, then you will behave and act accordingly. If you believe that it is the parents (families) job to spiritual infuse and disciple their children, then you will act and behave accordingly.

The argument here, and it was well said, that parents should NOT abdicate or outsource their children’s spiritual formation. Doesn’t this threaten your job, Jeremy? I wish it would!

Ironically, the pervading consumer culture keeps me employed and in high demand! However, joking aside, other than the obvious biblical mandate for families responsibility first and community responsibility second (Deuteronomy 6), it’s a simple game of numbers:

Children’s Ministry Research | CM White Paper Reflections #2

January 22, 2012 in Children's Ministry, CM White Paper Reflections 0

This is the second post in a series of reflections on a Children’s Ministry White Paper written by Doug Paul from Eikon Community (you can view the original document here).

We spent 6 months researching the best way to disciple kids and form a Children’s Ministry based on that research, following what scripture teaches us and what we believe is just common sense. Some of the research is based on sociologists’ findings on how we learn (since a disciple=learner), but there have really been two key texts for us:

So with the understanding that discipleship is at the core of what a children’s ministry or a family should be doing, how does sociological, spiritual, and practical research help inform this singular goal?

This is a good place talk about the concept of “the way things are.” When I moved to Hayward, WI over 8 years ago, I set out to discover “the way things were” in this town–things that are part of the cultural milieu and geographical region that are, for the most part, unchangeable. In Hayward, some of them are: after school, organized sports, the Green Bay Packers games, beer, hunting, and snow. It’s probably a good idea not to schedule an activity during a Packer game. You might get Viking fans to show up, but you are fighting against the culture unnecessarily. Now, there might be things to challenge the longer you live in a community. Some things might need to change, but these kind of things take a long time, and are better left for a strategic, overarching plan, rather than knee-jerk plans.

So the question this brings is: “What are the way things are with kids?” Further subsidiary questions might be:

It Starts w/ Discipleship | CM White Paper Reflections #1

January 21, 2012 in Children's Ministry, CM White Paper Reflections 5

This is the first post in a series of reflections on a Children’s Ministry White Paper written by Doug Paul from Eikon Community (you can view the original document here).

Ultimately, we want the same things for our kids that we want for ourselves: We want them to be disciples of Jesus. To help us know what we are aiming for (both for ourselves and for our kids), we offer these definitions of a “disciple” to help us wrap our minds around the goal:

A disciple is someone whose life looks very much like the life and ministry of Jesus.

A disciple is someone who does the things that Jesus did for the same reasons that Jesus did them.

A disciple is someone who learns (the Greek work mathetes means learner) to do all of the things that Jesus taught his disciples in the Gospels.

Jesus’ aim was to produce disciples. After all, that is embedded in the Great Commission in Matthew 28: “Go and make disciples.” It is our charge as Jesus people, Christians, to not only grow ourselves, but also to grow others. When we are deeply embedded into the life of Christ, then we can teach and model that life into others.

Disciples and disciplers can use how Jesus did things as a template for how to, in turn, disciple others. But not only how, but also why. It’s not enough just to look at his methods, but why those methods not only worked, but were used in the first place.. What’s the heart behind it? Why did Jesus do the things he did? What did he have in mind as he discipled, challenged, taught, healed, and led?