Monthly Archives: April 2010

Repost: Children's Ministry in a Missional Paradigm: Values

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by sean drellinger)

I am reposting this as part of a multi-blog conversation surrounding a missional approach to children’s ministry. A little while back, Glen Woods wondered if anyone was interested in conversing via blogging about a missional approach to children’s ministry. Since this is something that I have been researching, thinking, and blogging about for a while, I agreed to be a part of the conversation. In addition to Glen Woods, there are two others participating in this: Anthony Prince and Shauna Morgan. I encourage you to check out and interact with the posts on these blogs as well. I will be attempting to interact on them as well.

For this first post, Glen asked each of us to give a brief overview of our philosophy of a missional approach to children’s ministry. I chose to repost this from a series I had run a little while back. This post focuses on some values that I think are consistent with a missional approach to children’s ministry. How these values get implemented will look different from context to context (which is a key characteristic of missional values).

Just as a sidenote… Glen had asked us to give examples of how our philosophy expresses itself in our ministries. It’s difficult for me to do that because everything we do is run through the filter of the values stated below. We don’t necessarily have programs that are more “missional” than others.

Here is the original post:

As I continue to explore children’s ministry in a missional paradigm, I wanted to throw out one more thing before fleshing out some of the ideas I’ve put out in this series.

As I’ve read and talked with and seen different incarnations of what emerging missional ministry might look like in a local church context, I’ve discovered some common values that would be important in children’s ministry. Now these values do show up all over the place whether “missional” or not. But I think these four values are key to a missional praxis of children’s ministry, which I will finally be fleshing out in future posts in this series.

The values are:

  • Discovery Help children to discover who God is and how to best follow Jesus.
  • Experience Help children to experience God’s love for them by connecting them to a dynamic relation with him.
  • Action-Oriented Help children to live out what it means to love your neighbor as yourself missionally by providing a variety of ways they can change their community, country and world now. This includes reaching out in issues of justice and poverty locally and globally (I hate using the word glocal :) )
  • Community Help children to find where and how they connect into their community of faith and the greater Church community.

Again, these aren’t values exclusive to a missional paradigm but ones I think are important to a third culture way of approaching children’s ministry.

What are your thoughts on these values as related to a missional paradigm of children’s ministry?

What would you subsititue, change or add to the list?

How would you “flesh out” these values to reflect a missional mindset?


Going to a Children's Ministry Conference in Your Underwear

OK, so you don’t have to go to this conference in your underwear, but you could if you wanted to! You wouldn’t even be thrown out… and that’s because you attend this conference from the comfort of your computer screen. Did I mention that this conference is FREE! Yes, FREE! I’m talking about the Children’s Ministry Telesummit.

The conference is June 21-22 and features many speakers you know and love as well as some relatively new faces. Here’s a list of them:

While the conference is free, you do still need to register. Registration will begin on June 7th. In addition to the speakers, there will also be a virtual resource hall where you can check out various resources as well as win some great stuff from the different vendors.

Be sure to check out the Blog Scavenger Hunt that is going on at the Children’s Ministry Telesummitsite. Two lucky winners will win a copy of Collaborate, the new book out from Minister’s Label by Michael Chanley + 34 other great contributors all on the subject of merging family and church to more effectively reach children.


Repost: Something Digital This Way Comes

In light of Amy Dolan’s recenet post, I thought I’d repost this one from last year:

Take a look at the above video before reading on. I posted this video previously with my thoughts about a workshop that Matt Guevara did at the Conspire 2009 Conference.

Matt posted some of his thoughts on where education is going when it comes to “e-learning” and how children’s ministry needs to take a cue and start taking into account this brave new digital world. Here is a snippet of what Matt says:

“Children’s ministry is in the same boat. We have many tired structures delivering Christian education in a ministry context. Week by week purchased curriculum is probably at the top of the list. Certainly the predominant method of a teacher leading kids from the front of the classroom, spoon feeding information is as tired as it is ineffective. The awesome thing about technology is that it is disseminating innovation far faster than a curriculum company ever could. People are sharing ideas about how to minister in different contexts without speaking at a conference or putting 50 ways to blow up balloons in a workbook. I think that curriculum is the key component that will change in the field of children’s and family ministry in days to come. I cannot wait to see what happens.”

I wonder how long it will take curriculum writers and publishing companies to catch on to the cataclysmic changes in how curriculum needs to be developed, deployed and designed. No one really has it figured out yet. I wonder what all the scribes felt like when Gutenberg came out with the printing press. Maybe the “next thing” won’t even come out of curriculum publishing companies…

There is one thing to remember in all of the changes that are happening because of the changing face of how we communicate thoughts and ideas as well as communicating with each other. We have to remember that at the core of digital learning isn’t that it is digital… it is non-linear and participatory. We can utilized non-digital and means to accomplish those.

I agree that the model of the teacher dictating to students is becoming less effective. There needs to be more interaction. There needs to be some sense of participation that guides the direction of how a lesson is presented. There also needs to be a sense of contribution to the material. What does this look like? I’m not sure. I just hope that children’s ministry doesn’t end up being the ones who are trailing 10-15 year behind… again.


Going To Orange?

(picture originally uploaded to Flickr by KidMoxie)

Today is the LAST day to get 50% off the price for preconference workshops at Orange. If you haven’t already registered for Orange or preconference stuff there, what are you waiting for? Click here to get registered!

In addition to going to the conference with some great CPs from our district, I also get to be one of the official Orange bloggers! If you are going to be at Orange, I’d love to meet you! There are two guaranteed ways to do that…

One is to visit me at the Bloggers’ Lounge. I’ll be spending some time up there with the other Orange bloggers. I’d love to meet you and hear about your journey in children’s and family ministry. I plan on highlighting some of the stories here on Elemental as part of the my blogging at Orange.

Another way is to connect with me is to hang out with me at the preconference workshops and breakouts I’ll be at. I was inspired by Amy Dolan to throw out the invitation for this. I love meeting new people! Here’s a list of where I’ll be:

  • Precon 1: How to Launch a Blog (and Have Fun Doing It) – I’m planning on stalking John Saddington ;)
  • Precon 2: Developing a Successful Social Media Strategy – I told you I was stalking John…
  • Storyrealing (From the Big Deal Guys) – This looked like fun!
  • Breakout A: Igniting Faith in Your Children’s and Family Ministry – I’ve been impressed by the journey RockHarbor has been on with David C. Cook in developing some new curriculum
  • Breakout B: Transformational Teaching: Yes, it’s with Michelle Anthony, again… no I’m not a stalker :)
  • Breakout C: How a Small Church Can Make a Big Difference: I want to meet Shaun and have been impressed with his passion
  • Breakout D: Community is Messy: I like connecting with ppl who are willing to delve into mess

So, there you go! That’s how we can connect. I wish I could spend more time with you all. I love meeting people and exchanging stories. I’m looking forward to Orange. Hope to see you there!


The Power of Story to Cast Vision

I know that many of you have probably seen this video, but for the few of you who haven’t… take a look at this recruitment video for preschool volunteers from Northpoint Kids.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10366268&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1I got the video from Northpoint’s blog, Inside Northpoint. Not only are the words and people compelling, but the chair used in the video is the chair that is used by people giving their salvation stories as part of their baptisms. What a powerful way to link the idea of story and stories of salvation with what is happening in the lives of children in those preschool years.

Now I have to go find some Kleenex to get this dang dust out of my eyes. It’s making me tear up.

How are you telling stories? How are you inviting people to help write the life story of children? How are you inviting children to find their place in the bigger Story?


TOMS One Day Without Shoes

I know that this isn’t necessarily directly related to children’s ministry… but it could be! I just found out about this! TOMS Shoes has declared Thursday, April 8 as One Day Without Shoes day as a way to bring awareness to the plight of millions all over the world (including children) who don’t have shoes to wear. The idea is to go a day or part of the day without shoes. I’m planning on doing it, and if I can do it with weather being in the lower 50′s, you can do it, too.

Check out the site for ways you can take part in the day. They also have some ways for those who can’t go shoeless to participate.


Learning From Children

A little while back I blogged about an amazing 12-year-old girl named Adora Svitak who happened to be a TED speaker in February of 2010. At the time, her TED talk had not been published. Here it is:

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swfAll I can say is, “Wow!” While you may not agree with everything she said, she does make a great point: Adults can and need to learn from children!

In church-world, we get so caught up in making sure we are teaching children the right answers. We are quick to correct theological views and concepts that we deem as wrong or juvenile.

I like what Don and Brenda Ratcliff say in their new book Childfaith:

Affirm [children’s] comments, even if part of what they say lacks theological sophistication. Mistaken theology can be corrected later; the impor- tant thing is that the child under- stands that it’s wonderful for them to have had a meaningful spiritual encounter with God, nature, or people

What do you think? What has been your experience in learning from children?


Winners of What's In The Bible Volume 1 and 2

(photo originally uploaded to Flickr by bre pettis)

As part of the blog tour for What’s In The Bible, I was given two certificates by Tyndale House Publishers to give away on my blog along with my review.

The winner of the certificate for Volume 1: In the Beginning is Patti Gibbons!

The winner of the certificate for Volume 2: Let My People Go is Emily Gist!

I will be sending the winners a direct msg via Twitter to get your snail mail addresses and send you the certificate for the volume you won.

Thanks to everyone who entered and read the review. You can get your own copies of What’s In The Bible Volumes 1 and 2 from your local Christian book retailer or online at Christianbook.com. Thanks also to Tyndale House Publishers for generously providing the video for me to review and the gift certificates to give away.


Video Review: "Pistachio, The Boy That Woodn't" by VeggieTales

In one of their most recent videos, the VeggieTales crew addressed the theme of listening to your parents. Junior Asparagus takes on the role of Pistachio, a boy carved out of wood who has a hard time listening to his father, Gelato, a wood carver who had no children of his own (played by Larry the Cucumber). My favorite character is the return of Khalil the Caterpillar who plays Cricket, a caterpillar who isn’t a cricket (I thought it was funny). From the picture and little bit of the setting, you are correct to assume that this is a retelling of the Disney classic Pinnochio with a VeggieTales twist.

For those of you who have been fans of VeggieTales from the very beginning (Where’s God When I’m Scared), you will immediately notice something different… they remixed the introduction! The song, itself, hasn’t changed; it’s just a bit different. In addition to changing up the theme song, the VeggieTales set gets an update courtesy of a Veggie version of Extreme Makeover. Not only that… Qwerty has been updated to! Qwerty can talk and receive video emails!

It was a bit of a shock to see all the changes, but overall, I think that these are positive changes. One thing that would be really neat is for the video emails to be real ones that VeggieTales receives through one of the many social media outlets like Facebook or a blog or something like that.

As for the story in this video, I found it a bit simplistic and overly moralizing. They did clearly make the point that it is important to listen to parents even though I think it was overdone. I do give VeggieTales kudos, though, for trying to go beyond the “obvious” theme of truth-telling when it comes to the story of Pinnochio. Children will still enjoy this video. I also found it fun to see throwbacks from the Jonah movie like Khalil, the whale, and even some deja vu of being inside the belly of a whale.

You can find Pistachio at your local Christian retailer or at online sites like Amazon or Christianbook.com.

Take a look at the trailer for the video below:

NOTE: This video was provided to me compliments of the generous people at David C. Cook and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. for the purpose of providing a video review. This in no way has negatively or positively biased my review. Other than the provided video, I was not compensated in any way.