Children's Sermons - reconsidered
Children's sermons/Children's time is something that plagues many a congregations (and I am not alone in this assessment - see Bishop Willimon). We want to help our children and let them know they are important in worship, but the best we can come up with is a 'moment' in worship when we tell the children some silly story, over their head object lesson, or many times use them to get a laugh.
I am sure there are people who do this moment very well - and you are few and far between.
Teaching children in worship - if only given one moment in worship - can be a tricky thing and I have been thinking about it for a while now (this post made one reader sick).
As Estee and I consider our move to a new faith community, we have batted around the idea of having only 52 pre-set children's sermons that repeat each year. Each lesson would focus on a spiritual discipline with the purpose of helping the kids learn practices that form them in the faith.
For instance, we might have the first Sunday in January we would talk about breath prayer. The second Sunday in January would focus on icons, while the third Sunday in January would look at lighting candles, and the fourth Sunday would look at alms giving and so on and so on. The lessons would repeat again come the next January and once again the kids would hear about breath prayer, icons, candles and alms giving.
In just a few moments sent on this we have about 30 ideas.
We would look to rename it from Children's time/sermon to something else, but we don't know what yet.
What do you think?
I am sure there are people who do this moment very well - and you are few and far between.
Teaching children in worship - if only given one moment in worship - can be a tricky thing and I have been thinking about it for a while now (this post made one reader sick).
As Estee and I consider our move to a new faith community, we have batted around the idea of having only 52 pre-set children's sermons that repeat each year. Each lesson would focus on a spiritual discipline with the purpose of helping the kids learn practices that form them in the faith.
For instance, we might have the first Sunday in January we would talk about breath prayer. The second Sunday in January would focus on icons, while the third Sunday in January would look at lighting candles, and the fourth Sunday would look at alms giving and so on and so on. The lessons would repeat again come the next January and once again the kids would hear about breath prayer, icons, candles and alms giving.
In just a few moments sent on this we have about 30 ideas.
We would look to rename it from Children's time/sermon to something else, but we don't know what yet.
What do you think?
The Idea Store
My friend Kyle and I have been thinking of ways to generate and encourage people to share ideas around the conference and between churches. When we ran across the "Idea Store" by Double A Projects, we decided to contact them to see if we could create our own version. They were nice enough to say yes and at the Annual Conference in June, in Waco, the first ever CTCUMC Idea Store will launch.
More pics will come, but in the meantime, here is a little animation to get you thinking of how it "works".
More pics will come, but in the meantime, here is a little animation to get you thinking of how it "works".
Grow to the Fifth - Launched
Some time ago (2010) I posted an idea that was dubbed "Grow to the Fifth". It was an idea to help our community grow in fruitfulness in five areas of discipleship. Additionally, it could be used as a tool to help people talk about their local faith community. Finally, it had both "insider" and "outsider" language which allows it to resonate with different kinds of people.
I am please to announce that after much work by many people at AHUMC, Grow to the Fifth is a go!
UPDATE - Here is a PDF version of the front of the Grow to the Fifth card. Also you may want to check out this site for inspiration as to how you might grow in these five practices.
I am please to announce that after much work by many people at AHUMC, Grow to the Fifth is a go!
UPDATE - Here is a PDF version of the front of the Grow to the Fifth card. Also you may want to check out this site for inspiration as to how you might grow in these five practices.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.