Jesus, Food, Day, Amen

“Jesus, Food, Day, Amen” these 4 words make up the prayer our 3 little boys have begun saying before most of their meals. Actually is goes more like this: “Jesus, Food, Day, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAmen.” We began praying with them once they were able to sit in high chairs and eat solid foods rather than drinking from a bottle. So for about a year now they have heard us pray and now have begun repeating this prayer before meals. It’s very exciting!!!

Since becoming a parent I have begun to look at children’s ministry in a whole new light. For example I now understand how our volunteer Sunday school teachers sometime struggle to get to their classrooms early. When my wife and I volunteer in the boy’s classroom we are generally later than we are supposed to be despite trying hard to be early. Now more than ever I appreciate the effort committed Sunday school teachers make every weekend to be in their classrooms.

Finally, hearing these boys who are about to turn 2 say this prayer confirmed with me the importance of children’s ministry and that ministering to kids needs to begin when they are young. When you have the opportunity to shape a child’s life from the beginning either as a parent, nursery worker, or Sunday school teacher cool things happen.

Food

I’ve noticed recently that my diet has changed a little bit since becoming a father, especially in the area of snacks in the past 6-8 months. Here’s a list of things I now eat on a regular basis that I never used to eat with any consistency…

 

1. Cheerios
2. Pretzels
3. Animal Crackers
4. Flavor-Ice
5. Goldfish Crackers
6. Fruit Snacks

 

Kinda wished I had some animal crackers right now.

Vacation Bible Camp 2009

It’s VBC week!!! Our theme this year is Treasures Of The Nile, we are studying the life of Moses. It’s been a great week so far! You can check out what’s been going during the week at our VBC Blog. There are articles, pictures, videos, and a bunch of other stuff about VBC. This is our first year with a VBC blog replacing daily paper newsletters and has become the main way to communicate to all VBC participants.

The UMC-Resurrection’s Solution

Just last week I sat in a meeting where strategies and action steps were planned out to address the leadership challenges facing the UMC (see previous posts). About a half dozen different strategies are being worked out right now. Some of these strategies are…1. Creating an event for those feeling called to ministry where they can explore that possible calling and next steps. 2. Being more intentional in allowing our upper elementary children to hear God’s call to ministry. 3. Creating a tracking system from 3^rd grade on up where people are given the opportunity to hear God’s call and the church guides them through the process until they reach ordination. 4. Creating a Resurrection internship program that is intentional in helping interns discern their call to ministry and or seminary. 5. Preach a weekend sermon on God’s call in our lives.

Good stuff about to happen. I’m personally involved in step number 4 “Creating an Internship Program.”

I believe all these steps are the foundation to raising up a new generation of leaders. Still one challenge I see in all this is the fact that when people are called out from Church Of The Resurrection to another UMC the differences between Resurrection and most any other church is generally quite large. So the question is how do we equip our members to lead other churches who are very different from ours? I don’t have an answer to that one yet.

I’m very interested to see what happens and believe that Church of The Resurrection has the opportunity to make a huge difference in the UMC and in the lives of many people.

The UMC-the challenges

My previous post mentioned the strategic priority team that I’m involved in with the United Methodist Church Of The Resurrection. That priority is to “Raise up a new generation of Pastoral leaders for the UMC.” Obviously by creating this strategic objective and making it a priority in our church that the United Methodist Church in general is facing some challenges in the area. At one of our first team meetings we reviewed a few of these challenges that the denomination is facing. I thought I would share some of them with you.

1. The average age of a pastoral leader in the UMC is 52.
2. Less than 7% of pastoral leaders are under the age of 35.
3. Pastors are most effective at reaching people who are within 10 years of their age of either side (42-62 right now)
4. If the current trends continue in the UMC this denomination will not exist in 44 years.

Some very big challenges lie ahead for the denomination, and looking at these challenges you can see why we believe that equipping the younger generation and intentionally guiding them towards ministry in the UMC is the best solution to getting the UMC on the right track. I hope to share some of the specific steps our team is taking to address these challenges in my next post.

THE UMC

Each year the United Methodist Church of The Resurrection selects a few strategic priorities to focus on. This year I am on the team which has been given this task to “Raise Up a New Generation Of Pastoral Leaders For The United Methodist Church.” Specifically we are addressing the present and future leadership challenges in the UMC, we are going to figure out ways we can help young high capacity leaders to listen for God’s call into ordained ministry. Our hope is to prepare 100 young people to enter seminary before they turn 30 by the year 2020. Obviously we will not accomplish all of this in 2009 but we are beginning the process. The team that I’m involved in has 15-20 leaders from Resurrection both staff and lay leaders. Together we’ve developed strategies and action steps to start working toward achieving this goal. Over the next week or so I will post a series of posts on the United Methodist Church, the action steps we are taking to achieve these goals and some of my thoughts on all this. I have found it very interesting and very exciting and hope you’ll enjoy it!!

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day Everyone!! Over the past couple of years I’ve become more aware that it really is our responsibility to take care of God’s Earth. This is something that I always knew was important but over the past couple of years it has really taken on some added significance both in my personal life (doing some recycling now) and in my ministry at the church (keep reading). I think there are two reasons for this, first I heard a great Sermon by Pastor Adam Hamilton about environmental concerns and how we as Christians need to be aware of these and do something about it. Second I’ve had some interaction with the Earth COR team at the Church. They are a great group and really passionate about what they do. This year our Children’s ministry has partnered with Earth Cor in a couple of ways. First we created some recycling posters to hang around the church and second we will be taking a short break from our regular lessons to have special Earth Day lessons in Sunday school this weekend. I’m really looking forward to it!!

 

Psalm 24:1 The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.

Nick’s Favorite Things!

The 3^rd installment of Nick’s favorite things…if you have something you would like me to consider for my next list I open to suggestions.

 

1. Nabisco Wheat Thins Artisan Cheese Crackers…Especially The Vermont White Cheddar Flavor
2. The Office
3. Emergen-C Vitamin Water (Tangerine and Dragon Fruit flavors)
4. The Unit
5. The Grandview Recycling Center…(Can’t beat free recycling!)

 

I simply remember my favorite things and then I don’t feel soooooooooooooo bad!!!!!

63 Parables

The other day I was going through a pile of books at the church and came across some rather old Children’s Ministry books from the 40′s & 50′s. One of the books I picked up was titled “63 Popular Parables For Young Folks” by John Henry Sargent. The “parables” are what we call object lessons today. It was fun to look through the book and see which items were popular in the 40′s & 50′s (Record Player & Rubbers). I found it interesting that these books were even around back then, it was always my assumption that ministry to children was a fairly new concept to the church (within the last 30 years or so), but it appears that even in the 40′s there were church leaders who knew the importance of ministry to “Young Folks.”

Here’s a quote from the forward that I found interesting “The Minister…finds his most precious reward in the developing life of children and youth as they grow into maturity and come to usefulness in their homes, in the community and in the church….An effective aid in this development is the specialized homiletical art of preaching to children.”

So here’s what I’m thinking….I’m going to hold onto these books and create a Children’s Ministry Museum someday and open it to the public. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

Book Review

I just recently finished reading the book “Too Small To Ignore: Why Children Are The Next Big Thing” By Dr. Wes Stafford. Wes Stafford is the president and CEO of Compassion International. I have been familiar with Compassion International for quite a few years now, but it was just within the past 2 years that I have gotten to know a little bit about its great leader Wes Stafford. About a year and a half ago I heard Dr. Stafford give an awesome talk on why ministry to children not only in the U.S. but throughout the world is so important. It was after hearing this talk that I really wanted to read his book. Too Small To Ignore is a great book…here’s your very quick summary…he spent the first 14 years of his life between a remote African village where his parents were missionaries and a boarding school for Missionary kids many hundreds of miles away (still in Africa). His upbringing gives him a very unique and passionate perspective about caring for the children of the world especially those who live in poverty or suffer from abuse or neglect.

Great Book! But also difficult to read at times to hear of the immense suffering that goes on in the world, but Wes and Compassion International have a plan. They believe that the way to end the suffering is to begin with the children in these regions. To change the world you begin with a child.

First Book I’ve read completely in 2009, hope to get to another one before July 4^th.