paulvipond
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Suffer the Little Children!Dear All,
While I appreciate our experience may be limited has anyone ever come across a growing (numerically and spiritually) church in the UK which did not have a children's work?
I know quite a few that dont that are on their last legs, but does that mean there is a causal link?
Answers in blue crayon on the wall to.....................
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DavidH
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Not sure.
Some churches don't have a specific child/youth ministry but still manage to grow by including them in the church as a whole. ie they don't differentiate and virtually all services and activities are aimed at the "church family"
On a personal note, I've always found the name of "Junior" church a bit hard to swallow, seeing that it seems to imply that there are at least two levels of Christian and that children must spend time in some kind of quarantine box before they can be considered for fellowship with the older folk. I've met kids on my travels with far more Christian maturity than some adults that I know.
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paulvipond
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Do you think the term "sunday school" was dropped not because it put kids off but because it reminded adults that they too were supposed to be learning?
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DavidH
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| paulvipond wrote: | | Do you think the term "sunday school" was dropped not because it put kids off but because it reminded adults that they too were supposed to be learning? |
Most definitely!
I was amazed to find out that in many American churches (here we go again  ) they have "Sunday School" at a separate time from the worship services, prayer meetings and bible studies and ALL the family attends, from pre-schoolers up to old-timers.
In some cases, they all followed the same Bible passages, just in different ways, appropriate to differing age groups. Then (and here's where I got all excited,) the whole family could go home and share together all the great things they'd learned from all those different perspectives.
... but that's in churches that are growing
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Jannine Ebenso
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Hi from my end of things again!
In Nigeria and many other African churches there is 'all age Sunday School' as David H has observed. It is the time when we can challenge ourselves to really think about what the passages say. Instead of just sitting and listening, the good ones are fully participatory and everyone can ask and answer questions. At the end of the Sunday School session the whole church meets and there is a round up of what we learnt with a memory verse. You may find memory verses a little childish - but in this culture they really work. I have found them very useful. The teenies have been colouring pictures and singing songs on the same lesson - so it is a good lunch time discussion topic afterwards!
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Darthmiller
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There seems to be a worrying trend of the Church in the UK that because one set of statistics show the fastest growing Churches have an active youth and families ministry (Chicken and the egg?) that the focus of all the other churches shifts that way as well.
I worry for all the unsaved elderly, singles and twenty somethings
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paulvipond
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| Darthmiller wrote: | There seems to be a worrying trend of the Church in the UK that because one set of statistics show the fastest growing Churches have an active youth and families ministry (Chicken and the egg?) that the focus of all the other churches shifts that way as well.
I worry for all the unsaved elderly, singles and twenty somethings |
I presume none of us would espouse an either/or choice. I am still curious to know if any of us has come across a numerically growing church that does not have an effective childrens/youth ministry. Any takers?
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Eli
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I think that first, you'd have to quantify "growth".
Large numbers don't necessarily mean sound, biblical beliefs.
From what I've seen, most of the churches and sects that concentrate on youth/children do grow numerically. Maybe some of these kids even stay on, but the majority leave because they find out the awful truth that they were seduced by the soft centred ministries that pandered to their every whim.
It is far more important to have depth than breadth.
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