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This Winter's Free Resources!

Children's & Youth Discipleship
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Children's & Youth Discipleship 

New Curriculum Task Force & Advent Resource

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As part of the Great Lakes Conference's commitment to generational discipleship, a dedicated Children’s Discipleship Task Force has recently formed to create a resource that meets the unique needs of children’s faith formation across our churches. Led by Rev. Dr. Christina Embree, Rev. Stephanie Peterson, and Rev. Matthew Peterson under Bishop Lynn Thrush’s guidance, this team is developing a resource called Gather & Play: A Journey with Jesus, a curriculum designed to help children actively engage in faith in ways that resonate with their age and experiences.

 

This curriculum is crafted to support your church in nurturing faith through interactive lessons, scripture, and hands-on activities, specifically geared for intergenerational use, allowing families to grow together. As part of our conference, your church will receive the curriculum completely free, making this a zero-cost addition to your ministry that supports and strengthens the next generation of disciples.

 

Gather & Play will contain flexible digital and physical components that allow you to tailor it to your congregation’s needs. This curriculum can ease some of the pressures of content creation for your families, providing a structured, biblically grounded tool for your children’s and youth ministry. With your church’s participation, we can also gain valuable feedback for improving and expanding these resources for the whole denomination and beyond. This is a fantastic opportunity to enrich your ministry with minimal cost and maximum impact

 

We are hoping to have all three of our series All About Church, Church Through the Year, and the Core Values available by the end of next year. But we wanted to offer you a sneak peek this year by making our Advent lessons and some of our materials available now. Since we don’t have the online platform available yet, please email christina@refocusministry.org for your copies!

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Family Faith Formation

Family Faith Formation
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When Christmas is Over!

 

The packages have been opened, the treats have been enjoyed, trips have been taken, and a vague sense of normalcy is beginning to return to homes. Bedtimes start to be reinforced again. Twinkling lights disappear and houses “go dark.” Slowly but surely we leave the “most wonderful time of the year” behind us.

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If your family is like mine, the adjustment from the wonder of Christmas or the carefree schedules of vacation or the adventures of spring and fall breaks to the monotony of everyday life can be rocky.  Over the past few years, there’ve been a few things that have helped us ease into these transitions a bit more smoothly and disciple our kids in the faith at the same time.

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  • Learning How To Celebrate…All the Time – As Christians we have the unique opportunity to never live a mundane, monotonous life! Our Savior promised us the gift of abundant life. There is a sense of hope and expectation available to us every single day. Teach your kids to find the treasures in the normal moments of life so when the big hyped-up moments go by, their excitement for life doesn’t wane.  Celebrate often!

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I encourage families to have three “celebrations” in their back pocket: a 30 second celebration (for small but special victories), a 2 minute celebration (when something pretty incredible has happened and we just need to praise God), and a special event celebration (for us this was a Star Dinner when a person in the family has achieved an important milestone like reading their first book or graduating from college).

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  • Follow the Calendar – No, not that calendar…the church calendar. Advent and Christmas are just the beginning of the incredible story of God’s promise, appearance, revelation, salvation, resurrection, and indwelling. Epiphany begins on January 6; a season of celebrating God revealing himself to all mankind through the story of the Magi. Easter and Pentecost follow and then the story becomes ours as we enter “ordinary time” made extraordinary by God using us to tell His story.  The church calendar is more than just ancient tradition or a way to mark off time; it’s a chance for us to engage the metanarrative of Scripture in our homes with our families. And we can do that all year long. Note: This is my FAVORITE video for explaining the church calendar, check it out!

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  • Remember Together – The holidays and/or family vacations are often times chock full of activities and experiences that can’t be fully appreciated on the moment because of time constraints or just plain weariness. So, use the time afterward to remember with your family the meaningful moments. Write them down. Send thank you notes. Print the pictures. Then gather together to say “Thank you” to the One who gives the gifts of love, joy, peace, and hope.  Re-open again the gifts of Advent and Christmas, this time with a slower pace, and greater chance for gratitude.

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We’ve all probably already seen the picture on social media counting down the days to Christmas. But we don’t need to wait a year to experience the joy of celebration again. Let’s make part of our transition to regularly scheduled life include celebration, anticipation, and even thanksgiving by inviting Jesus into our everyday.

Realistically, no family can do it all. But realistically, we can all do something.

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If we are unable to do all “the big things,” let’s invite Jesus into all the little things and embrace the celebration for His sake.  It will look different for each home, as it should. But in each home, Christ desires to be the respite, the rest, the peace no matter what season it is.

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Intergenerational
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Intergenerational Opportunities

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When Christmas is Over!

 

On Sunday morning at General Assembly, we had the chance to engage in All-Age worship where we were lead in worship by children, youth, and adults of all ages. What a blessed time it was to pray together, learn together, and share in praise of our Lord together!

Following that experience, a few pastors reached out to me for ideas on offering this type of opportunity at their own church. I hope that the resources here will be helpful in taking steps to allow that to happen.

Often, our traditional service structures often make it difficult to extend the hand of welcome to the next generation and it can be difficult to maneuver within those confines and find ways of incorporating all generations.

With that in mind, here are some practical tips and tools for Intergenerational Worship Services that might be useful for your faith community.


1. Kid’s Worship Team – This team doesn’t necessary lead “singing” but they worship through hospitality (holding doors, handing out bulletins, etc), prayer (they go forward during prayer time and pray for themselves and others) and generosity (they take up the communion and pray over it). I led this at one of the churches I worked at. For our team, the kids followed a weekly schedule, just like the adult worship team, and if they missed their Sunday, they had to get someone to take their spot. They also had to go through a training on worship with me before they could serve.

2. Sermon Notes – There are a lot of great templates out there for sermon notes and for older kids, it’s a great way to keep them involved with the service. In one church, if a child completed their sermon notes, they could get something out of a treasure box and the completed form was given back to their parents so the parents could have a follow-up conversation with their kids at home. I have a copy of the one we used at General Assembly if you are interested!

3. Call Out the Kids – Kids love to get attention and they love when they get to be drawn into “adult” things like the sermon. We often asked whoever was speaking to at some point in the sermon just say something like, “Hey kids, have you ever seen this?” or something else that would be appropriate to the text to help draw the kids into the story. It’s amazing how just that little comment really drew them in and helped redirect their attention to the service.

4. Interactive Teaching and Learning – Anything interactive is great! One of the ways our current church engages the kids is if there is a topic that involves a story from the Bible, the pastor will have the kids help act out the story. Everyone loves it – it’s spontaneous so things definitely go wrong, but the whole congregation gets involved and no one forgets the Scripture we studied that week. Pastor Joy did a phenomenal job of providing an example of how to incorporate a children’s sermon as part of the Sunday morning experience that ministered to both adults and children. I don’t think any of us will ever forget the Christmas Island Crab!

5. Worship Packet – Worship Packets (sometimes called Busy Bags) get a bad rap, mostly because people don’t understand the developmental science behind them. Have “busy bags” but explain to parents and other church members that these activities aren’t intended to distract the kids but rather to help the kids use all of their developing senses; studies show if their hands and eyes are busy, their ears will be listening. Quiet activities like lacing cards, stickers scenes, foam craft kits, beads and pipe cleaners, small puzzles and coloring are all great ways to engage your kinesthetic and visual learners. . In the Final Four Section, I’ve included the list of items we used at General Assembly

6. Pew Boxes– Similar to , these boxes can be placed underneath chairs or pews and filled with quiet activities and books for kids to use during worship services. I love the ones put together by Traci Smith; you can find the description and link in the Final Four section.

7. Active Involvement – The difference between “having kids in Big Church” and welcoming kids into corporate worship lies basically in participation. Are children being invited to actively participate or passively observe? Inviting children and youth to be part of the order of worship has incredible sway in creating a sense of inclusion and welcome. Children and youth can read Scripture, say the benediction, lead a song, and pray. Being involved signals that we have a place in the congregation – we are a part of something bigger – and everyone needs to know that truth. Many thanks to Kara Kacmar for the way she led all of us in worship with a variety of songs and ages during our Sunday service!

Final Four
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Final Four

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1 Book - 1 Video - 1 Website - 1 Resource 

BOOK

All Ages Everything by Nick Harding

https://www.christianbook.com/age-everything-worship-for-intergenerational-church/nick-harding/9781506459844/pd/459844

This revised edition of All-Age Everything is full of ideas and suggestions to make all-age worship a true intergenerational worship experience. It looks at every part of an all-age service, from how to go about the initial planning, followed by tips for welcomes and beginnings, to endings and blessings. The ideas can be adapted to suit your own church setting, but, most of all, they make meeting God fun for the entire church family, however young or old.

 

VIDEO

What is Advent by Twinkl Educational Publishing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfN7ucvUx4s

This is an adorable explanation of Advent from the perspective of someone in England and includes instructions for a traditional craft called a Cristingle which your family could make together.

 

WEBSITE

10 Keys to Intergenerational Leadership,  https://www.churchleadership.com/leading-ideas/10-keys-to-intergenerational-leadership/

Intergenerational leaders are fostering communities of hope and creativity by prioritizing relationships, embracing diverse gifts, and encouraging discipleship across all ages. Valerie Grissom identifies 10 keys to intergenerational leadership including facilitating faith rhythms, embracing curiosity, valuing diversity, and empowering all generations to lead. Leaders must resist reverting to old norms, focusing instead on life-giving, inclusive practices. 

 

RESOURCE

Advent Gather & Play Curriculum

We wanted to offer you a sneak peek of our Gather & Play curriculum this year by making our Advent lessons and some of our materials available now. Since we don’t have the online platform available yet, please email christina@refocusministry.org for your copies!

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