Children’s ministry is busy. There’s enough to do that we get ensconced within our own children’s work bubbles, focusing on the next Messy Church, all-age service or craft activity. And look, this is important. Working with children in churches is important (this magazine wouldn’t exist if we didn’t think that). But it’s not enough on its own…
Sometimes we need to take a step back, to examine the larger picture. There’s a danger that we become children’s work Wayne Rooneys, so concerned with doing all that we can to produce the right results that we run around like headless chickens, doing whatever we think is best to help form faith in the children we work with. Often the most chaotic results come from the best of intentions, but our call as children’s workers isn’t to be one-man-bands, but to play our part in the church’s orchestra; it’s not to become heroes, but to play as part of a team.
To acknowledge this tension and seek to address it, we’re delighted to add Faith at hometo the Premier Childrenswork family. As children’s workers, we’re not in this alone. We need to be aware of the other key stakeholders in the faith lives of the children we work with: parents, teachers, grandparents, god parents and church leaders to name just a few. We need to intentionally and strategically find models and methods of working alongside and supporting these other individuals. We need to create crossover points for parents and children to worship and form faith together, opportunities for them both to learn from each other. That’s what Faith at home aims to do. The resources and articles inside are designed to provoke and resource your children’s ministry, but are also ‘parent-friendly’: ideas that will make them think, and resources to use at home. In the first issue we get a parent, a teacher and a children’s worker to discuss the ways we can work better together, we reflect on whether the dark side of Halloween can help children’s spirituality and launch our brand new ready-to-use story, exclusively written by storyteller extraordinaire, Bob Hartman.
We’re not suggesting that Faith at home is some kind of silver bullet, but we’re really excited about it. So have a read yourself, before tearing it out and handing it around to parents of children you work with, and anyone else interested. You can even photocopy it if you’d like. The answer to the church’s engagement with children isn’t to be a load of Wayne Rooneys, it’s to become a team; here’s hoping Faith at home can play a part in that.
