The little church on the hill

I grew up in a Christian setting. The setting I've always known always felt part of, and the one that dominated my life....the one I was blessed by.

This is the building that was my first memory of church. We lived in a small historic hamlet on the outskirts of Australia's biggest city, since swallowed by suburbia. The old hall where my brother and I went to Sunday School was to the left of the chapel, it was demolished a few decades ago, replaced by the larger building behind it.

 The building was erected in the late 1800s, then later became a Presbyterian church. For much of my childhood, this was our church. Most of the people in our circle attended, at least at Easter and Christmas.

Christmas was very special: Christmas eve supper at one family's home, Christmas morning here, at church, then to another family's home for morning tea. A couple of weeks prior to Christmas this family (the local butcher) hosted a kids 'street' party for about half a dozen families - about 20 kids. T'was wonderful.

They came.

The church I'm part of runs a number of 'community-facing' programs. One of them is Mainly Music, and there are a few children's Sunday programs that also attract some non-members. Mainly Music has lots of participants from outside our congregations.

These groups give a contact point with adults who might not be in the church circle.

This morning, our Christmas 'Celebration' included gifts for children moving from one Sunday group to another  (as they grow), and a big contribution from Mainly Music children. Many of their parents and some grandparents came along.

Then we had a brunch for no charge.

More opportunity for chatting, getting to know and building a brand...as marketeers might say.

A great example of a customer involvement chain.

Deep contact

One of the challenges for churches that have great youth/children's programs is getting the involvement of their parents.

There are a few things that can be done here:

1. Visit them: the youth minister or Sunday school superintendent (aka children's minister) visits parents of the attendees, perhaps twice a year.

1a. Invite all the parents of a 'class' or age-group to an afternoon tea, perhaps once a quarter (the Christmas quarter can be a whole class Christmas party).

2.  A function is held for parents once a year. This might be a dinner with an after-dinner speaker on some aspect of children' s development.

3. Run a couple of shorter seminars each year on an aspect of children's/young people's spiritual development that parents can participate in: e.g. Bible reading, prayer habits, dealing with their questions.

4. Invite a group of parents to a quarterly meeting to brief them on the ministry and get their views.

5. Issue a quarterly newsletter to parents with some relevant articles, cartoons, etc.

All these create a deeper contact with the parents and for those on the edge of the congregation, might develop some closer fellowship.

Training for talking

We are doing a course in conversational evangelism.

Sounds good.

And there's been some good stuff: mention about listening, for instance. But in that session, most of our time was taken with the beatitudes as a basis for behaviour.

I'm not quite sure where that would take us (next session we are talking about our 'testimony') but am wary that starting with behaviour (although our behaviour should represent our faith) could take us to the thin ice of 'rules for living' as though being Christian is about 'doing the right thing', rather than our 'doing' being consequential upon our regeneration.

Being able to converse about one's faith is clearly a good thing; however, I'm not sure that this course equips in terms of Peter's injunction to ''give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence" in 1 Peter 3:15, "always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks..."

In conversation one has to be able to deploy reasons, meet objections and answer questions. A course on converational evangelism needs to be able to guide its students in these terms. We know what most questions are, we know what most objections are; so skilling people in these should be no problem.

But underpinning this is knowledge: we have lost traditions of new Christians being instructed in the faith, and just turning up to church to hear sermons aint' it. Nor is the haphazard approach of most Bible Study groups.

Basic instruction in the Bible, Christian history, belief and practice, and 'conversational apologetics' is needed. An organised curriculum for children through to end of high school age is also needed to ensure younger Christians are confident in their ability to talk about their faith and its implications for life, thought and practice with substance.

Encouragement of reading both the Bible and Christian literature is part of this. Refer to the 'special posts' on the right of this screen for some ideas.

A course such as we are doing is OK, but it would be more OK if it was built on the foundations I've sketched.

Oh, and don't just tell people to 'listen'. Include participatory exercises, particularly emphasising not listening to answer, but listening to understand.

Youth group is shallow #2

Further to my previous blog on this  topic, relative in question opined that she got more out of Sunday School, theologically, than youth group.

I discussed this with one of my friends who regarded youth group as a hothouse of immaturity: social as well as theological. I don't know if I agree with the former, but I sure do with the latter.

Something has to be done!

Kid's ministry

Notes from our Kid's ministry meeting. Sorry about the handwriting unclarity!

Christian Education

I am rather excited by the prospect of  a meeting next week of our church to discuss the curriculum for children and young people's Christian education.

The convenor of this ministry wants to ensure that parents are involved in the design of the curriculum.

Wonderful.

I'll be there promoting my thoughts.

Aliens

Looking over a nephew's school poem: all about aliens and the sun burning out, I wondered at the Christian teaching the paid Christian at school was giving...and even wondered at same at his youth group: the poem was gravid with philosophical materialism.

How would he align this with the philsophical personalism of the Bible? Would he be equipped to deal with it through any Christian education he received, or would this merely take the tenor of our times as a given and completely fail to equip him to critically overturn it on understanding that comes from the word of God?

Knowing how most churches work: at the trival level of Bible stories, and if not, then philosophically disconnected from the ideas of the world, allowing its 'world view' to swallow thus subsume the truth of the Bible.

Witless, we perish.

Bible knowledge

As we move into a post-literate world, dominated by the fleeting black-box of ideas that is the trade of electronic connectedness where 'connection' makes the banal ubiquitous, people loose touch with the bones of our culture: its literary traditions.

And so in Christian circles, it would seem, from a survey of biblical literacy reported by Al Mohler.

It is pretty easy to teach the Bible; it requires simply dedication, memorisation, thought and instruction.

It also needs to be promoted by the church, or WE loose touch with our literary (biblical) culture!

Leaving...

I read in an article that most young adults leave church not because of emotional or social forces (like they've been hurt, or even abused), but because their intellectual questions were not taken seriously or even answered...'just believe' still operates.

The great and frustrating irony in this is that modern rationality has its roots in Christian theology which from the start was a rational enterprise; God's creating was orderly, we in his image are to look after it. This includes coming to understand it. No 'spirits' to appease, no monsters to be scared of, no incantations to be learnt.

So, I wonder about both the education of people newly Christian, and the teaching of children in Sunday School and youth groups. I worry that its all Bible stories or affective responses to portions of biblical text. It should include Christian foundations, church history, the inputs to theology, at least.

I reflect on my own Sunday School years and while there were some teachers who responded to the questions of we young teenagers, mostly it was a kiddie entertainment routine.

At every age we need to equip children to think about their faith and to reason through questions it brings up.

Oh Lord!

On Sunday our small group ministry team met to talk about small group  ministry. A couple of items stuck in my mind:

Someone prayed that those "who led" would be blessed...I would have thought that Christians don't 'lead' they 'serve'.

Then we discussed how the small groups might do (a) service, and (b) outreach. Well I'm glad 'service' got a look in, but still not happy: it was 'service' in terms of the Baptist deficit view of relationships, as though the gospel can only make sense, or we can only have a mission to those who are in serviceable need.

One reason for this is that we don't have a culture of reasonable, rational Christian faith, we are lurching to a paganised faith of 'leaps', I fear.

Discipleship should start not with the hit and miss of a small group, but with education in Christian faith, and that should start in Sunday School, properly teaching children about the Bible, the creeds, Christian history and what and why we believe, so that they can reason from their faith to its outworking in all sorts of contexts.

Sunday School 2

Of all the Sunday School teachers that stay with me, I think I am fortunate in that they are three men.

When I was in primary school at the small Presbyterian Church near my home: Sasha L, a tall handsome young Yugoslavian who may or may not have been a Christian; in my childhood I was not sure of his real position, but as a group of young boys we were very impressed at this huge happy bloke teaching us.

In later primary school years, another man: our SS was in his home, as my parents had decided to support a 'church plant' as we call it these days, in a nearby developing suburb. Max H was the age of my parents, so awesomely old for an 11 year old. Again, I relished being taught by a man. For a boy, it made it feel proper, serious and important. It also showed me a man being a Christian: a great model.

The last bloke was called Glyn L, I think. Or maybe Glen; he had an odd accent. We were still supporting the church 'plant' while I was in junior high school and Glyn travelled half way across Sydney to teach us; a group of boys.

I would not know what any of these men thought of their efforts; 'just' teaching Sunday School? But here I am, remembering them decades later. Their efforts were important, at least to me.

Actually, as I cast my mind back, I can think of perhaps three men who were very important in my later development: Bob S., Wally L. and Denis P. (now dead). Great blokes with the quiet glow of the indwelling Spirit.

Stage shock!

Yesterday at the special Sunday School event for Christmas, a major success: a quirky music drama put on by our muti-talented youth pastor, set in heaven during the lead up to the nativity: angels being organised for announcements, etc.; and a minor wobble.

One of the music items was a group of 7 year olds singing a carol, taking it in turns to solo the verses. They moved around a triangle formation as they took the solo which was very cute; then one of them forgot his lines part way into it. We all felt for him, so the congregation took up the singing; but he was very upset.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but as I was watching him forget, then he realise that he had forgotten, I was waiting for someone to prompt him. I've seen it at school plays where there is a prompter going along with the script...or we could have used one of the video fold back screens to carry the words (a kind of teleprompt). Not only for the child's sake, but to help us all have a memorable morning.

I don't want to be unkind, but I was reminded of an observation I made as a teenager at the outer-suburban church I attended in the 70s: it was only at church that one was reliably embarrassed. However, then that church was run by a crowd of untrained and largely self-appointed (albeit elected) ministers. Still, I wonder if ministers' training covers the practicalities of staging children's' events.

Sunday School 1

I'll probably post a pile on Sunday School, so I might make it a label as well as number this one.

Below is an image from a hand out given at church today, from no. 266 of Glimpses of Christian History, on Henrietta Mears. Below her '10  Commandments of Teaching (not a good start that she wants to bring the 10Cs, even by reference, into the Christian era).

Nonetheless lots of nice objectives and motivations here.

As I reflected on Sunday School, I recalled a friend of many decades ago (friend who went on to mission service in south Asia, full time local ministry and administration in Christian organisations) who impressed me when she mentioned that she'd taken her Sunday School class of young girls for a picnic to the park near her home. I'd not before come across a Sunday School teacher who shared their time with their class outside the class time thought it such a lovingly humble thing to do. I hope that kindness stayed in the girl's minds.