Children’s ministry volunteers from Emmett Street Community Church, Halswell Community Church and Rutland Street Church in Christchurch gathered in early March for a workshop run by Julie McKinnon (CCCNZ Children and Family Ministries Enabler), that explored how our understanding of children shapes our ministry practice.
Emmett Street Community Church pastor Andre Posthuma shares:
“We really valued this training as it helped our team get back to the basics. We were reminded of the goodness of the gospel, and encouraged as we considered what it could look like to create space for kids to meet Jesus and grow as disciples.
“The workshop was both thoroughly grounded in the gospel and thoroughly practical—as we worked through the implications of the good news as applied to a kids ministry context.
“It was helpful to think through why we do kids ministry and to involve people who support the core leaders of the kids ministry at ESCC. It was great to include elders in the training, as well as others who might not be directly teaching but are part of helping each week.
“We’d absolutely recommend this kind of training to others, what a great opportunity to invest in strengthening a kids ministry team. It was so cool to see people planning and thinking through how we can implement these things together in our church life.”
A similar training was held last weekend at Heretaunga Community Church in Upper Hutt.
Service Leader and Operations Leader, Stephen Shirley says:
“Our church, along with Onslow Community Church and The Anchor Church were treated to a wonderful workshop about engaging the hearts and minds of our children in discipleship…
“Along with the spiritual challenges we were given, there was also plenty of practical aspects to consider ensuring our children are being nurtured as best as possible.”
It was great to see groups of leaders from churches at both events engaging with the workshop content and discussing what it could look like in their own context.
Julie shared how encouraged she was to see a range of ages represented among the volunteers, from younger to older, showing how important intergenerational discipleship is.
Julie is keen to be talking to churches who want to work together over a Saturday to grow their children and family ministries’ volunteers. If you’d like to invite Julie to run a workshop in your region, please don’t hesitate to contact her at juliemckinnon@cccnz.nz.
