I learned a lot from listening to Jan Workman talk about her ministry and how she disciples and evangelizes through children's ministry. See one thing that i didn't realize is that a lot of times when we are teaching kids from ages of Kindergarden through the ages of 20-25 its that church kids are sometimes the ones even kids that don't go to church aren't always retaining what we teach to them. When we teach on Sanctification, Baptism, and different things that are harder to understand we need to make sure that our students are able to retain what we teach them. If the students are able to retain what you are teaching them then you know that they are learning it. I want to be able to work on that myself personally that as i work with the kids they would understand what we are teaching them. Discipling them is very important but we are just helping to disciple them along side of the parents. You know when someone is getting it when you start seeing suttle changes like the changes in behavior, attitude, and when they start inviting their friends.
Another thing that we need to be aware of is that we have to look at transitions for kids. As a leader we need to be aware of how the kids feel when it also comes to going to a new class or a new age group. It can be intimidating and i know when i was younger and i transitioned to Youth Group. It was intimidating because i didn't really know anybody, there were people who were older than me and i was scared. Now the way that Jan Workman and the ministry works over at CLA in Camp Hill, it's worked out in a way that kids don't feel so intimidated and that the kids have the option of switching back and forth to kids ministry and to the middle school group until they feel comfortable but also sometimes they need to have that push. Sometimes that push helps but you also have to watch how the kids feel too.
I learned a lot today about how you are able to disciple and evangelize to people or kids in Jan's case. I also learned that when you may not have a certain gifting an area that's not your strong point, look for someone in the church who is interested in ministry and it may end up being that that person just may have the gifting. You could even pray that God would give you the gifting that you need in order to fulfill what you need to have fulfilled. Jan also said how with having her A/G Certification, it has opened many doors for her in the ministry. I am looking forward to working very hard in my classes so that i may get my A/G Certification and see where God opens doors for me in the ministry of missions!
Kriston, your posts are always so thought out! That's how I know it's a great post to read. Thanks for sharing!! :)
ReplyDeleteI thought that point Jan made about involving parents was so important... "thinking orange" she called it. :)
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking a little about how we can do this with Master's... interesting thought. I love parents being deeply involved in their child's discipleship process... even when the "kid" is 20 (like me). :)