Coolchurch Kids- Abundant Life Church

Parents, What Do You Think?

When you are attending a church and you have children involved in the children's ministries, how important is it for you to see a consistent person or people ministering to your child? (on a scale of 1-10, 1 being not that important and 10 being of the highest importance)

Similar question but putting yourself into your child or children's shoes, how important is it for them to see a consistent person or people ministering to them in children's ministries? (on a scale of 1-10, 1 being not that important and 10 being of the highest importance)

Please feel to comment and share your response to these questions. If your answers vary on the two scales I would love to hear your thoughts as to why.

Josh

Leading Your Child to Jesus

A couple of years ago I came across a book titled just that, “Leading Your Child to Jesus” by David Staal. This book was very beneficial in my life as a Dad and as a Pastor. I would definitely recommend the book to any parent. Reading the book caused me to wrestle with the following question.

Would I know what to say, if my child said “How can I be best friends with Jesus?”

What I discovered when I first asked that question is that my response was far more complicated than it needed to be.  What I really took away from reading that book was that I wanted to be ready to give an easy answer to my children when they asked, “How can I be best friends with Jesus?”

Can I share with you what my easy answer has been with my boys and what it will be with my daughter?

I share with them the ABC’s and then have them pray through the ABC’s:

A-     Admit your sin and ask for forgiveness (1 John 1:9, Romans 10:9)

B-      Believe in Jesus and that He died to save you from your sin (Acts 16:31, John 3:36)

C-      Choose to receive Jesus in your life and follow Him (John 1:12)

When God draws your child to Himself, be ready!

If you find this beneficial as a parent let me know or if you would like to share a story of how God used you to lead your child to Jesus, please comment.

Josh

Thinking Orange!

Parent Link will be an ongoing posting to link children's ministry and you the parent together. In March of 2006 God really shook up my idea and understanding of children's ministry in the church. I attended a conference with one purpose in mind, I wanted to hear the thoughts and ideas of a man named Reggie Joiner. Reggie had begun a ministry called the RethinkGroup. He really wanted to rethink how church was being done in regard to the family. Now please understand I have attended many conferences and what I learned very early on is that there will always be the next best thing, a program, a curriculum, an event. But this was not pushing any of those. Rather; it was Reggie putting a much needed emphasis upon the church and parents fusing together in order to be most effective at helping children and youth grow into fully devoted followers of Christ.

Imagine it this way: Let's think of representing church with the color Yellow and representing parents and the family with the color Red. Both parents and church can have a lasting impact on the spiritual growth of Children. If both can be effective in some regard individually, can you imagine how much more effective the two, yellow and red can be when they fuse together to make Orange? I believe God calls Parents in Deuteronomy 6 to be the Spiritual leader for their children and I believe God calls us as a church to minister to children and to help parents in their journey of Spiritual Leadership for their families.

All this to say, my desire as a ministry is to keep looking at and working on ways that we can partner with you the parent to help in growing your child as a follower of Christ. I look at this as an ongoing effort, there is no specific program or new thing. Just a heart to seek out how we can grow in this area here at Abundant Life. I would love to hear your thoughts and I will look forward to exploring Orange in future Parent Link postings.

Josh