Creating Pathways
Empty Tomb, Transitioning Volunteers, Building Policies, and Awkward Dancing
*Quick Editor’s Note*
I’m planning to move the newsletter to Wednesday mornings rather than late Friday afternoons. It makes workflow stuff better for my week, and hopefully it’ll give you a better chance to get it in front of your faces instead of it lingering in your inbox through busy weekends. Let me know if you love of hate the change. On to the good stuff!
Welcome back friends!
I survived our quick trip to California. San Diego is quite a city to explore, and a guy from the bluegrass could really get used to the constantly sunny, seventy degree weather that makes that exploration a treat instead of a chore. Great food, nice folks, beautiful beaches, fragrant wildflowers, and a long list of sights, sounds, and smells to check out. Flying back in to forty degree temps in Nashville at 1:30am was a rude awakening, but we rallied and made it through a short week as the kids start spring break here.
We also snuck off to Joshua Tree for a couple days after Annie’s conference wrapped, and had a blast hiking. The most enjoyable trails we found allowed us to sort of choose our own adventure to get to the rocks we wanted to climb. While there was a path to get to the main overlook, there was plenty of space to freestyle and blaze your own path to experience whatever bouldering adventure you wanted to take on.
Conveniently, our chapter in How to Teach Kids Theology is also about imagining, building, and walking pathways of ministry. Luce and Williams use this chapter to start putting the pieces from the previous chapters together in order to help you build a vision (why?), mission (what?), and philosophy (how?) for your particular ministry.
This isn’t one size fits all stuff, and they take the time and space to help you consider how to piece each of these areas together for your own particular context. While they offer plenty of examples of vision, mission, and philosophy, they also offer questions for you (and your team) to reflect on as you consider how to shape each area toward your own unique goals. Their explanations are precise without being overbearing, and they unpack it all with images that are helpful whether this is your first crack at creating this content of you’re refining a decades old philosophy of ministry for the umpteenth time.
So now that you have all that settled, how can you put it all into practice in a way that helps your kids grow into the young adults you long for them to become before leaving your ministry? They argue, based on their reflections on several biblical texts (Ps. 78, Ps. 145, Joshua 4, I Samuel 7, etc.), that declaration and retention of who God is and what he’s done is integral to forming kids who will grow to love, follow, and serve Jesus.
How then should we do the work of declaration and retention with kids? Surely we need a brand new model with the latest and greatest technology and cutting edge curriculum? While they point out that there’s certainly room for all sorts of curriculum, entertainment, fun-finding, and music, they tend to rely on the what they call “tried and true pathways” of building faithful followers of Jesus in their kids ministries. This longer section is EXTREMELY practical as they walk through scripture memory, creeds, catechisms, and hymns. As they dive into each for a page or two, they give a boatload of helpful examples of each—historic and modern creeds to consider, podcast episodes to plow through, and hymn repositories to explore. There’s an abundance of material here for you to put to use for your kids and families.
Finally, they call for a way to put this plan together and then evaluate it. Essentially, you’re mentally building a picture of what you want kids to look life when they leave your ministry. Think less hair styles and clothing choice, and more theological understanding, biblical literacy, faithful discipleship. Once you have this image in mind, start working backwards. What steps and checkpoints do you need to have in place in order to make that vision a reality for kids leaving your ministry? Then, on the other side, how can you evaluate how you’re doing in creating these Jesus-loving, gospel-fueled disciples? The clearest vision and sharpest pathways don’t matter if they’re not leading kids to trust their lives and hearts to Jesus.
This is an extremely well executed chapter that any kids pastor of ministry leader would be wise to put into practice. Whether it sparks big changes in what you’re doing, or simply confirms the vision, mission, and philosophy you already had in place, this is a valuable tool to have in your toolbelt. This could be especially helpful in working through these topics with a deacon/leadership team in your ministry setting to get everyone on the same page and brainstorm about where your ministry is going (or failing to get to). This book continues to be a great investment of time for ministry leaders across the board. One chapter left. See you next week!
Empty Tomb (Kids Ministry, Discipleship)
“Whether you’re a relatively new believer or a longtime follower of Jesus, we should never lose sight of the unending spiritual blessings that are ours through the resurrection. Jesus’s empty tomb is the greatest empty in the history of emptiness!” Our pal, Joshua Cooley, is on the blog this week highlighting why an empty tomb is good news. He’s promoting his new kids book, EMPTY!, that’s out just in time for Easter. While empty can be a bad thing (think Oreo packages or toilet paper rolls), empty can also be a good thing (think dishwashers or trash cans). Josh reminds us that the best empty, is the tomb after Jesus’s resurrection. The value of Christ’s resurrection to the believer is invaluable, and Josh gives us five reasons why that empty tomb is a big deal. Check it out!
Transitioning Volunteers (Kids/Student Ministry)
“The lovable goofball turns out to be a stellar leader. The steady personality ends up taking you on a roller coaster ride. The brand-new bought-in volunteer flakes out three weeks into serving. So what happens when the predictable situation happens at an unpredictable moment? What do you do when a volunteer simply stops showing up to serve?” We talk a lot about how to build and strengthen teams, but sometimes part of keeping a team healthy is trimming back some of the dying branches. One of our faves, Danny Franks, writes about how to make this transition without blowing up relationships. There’s plenty of ways to care for folks who may need to hit eject on their volunteer role, and Danny gives a helpful series of questions and actions to consider as you start the process of asking folks to step away from ministry for one reason or another. File this away for a training down the road, or keep it handy as you consider your roster and who might be a better fit somewhere else in the church.
Building Policies (Kids/Student Ministry)
“Safeguarding children and teenagers in the church begins at the policy level. As church leaders, this is our first step toward shaping a culture of physical, emotional, and spiritual safety in our communities. Following are some steps you can take to create and implement a child protection policy for your church.” It’s been awhile since we’ve shared anything in this lane of ministry, but it’s a valuable resource and child protection policies should be on the radar of any ministry leader. Chelsea Kingston Erickson has put together a lengthy explanation of the value of these policies, as well as a host of things to consider as you’re either putting these policies together or evaluating what your church already has in place. Rooted (where this piece is published) also has a free worksheet (does require your name and email to get it) that helps you work through this process as well. Having solid polices in place is a gift to the kids, parents, and volunteers in your church, and helps ensure that they’re safe and cared for while they’re there.
Awkward Dancing
There’s nothing like walking into a student event early when the hype music is playing. Either parents are standing around awkwardly as students are vibing to their Gen-Z anthems, or students are clowning their parents as they bop along to an old favorite someone snuck into the playlist. Either way, it’s a joy to behold!