Children's ministry in congregation


Recently, Jason was asked to join the children's ministry team in our local congregation. Specifically, they asked if he would lead the team in the areas of theological and pedagogical oversight. All of this came about after Jason spoke with some of the leadership about the need to prioritize children's ministry. There is a difference between indoctrination and education and often times, the children's ministry in the local congregations become more of a baby sitting service than a real educational system. The leadership team agreed wholeheartedly with this approach and it wasn't a new idea for them, they simply lacked the manpower to take their program to the next level.

The congregation is blessed with plenty of children and lots of potential teachers. In fact, there are almost too many people wanting to be involved!  The first order of business was to find good curriculum. Jason, went to a special conference and was able to collect a lot of information about potential Hebrew language children's materials. Although there are only a few organizations in Israel that produce children's curriculum for congregations, Jason was able to find some suitable materials.  

Specifically, we were looking for materials that are Gospel centered and not simply indoctrinating the children into christian behavior or simply teaching Bible stories. We found some great materials and  have already started using one source while in the process of ordering a second source for the congregation. 

Next is the process of reorganizing a teaching schedule in a way that best suits the children and maximizes the learning potential for them. In looking at the initial schedule, we discovered that we simply have too many teachers! This is a great problem! So, now we are working on ways include more teachers and balance that with familiar faces for the kids. The basically means bringing in two teachers at the same time. The backup teacher after a week or two, will become the main teacher.

All of these changes are exciting, especially since many of the kids come from families that are either new believers or new immigrants. So, although we have some major challenges (Like language), we also have a lot more resources available to us to overcome these challenges.  It's exciting to see what God is going to do, now that we have made an intentional effort to make every lesson Gospel-Centeric. 

Please pray for this endeavor as our heartfelt prayer is for every child that comes from a Messianic home to make a personal commitment to follow Yeshua (Jesus).

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