Idea Exchange
We welcome your ideas and questions. We want to enable you to share with each other as well. By providing this IDEA EXCHANGE our hope is that you will be able to not only partner with us, but with others involved in your ministry.
Directions: To respond to one of the ideas or questions below, or to share an idea or question of your own, please click here. Please choose "response to idea/question" from the pull down menu. When we receive your idea or question we will put it on this page for others to see.
IDEAS & QUESTIONS
March, 2004
NEW! IDEA - Ever thought of a ministry swap meet or time bank amongst area churches?
Here's how it could work. Each church pledges that they will give some number of hours each year to the bank. Let's say your church is great at children's ministry but visitation and working with the aging is a area where you are weak. You could put 15 hours of children's ministry into the bank and then if another church had put in 15 hours of adult ministry into the bank you would withdraw that time and use it.
How would that time be used? It could be having someone from another church who is an expert on aging and health lead a 5 week Sunday school series. Then another church in the area may use their time for your children's pastor to lead their VBS in the summer. Or even better - a couple churches will "cash in" their time for having your children's pastor lead VBS for all the churches in the area. Then you would "cash in" your time for a third church to run a youth retreat. Make sense?
It's sort of like a swap meet except you would get a group of churches into the bank and each would give a certain amount of time. Maybe it could also work out so that as a group they could use their time to gain a special speaker from Christian Formation in return for being a "test church" for new curriculum or something.
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February, 2004
Children, Family and Adult Ministry Connection:
The following ideas were shared at the lunch forums held at the 2004 Midwinter conference in Chicago for those in your churches who work with children, families, and adults. We promised to put them up on this page for you.
How does your church do Multi-Generational Ministry?
1) Our youth group intentionally takes on GROW activities that include or minister to people of different ages. For instance, for Obedient Living they might go and paint the house of someone in the congregation who is more elderly.
2) Multi-generational mission trip to South Central L.A.
3) Traditional Easter and Christmas programs are intergenerational.
4) We have multi-generational small groups that create worship services together based on one word. (i.e. Light, Love, World)
5) Bike trips
6) Take the worship service to the home of a shut-in and then do a work project together in that home.
7) We have a big brother/big sister program that matches adults with youth and we start with the unchurched youth.
8) We have youth coaches and at least one of them is 65 years or older. They are fully involved in the program.
9) Our church has multi-generational Sunday school on holiday weekends like Labor Day and Memorial Day. We generally have a smaller congregation on those days and it works out well to come together.
10) We have an all-church family camp.
These are just a smattering of ideas for multi-generational ministry. Read a recent news article on our denominational website about another way a church is doing Multi-generational ministry using the Alpha Materials
Share your ideas! RESPOND
Multi-cultural and Ethnic Awareness - Comments shared from the multi-ethnic panel
1) God has worked in my heart regarding a need that I did not even know existed. It starts with intentional relationships. Our time spent together is a glimpse of heaven.
2) You can't change the world but you can change you. Racial Righteousness will only happen if it's intentional.
3) Ethnic awareness for me came by force - I didn't choose it but once God put me in a situation where I had to face it I had to acclimate. I'm from a Latin American country and the last place I wanted to come and live was the U.S. I didn't choose to work in a mostly Anglo environment but it was the will of God.
4) We have to be willing to pay the price to do what's right. We need to own institutional as well as individual sin.
5) We have to expand the boundaries of our hearts first.
Read an article on the Covenant website about how a Minnesota Covenant church is responding to its changing demographic and learning to blend cultures
Read another article about a new Covenant church plant in South Central L.A. that is responding to the needs of its ethnically diverse neighborhood
Please share what your churches are learning in the area of multi-cultural and ethnic awareness. RESPOND
Christian Formation in the Local Church
1) Example of Obedient Living - The churches of our area host outreach meals every Sunday afternoon - we take one Sunday a month. It is a multi-generational event for the whole community. We pass around a clipboard telling what the menu is and asking for volunteers to bring food or come to set up tables and chairs. Anyone is welcome to the meal - displaced persons, college students, anyone. Some come because they have spiritual needs and are seeking for them to be met. There is a short informal presentation of the gospel.
2) Christian Formation happens in our life together so there is an emphasis on bringing the children and youth into the life of the church as a whole.
3) We intentionally create gift-based ministry rather than age-based ministry.
Q: How do you get into the homes in order to have parental involvement with the children and youth ministries?
A: Our church has a "curriculum night" from 12-1 on a Sunday afternoon. We talk about what's going to happen that year and how parents can be involved. It's mostly about communication.
A: We are interested in hearing stories of how homes are changing - what has changed in a year? This is demonstrated in lifestyle, attitude and response.
A: Create special activities that bring homes to a place other than the church.
A: Offer parenting workshops and seminars. Offer to train parents as spiritual mentors - bring them together and give them training tools. Also give them a place to dialog with one another and learn from each other.
A: We are stressing the importance of parents being the church in their home. We equip them with the skills to do that. A wonderful book to read on the subject is "Family - the Forming Center" by Marjorie Thompson.
Q: Since Christian Formation is difficult to "evaluate" how do we tell if we're doing the job?
A: Stories - changes of behavior with kids.
A: We are planting seeds - they take awhile to grow. But we've found that learning happens on both ends - God speaks powerfully through children and families have changed through children growing spiritually. They can change the home environment.
Read about how the members of a Boston Covenant Church dedicated themselves anew to a life of spiritual growth during last fall's Christian Formation emphasis
Please share how your church is growing in the area of Christian Formation. RESPOND
Have questions about CF? RESPOND
Some of you who attended the Youth Worker Connection or Midwinter asked where we got our display banners made. Group Imaging is the name of the company. Their website is www.groupimaging.com and their toll free number is 1.800.556.7222.
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Recent www.covchurch.org Articles You Should Read: Some of the following links are to articles published on the Covenant Church website that highlight different ways churches are growing in Christian Formation. Some of the articles are recaps of messages of some of the Midwinter Conference speakers that are pertinent to Christian Formation.
General Christian Formation:
McLaren: 'It's Not All About You'
God's Word:
Relationships:
Nebraska Church Teens Highlight Newsletter Update ; The Call to Discipleship: We Need Border-Crossers ; Minnesota Church Seeks to Blend Cultures ; Kids Ask Seniors: What Was It Like? ; Covenant Women Ministries Sankofa Trip Called A Powerful Experience ;
Obedient Living:
Los Angeles Church to Hold Preview Service ; Minnesota Church Seeks to Blend Cultures ; The Call to Discipleship: We Need Border-Crossers ; A Twist: Church Gives Parishioners the Money ; Pastors Challenged With Call to Discipleship ; Oakdale, North Park Pursuing Cross-Cultural Partnership ; Kingdom Assignment Makes Difference for One Church ; What Kind of Difference Can $100 Make? ; Oakland (NE) Food Bank a Growing Success Story ; Covenant Women Ministries Sankofa Trip Called A Powerful Experience
Worship:
Pastors Challenged With Call to Discipleship
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HELPFUL LINKS
The North Park Seminary Professors have listed their picks for the best websites for their disciplines on the following page of the North Park Theological Seminary website. You can find links for everything from discernment to pastoral care to congregational and leadership resources. You'll need to scroll down a little ways on the page to find these. Click Here!
The views and ideas expressed in the Idea Exchange do not necessarily reflect the views and positions taken by the Evangelical Covenant Church.