So far, the Weekday Children's Ministry Committee has conducted two conference calls and will soon be looking for regional contacts, says leader Nancy Carlson. The committee will be an affinity group of the Evangelical Covenant Church. Other affinity groups include Covenant clergy women, youth pastors, and different ethnic pastor groups.

The committee's vision statement states:

The Weekday Children's Ministry Committee envisions a support network that will help Covenant Churches establish new preschool and child care ministries and help to further equip existing ministries by making resources available through a variety of medium. The committee and other identified individuals gifted in children's ministry will serve as points of contact for individuals and churches that provide weekday ministries. The committee's ultimate vision is to help children and families grow deeper in Christ.

The idea for the committee was developed during a "round table" discussion at the 2004 Covenant Annual Meeting. Following that meeting and another in 2005, Carlson and Steve Burger, Covenant director of children's ministries, developed a three-pronged approach to meet the needs of people working in weekday ministries:

• Develop an advisory group.
• Develop a network using a database, website, newsletter, and occasional gatherings.
• Develop additional Christian Formation resources.

Carlson says the weekday ministries are important because the church has a biblical mandate to care for children, and studies show that reaching children with the Gospel at an early age is becoming increasingly important, she says. Just as churches increased their commitment to youth ministries, they now are having to do the same with children. "Children's ministry is taking on a similar importance to youth ministry," she explained.

Carlson points out that Christian pollster George Barna wrote in a 2003 study that "ministry to children is the single most strategic ministry in God's kingdom, with the greatest amount of impact."