Online Online Discipleship Discipleship Material Material for for Children Children
Faith, Hope and Love This resource has been created to support children’s discipleship in response to this time of social distancing. It is designed for children’s ministry leaders working with groups of children via video calling platforms but could be adapted for use in the home as a family. It is aimed for children aged 7-12 years. Many children thrive on the social interaction that will be missing as this time. This ministry provides an opportunity to enable children to interact and grow in a different way, and to still have some fun together! The theme for the material for the next three months is built upon 1 Corinthians 13:13, ‘And now these three remain: faith, hope and love’, and the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. Faith, hope and love are gifts from God. The Bible teaches that all three should affect the way we live. Faith is powerful; it motivates us to keep going when everything else tells us to give up and, without faith, we cannot know God. Hope is confidence in God, knowing he has a plan for our lives even in the most difficult of circumstances and encouraging us to keep moving forward. Love is the foundation for everything. God is love and when we love God it affects how we treat and behave towards others. The impact of Covid-19 has been felt globally by adults and children across the world. The pandemic is a new and uncertain time for everyone and will impact us individually in different ways. The rules of social distancing and isolation, along with the closure of schools, inability to attend clubs and groups, and not being able to see and have physical contact with close family and friends, has turned our young people’s lives upside down. More than
ever, Jesus can provide hope for the future. In Jesus we see a way of living a life of love to bring about peace and community among all people. We have provided 13 sessions, and each session is designed to last approximately 30 to 40 minutes, thereby making it usable with a free Zoom account. (This material could also be used with other video calling platforms.) The Salvation Army have produced guides on how to use Zoom, along with safeguarding guidance and a parent permission letter for running a session online. These are available via our Dropbox folder or via Our Hub for those with a Salvation Army login. Please read and ensure you follow the necessary requirements. Dropbox folder: https://www.dropbox. com/sh/yz93leu4070v4nr/AACQl1OljqqtHhkLNJJxIlka?dl=0 All online meetings should be password protected so you will need to contact your group in advance with the meeting times and ID & passwords (see the Zoom guide for how to do this). If you, or the families you are working with, haven’t used Zoom before it would be a good idea to have a practise get together so you can work out the technology and familiarise the children/parents with the format. It is possible that parents may want to join in with your sessions. You will need to make a decision on this for your setting, but we would encourage parents to be involved in their children’s faith journey as much as possible and join-in with your group up to a point which doesn’t stop children from being the focus.