He waka eke noa We are all in the waka together
Children’s Ministry in Aotearoa, New Zealand 2015
The children of Aotearoa, New Zealand, are our treasure, our taonga. We want to see them grow and flourish. To do this, we must work together: parents, children’s ministry leaders, church leaders and church members. He waka eke noa - we’re all in this together. As we work together, we will see our children grow into the people God longs for them to be: mature disciples living God-shaped lives, connected and contributing in their faith communities. Do you wonder how we are going with this responsibility? Scripture Union in New Zealand took a look to find out. This booklet contains the results of our Children’s Ministry Survey conducted in 2014, in which we investigated what is happening in children’s ministry across New Zealand. We gathered responses from a cross section of churches around the country, different regions, different sizes and different denominations. These next pages give you an overview of the survey. For more detail on each section please visit our website: www.sunz.org.nz or the Children and Families Blog – childrenandfamiliesnz@blogspot.co.nz
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Who did we talk to? Regions who responded: 26% Auckland 15% Wellington 11% Canterbury 10% Waikato 9%
Otago
6%
Bay of Plenty And the rest!
Northland, 21% from all the way to the deep south
Churches who responded: 17% of churches Baptist 16% Presbyterian 13% Anglican 9% Brethren And the other 45% are from a range of other churches: AOG,
ACTS, Salvation Army, Union Churches, Cooperating Parishes, Methodists, Catholics, Elim and many more. 3
What did we discover? We asked about three key areas in the survey:
1 Children and the Church: a typical Sunday church programme.
2
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Alternative and All Age programmes.
Community Ministry.
As you read, you may find yourself saddened by some of the statistics quoted. But you will also discover things to celebrate, fascinating developments and creative directions. Pray over these numbers as you read, for each statistic represents a child, young person or leader who is loved by God.
“
I love when the whole church can welcome children and their families with God’s love. It’s something I feel really passionate about.”
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How many children attend church on Sunday in NZ? 71% of churches have on average 22 children. While some churches have large numbers of children attending their church, most churches have less than 40 children. That’s the total number of children from zero to twelve years old. Around 13% of churches have between 41
and 60 children. On an encouraging note, around 14% of churches have over 60 children in their church. One point of concern is that 30% of churches have less than 10 or no children at all.
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What programmes run on Sundays? If you head along to a church on a Sunday this is what you will see: Preschool (0-5yrs)
9.5% of churches have more than 10 preschool children.
9.5% 60.2%
Primary (5-10)
36.2% of churches have more than 10 intermediate children.
36.2%
Intermediate (10-12) 0
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60.2% of churches have more than 10 primary aged children.
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60
80
100
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Currently we are functioning with all ages together as there are not enough leaders and space to provide separate programmes.�
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What do the leaders in our Sunday programmes look like? 53% of churches surveyed have 2 or less leaders in their primary aged (5-10yr) programmes on a Sunday. Over half of church primary programmes have small leadership teams. Only 5% of the church is actively involved in leadership of Sunday children’s programmes (0-12yrs). The low number of leaders influences the style of programmes we can run. Even though small groups and low leader/child ratios are important for building relationships, the shortage of leaders require churches to choose a different model.
23% of churches do not have small groups in their programmes.
“
We as a church have a teen group that we teach during the service which is really exciting. It has kept our teen numbers up instead of watching them fall away. Mainly due to an elderly couple that have been youth pastors and pastors over the years. They are challenged and supported and stretched and it has been exciting to watch them grow.”
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How multicultural are our programmes? Our children and our leaders are a multicultural bunch. The churches that responded to the survey listed their top three ethnic groups as NZ European, Maori and Pacific Island. This reflects the NZ Census statistics (2013). Children’s ministry in NZ is multicultural, with a wide range of ethnic diversity. This is reflected in the children who attend as well as the leadership teams. It’s encouraging to see that 77% of churches who responded had a balance of boys and girls in their programmes. Our leadership teams are beginning to reflect a wide range of ages (42% of churches). Some things don’t change though - 65% of churches still have mostly female teams. 8
What is happening in our Sunday programmes? 65% of churches have the children in the whole church service for more than 10 minutes. We think this is great. David Goodwin’s 2013 research suggests that children who attend all or part of the adult service on a regular basis are twice as likely to make a successful transition to adult church.1
33% of churches include children as active participants for the time they are in the service.
48.32% of churches have separate programmes for their 0-5, 5-10 and 10-12 year olds
48.32%
17.04% of churches have 0-12’s all in together
17.04%
19.83% of churches have 5-12’s together and the pre-schoolers separate.
6.70% 19.83% 6.70% of churches have the 0-10’s together and the intermediates separate. 1
David Goodwin, Lost in Transition – Or Not., 2013.
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We love having kids in the church family!” 9
What resources do we use? Children’s ministry workers are using a range of resources. Many create their own or source them from the internet. We are a creative bunch!
51% of churches create their own material. There are just about as many different resources being used as there are churches who participated in the survey! 63% are downloading resources from the internet.2 While this wide range of resources reflects our resourcefulness are there other reasons for this as well? Is it a cheaper option for churches with limited budgets? How is continuity or biblical integrity maintained?
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2 The other main resources in order are the Scripture Union LIGHT material, Orange, Jesus Storybook Bible curriculum and other material mostly from the USA.
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We believe
that the children should be with their parents in church to experience church as a whole family and for the parents to show and model living by faith through prayer and worship. These are two things that happen in our first 10 minutes of service.�
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Alternative & All-Age programmes What alternative programmes are churches running? We wanted to find out what churches were doing that didn’t fit into the traditional style of children’s ministry. What creative and different programmes or ideas are out there? We are interested in seeing if alternative programmes are a trend in the church, as we all look for ways to nurture the faith of our children.
66% of churches run an alternative service, either regularly or occasionally. This is a very high number. This includes a range of services: all age, mainly music services, Messy Church services and a whole host more creative ideas. 48% of these services are running midweek and in the evenings.
Who attends these services? What stands out is that these alternative services include a different group of people to those present during a more traditional Sunday service. 33% of all who attend are children and they are more ethnically diverse than those in traditional services.3 While the leadership teams are predominantly NZ European, these services are welcoming a range of people in the community. 12
3
This is in comparison with 10% in a Sunday service.
s
We asked those churches who run alternative services what their core values are. These were the top five:
1
ALL AGES PARTICIPATING
2
The service needs to be active and creative
3 4 5
All are welcome and included IT’S ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS The Bible is at the centre of our programme
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[I realise] that the measure of success some believe is attending Sunday Services but I see the deepening of relationships and faith building that happens in groups midweek as they become a community of faith and church for those families and children. The Messy Church style models hospitality and is a key way forward for our community. I see that Sunday Services with all age components done well would also revive our services.”
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All Age Services These are defined as services where all ages are actively involved in the worship.
Over 50% of churches are running between 2 and 4 all age services a year. A further 30% have ‘all age’ components to each service.
60.87% 60.87% Reading Leading a 54.55% from the part of the
Hands-on 47.83% 49.01% activities 43.48% 43.87% Hear the Sharing
39.92% Writing or Involved in ideas of
thoughts music others of and ideas Praying for drawing theteam different 30.83% others their ideas, 28.46% Given times ages prayers or Small group of silence questions 20.55% discussions to think Other and pray
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Bible
service
7%
ga the e
61% of All Age programmes give children leadership responsibilities.
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The Church leadership has made an effort to ensure the regular service is all age friendly so all can be a part of the church family. We feel it is important that the children’s ministry is not separate from the church as our children are a part of the church.”
“
In a church of older folk, there can be a resistance to having children in as part of the service. We were surprised to discover that not everyone wants growth that way…”
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Community programmes 14.1% of churches who responded to the survey are not involved in community programmes. This means they have no primary, preschool or intermediate community ministries. That’s more than 1 in 10 churches.
“
We need to be better at being ‘out there’ instead of being ‘insiders’.”
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The growth is in preschool ministries 67% of churches run a preschool community ministry. The healthiest statistics are to be found in the preschool community ministries of the church, which includes mainly music programmes. These groups have on average 39 children. This is a greater number than in the preschool programmes churches run on Sundays, which have 10 children or less.
“
I run a…preschool morning programme…and I love it how this is helping [us] really connect with parents and children in our community. We have between 50 and 60 come each week and we are able to really see the needs of the families involved and then help and support them in those needs. We absolutely love it and have grown to really love the children and their parents. We do crafts, music time, morning tea and have a room full of fun activities for the children to do. We love it!!”
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Over 20 000 children (0-12yrs) are involved in the churches community ministries.6 A further 40 000 children have attended one-off events run by the church.7 When only one third of churches surveyed are running one-off events this means that a small number of churches are interacting with a large number of children, an average of 100 children per church. How are we providing support around these events to develop relationships that translate into other community ministries or into the life of the church?
23% 22% 13% 11% 8% 18
of churches are running holiday programmes of churches run an established programme8
of churches are involved in camping
of churches are running afterschool programmes
of churches are running programmes specifically for intermediates
40% of churches are involved in their local primary school. Churches are involved in their primary schools in a range of ways, but the predominant ministry remains CEC teachers in classrooms.
6 Excluding One-Off events. 7 E.g. LIGHT parties, holiday programmes. This number may include an overlap with the other community ministries of the church. I.e., a child may be involved in an afterschool club and attend the LIGHT party. 8 E.g. Girls and Boys Rally, Girls and Boys Brigade, ICONZ
h. I.e.,
What is the cross-over between community programmes and church? 34% of churches responded that no children have joined the church as a result of their community programmes. We asked this question knowing that it would be problematic to answer for a host of reasons. It’s not something that we usually count, it’s hard to measure, and children come and go. However, the responses give an indication of what is going on and how much church growth can be attributed to relationships with people in the community. The majority of churches had less than five children join the church in a year.
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20-30 children transition from community programmes to Sunday services, but they leave after several years. Very transient community - poor, gangs, incest, rape, partners, fathers, brothers in prison - so children moved and shifted all time.” I felt excited about the number of children we are reaching in the community ‘in their world’ but have also felt challenged about somehow building a stronger bridge between those connections and the Church.” 19
Who are the leaders in our community programmes? 6% of the church is involved in leadership in community children’s ministry.9 That includes everyone from 0 to 12 year olds. It stretches from mainly music teams to LIGHT parties, holiday programmes, CEC teams and mentoring. When you consider the range of activities and the range of ages this covers, then this is a low percentage of leaders.
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This is on average 13 leaders per church.
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What resources do we use? Over 50% of churches are creating their own community programme material. The other two notable resources are:
42%
of churches are using mainly music material.
27%
27% of churches noted that they use CEC material.
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Extra Extra Extra We asked churches these optional questions:
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1
Training
2
Staffing
3
Budget
4
How well they felt supported
Training 11% of churches provide no training for their workers That’s worrying. 1 in 10 leaders receive no ongoing training to work with children in our church or community programmes.
67% 33%
through denominational training and support
43% 25% 0
of churches provide on the job training for their workers
Scripture Union’s WAY2GO training
Churches Education Commission training
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
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I have just been on a Children’s Ministry block course… and have many plans to implement more spiritual formation into our children’s programmes and more involvement of children in church services and more all-age services and worship and more training for our leaders.”
Most churches consider these training topics as of greatest value to their teams in 2014: Faith development of children
Families and faith
Building relationships
Prayer with children 23
Staffing 45% of churches have no paid children’s ministry staff. Of those who have paid children’s ministry staff, 77% are part time.
Budget 41% of churches have between $100 – 1000 to spend annually.
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We run on the smell of an oily rag - people are so good at donating their time, food, equipment and prayers!”
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Support and encouragement 81% of survey respondents feel supported or very supported by their churches! Isn’t that great to read!!! Unfortunately, 15% feel only occasionally supported.
“ “ “
Our church leadership are fantastic and very supportive to grow and equip this ministry.”
“
I have been in children’s ministry for over ten years and a few different denominations, I feel children’s ministry is still under-supported in our churches and New Zealand has gone backwards in the past ten years in this area.”
Supported well in theory but still VERY hard to find people from the congregation to work in this area.”
The leadership support children’s ministries but the wider church is apathetic.”
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We have to ask for the support, but generally when we do ask they will help us out.” 25
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… I feel excited when the church understands the importance of kids’ work and that the kids who are unchurched may not always behave well, that the parents might even be enjoying the free babysitting but this is really important outreach and that the whole church needs to be welcoming them instead of wishing that they would sit still and be quiet. That we would rejoice together that these people are getting to hear the good news and that God is happy when we share his love with them. ”
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What has changed? This survey has given us a clearer picture of what is happening in children’s ministry today. We can see that there is much to be celebrated, with children and young people growing in faith. Look at the encouraging numbers involved in preschool ministries or one-off events in the community. There are areas of concern too, with small leadership teams and churches that have no children. The aim is to collect this information every two years, to enable us to see trends developing. This will let us know if numbers are increasing or decreasing, what changes are happening in the way we run programmes and the resources we use. We look forward to sharing these findings with you. 1991 was the last time comprehensive research was conducted into the place of the child in New Zealand Churches.10 In comparing our findings to those of the 1991 survey, here are some of the key observations:11 There has been a shift away from Sunday Schools operating before or after church. In 1978 the majority of Sunday Schools worked this way. This dropped to 15% by 1991, and then to 2% in 2014.12 10 The research was entitled ‘What’s Happening with the Children? A nationwide stocktake of the Church’s ministry to children in 1991,’ carried out by the Congress on Children and Families 11 It has not been possible to compare the two research projects directly. The way the data has been gathered differs. For example, the numbers of children in Sunday School in 1991 was collected as an average, in 2014 we asked for the total number in regular attendance. 12 Children are also less likely to go directly to their age-specific programmes without first being a part of the whole church service, a decrease from 9% in 1991 to 6% in 2014.
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In 1991 only 5% of churches were writing their own material. Compare this to 2014 where 51% are creating their own material from a range of sources. This reflects the availability of a range of material as well as the internet as a source of free or low cost material. All Age services, or services where children are active participants, are on the increase. In 1991, 16% of churches had no ‘all age’ activities at all. This has dropped to only 3% in 2014. There is a far greater range of styles of worship and alternative services such as Messy Church and services run at days and times other than Sunday morning. When we look at the shape of community ministry in 2014, the most obvious change is in the area of preschool ministry. Only 4% of churches ran preschool programmes in 1991. That’s a huge jump to 2014 where over 67% of churches are running preschool programmes. According to the 1991 research nearly half the churches surveyed were not involved in any form of outreach ministry other than Sunday morning (44%).13 The 2014 research notes that only 14% of churches are not involved in community ministry of any kind. This number may be strengthened by the inclusion of preschool community ministries, Bible in Schools and the number of churches running one-off events.14
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This is surprising, but it is not clear if these statistics included CEC teachers or preschool ministry. Light parties, holiday programmes.
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Statistics only give us half the picture. They tell us facts and figures and generalities. This survey represents over 87 000 children.15 But each number represents a real life. That’s a significant number of children who have contact with or are involved in a local church. This is exciting, and is something to be celebrated. Each one of these children is made in the image of God. God desires to be a part of each child’s life.
He waka eke noa – we are all in this together, so let’s work together
to we see our children grow into the people God longs for them to be: mature disciples living God-shaped lives, connected and contributing in their faith communities. Would you consider taking the findings of this survey and sharing them with your wider church and community? Use the summary on the following page as points for discussion and prayer. How is your church doing? What areas do you see of concern or celebration? Join together with other churches in your area and create space for conversation to happen around the children you know in your church and local community. And most of all, let’s be praying for our children. Let’s pray that the words God spoke in the time of Isaiah will become true for our children. I will pour out water on the thirsty land. I will make streams flow on the dry ground. I will pour out my Spirit on your children. I will pour out my blessing on their children after them. Isaiah 44:3 (NIRV) This is the total number of children. This figure includes potential overlap between ministries; church programmes, community programmes and one-off events, with children being counted in more than one activity. 15
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Summary of Main Points This is a summary of the booklet. If you want one page to show to the wider church, this is it. Put these points in your church newsletter or on your bulletin board. Get the message out there. • • • • • • • • • • • • •
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• • • • • •
Most churches have 30 children in their programmes (0-12years). 53% of churches surveyed had 2 or less leaders in their primary aged (5-110yr) programmes on a Sunday. Our children and our leaders are a multicultural bunch! 33% of churches include children as active participants for the time they are in the service. 51% of churches are creating their own Sunday material. 66% of churches run an alternative service, either regularly or occasionally. Over 50% of churches are running between 2-4 All Age services a year. 61% of All Age programmes give children leadership responsibilities. 14.1% of churches who responded to the survey are not involved in community programmes. 67% of churches run a preschool community ministry. 40% of churches are involved in their local primary school. Over 40 000 children have attended one-off events run by the church. 34% of churches responded that no children have joined the church as a result of their community programmes. 6% of the church is involved in leadership in community children’s ministry. Over 50% of churches are creating their own community programme material. 11% of churches provide no training for their workers 45% of churches have no paid children’s ministry staff. 41% of churches have between $100 – 1000 budget for a year. 81% of survey respondents feel supported or very supported by their churches!
Thank you to everyone who participated in this survey. We value the time it took, and the gathering of information required. We will be repeating this survey every two years in order to track what is happening in our churches. Please spread the word so that we can get more churches involved.
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He waka eke noa We are all in the waka together
Scripture Union wants to help you and your church to create opportunities for children and young people to discover and follow Jesus, grow as leaders, and influence the world. Contact us and let us know what you need.
Scripture Union in NZ – PO Box 760, Wellington 6140 – way2go@sunz.org.nz – 0508 423 836 – www.sunz.org.nz
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