CHURCH AS A MODEL FOR FAMILY

CHURCH

AS A MODEL

FOR FAMILY BY ANDREW RAMSBOTTOM Children and Families Consultant, SUNZ — TOGETHER IS BEST

Imagine if, for the first 12 years of your life, you were sent out of the dining room to another room to be fed by people who were not your family and eat food that had been prepared differently from your parents’ food. We don’t do this in our own families so let’s stop doing it in the church. ‘But how?’ you may ask… Start by rekindling intergenerational connections.

Reframe your planning mind-set Change the way you think as you plan an activity or gathering for multiple generations. Too often we acknowledge we have children and/or youth present and ask ourselves ‘what can we do for them?’

Instead, when we have multiple generations together we should ask: ‘what can we do that will help them all to connect with each other?’ Four activities that will facilitate connecting with very little work are food, music/song, story and questions.

Raise the expectations of all the generations Most churches have children in the service for some of the time, but very few churches have the children in for the message/sermon. This is partly because of our lowered expectation of children. However, children can participate for

longer than we adults might think. And adults are able to accept children and young people in their midst. However, some training and guidance may be required to achieve this. If we expect greater things of the children, then we should provide them with some tools to help them engage. The key tools here are story and questions. Instead of the sermon just being one person speaking, perhaps you could play a short video and then have people in the congregation answer some questions. Or you could pose a few questions at the beginning of the message and allow some time at the end for people to share answers from the message. We also need to revisit church history and tradition—to remind those who have been part of the faith community for a long time of why we do what we do and to help those who are younger or new to the faith to begin to understand this.

Intergen camps Camps are one of the best places to model church as a family. Instead of inviting an adult speaker and having separate youth and children’s programmes, do all the camp activities with all the generations together. Explore the Bible and the stories of God in it in creative ways with all generations. Camp is also a perfect opportunity for the personal faith stories of both young and

old to be shared with each other. A SUNZ staff worker could help you to plan camp and even come along to camp to facilitate things.

Intergen homegroups Small groups are another excellent place for building connections between the generations. The FAITH5 TM 1 steps make a good base for intergen homegroups. The FAITH5 TM website includes short videos explaining each of the steps. Here is how it might work in an intergen homegroup:

SHARE. Everybody tells a high and a low from their day or week or month. This may take quite a long time, so you may want to break into two smaller groups and then ask one person from each group to share a high back to everyone. READ. Here I would suggest using various methods. Read the Bible in an interactive way, get someone to tell the story by dressing up as a character, use pictures of the story (free from www.unfoldingword.org/sweet-publishing/) or show a good video of the story. I would always have a Bible timeline around and show where the story is found in a full Bible. TALK. Spend some time talking about the Bible passage and highs (and lows). Using ‘I wonder’ questions is really good.

IF WE EXPECT GREATER THINGS OF THE CHILDREN, THEN WE SHOULD PROVIDE THEM WITH SOME TOOLS TO HELP THEM ENGAGE. "

You may want to have a meal here, or you could have it at the beginning if you have under-fives. PRAY, keeping in mind the highs and lows, the Bible passage and the discussion/sharing.

BLESS. Each person (no matter what age) prays a blessing on one other person. So each person gets to pray a blessing and each person receives a blessing. The blessing could be as simple as, ‘Dear Lord, please bless Andrew’. Or it could be more detailed.

FAITH5 TM

is very easy to use and could also be used between homegroup gatherings in each household.

The church is a model for family life. Together is best for family. Together is best for church.