I hope this email finds you well. It hardly seems five
minutes ago that I was sending out the events page for February – except I
forgot to attach it at first! At the start of last month Sarah and I were
heading south to Eastbourne for the Hand in Hand Conference for children and
family workers. We had a great time while we were there (the journey
was….interesting to say the least). We had the chance to meet and talk
with lots of different people as well as attending many different
seminars. Sarah and I went to different seminars and talks focusing in on
key issues with childrens ministry. One of the big issues was about
encouraging faith to grow in children while they are in the early stages of
childhood in order to nature them through teenage years and see them develop
into Christian adults. Church’s have seen a drop off in their childrens
and youth ministries as children get older and in particular when they go off
to university and collage. The idea of building a faith community was
discussed were everyone within the church/faith community has a part to play
and the idea of creating an ‘intergenerational church’ were the older members
of the church and the younger members feel at ease with each other. One
suggestion that was made was to interview both older members and younger
members in a service to ask questions about their journey and their life.
In one church this idea to interview people was done one Sunday morning and a
young boy was the interviewee and he was asked about all kinds of things – but
one thing came out and that was he liked playing games, not computer or on a
games console but board games. His parents though didn’t get a great deal
of time to sit down and play as work got in the way. Sitting in the
congregation that morning was an older man, he liked playing games too – chess
mainly. The next young club night he went along with his chess set to ask
if anyone would like to play. Now that might seem a little strange but
the youth group had such a take up on this that they dedicated one whole room
to a chess playing room and loads of kids now play with lots of other older
members of the church. That is great but the really cool part is that
older Christians and getting involved in the lives of younger Christians, and I
feel that is so important. As the chess games are played out I am sure
that conversation takes place too so the two players get to know each
other. Another idea that came out was for older church members to adopt a
younger church member and each month to send them a post card of encouragement
( there were some examples to buy) This shows to the younger person that
someone other than their family is thinking about them – what a great
idea. These postcards are available from http://www.godventure.co.uk/ web site
(no I’m not on commission). Also on the Saturday evening we had a
first taste of the Noah musical that Doug Horley is putting together along with
Saltmine. It will be great the songs we heard sound fantastic – it is
coming to Barrow on 30th May this year.
Well I hope that you all have a good month of March.
There is one very advanced notice between June 22nd and 26th
2015 – yes 2015 it is not a typo we will be welcoming back Bibleworld.
Have a blessed month and thank you once again for all your
prayers.
Many Blessings
Mark
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