Search Results for: blog strange attitudes towards childrens ministry

Meet a Families.com Blogger – Dale Harcombe!

Today we are joined by the incomparable Dale Harcombe, who shares her taste in movies with me. Dale, thanks for chatting with me today. How long have you blogged for Families.com? Since mid-May 2007. I started just after coming back from Alpha 2 Omega, a Christian writers’ convention in Brisbane, Queensland. What topics do you blog about? At this stage Christian, though it seems to encompass different areas of life, since being a Christian affects all of living. What is your favorite thing about blogging for Families.com? I like the feeling of commmunity and interaction. Also when people let me … Continue reading →

Initiatives in Children’s Ministry

Think children’s ministry is not important? Think again. Statistics show that most decisions for Jesus are made in the years prior to 18. So there is a need to make children’s ministry a high priority in our church and community. Children’s ministry is not something to be left to those who have no skills or aptitude for it. Children’s ministry needs to be taken seriously with the gospel message given at a level relevant to the age and experience of the child. Youthworks takes the issue of children’s ministry seriously. This organization, which started around seven years ago, recognized the … Continue reading →

How Important is Children’s Ministry? -Part 2

Times have changed. Are we changing with them? Friends and I were talking a few weeks back and the consensus was that years ago most children in Australia were sent to Sunday School, even if parents never went to church or only rarely attended. These days the situation is vastly different. A friend told me, and my own experience as an SRE teacher backs this up, that many children do not have the first idea about why we celebrate Easter. Some have never ever heard of Jesus. How are they going to hear unless we tell them? Unless you as … Continue reading →

How Important is Children’s Ministry?

Children are our future. They are also the future of the church. Children are important to Jesus as we see from Matthew 18:1-6 and Matthew 19:13-14. And yet, some churches seem to devalue children’s ministry by having poorly trained and inexperienced leaders working in children’s programs, by not taking an active role in training teachers or instituting programs that children do not want to be a part of. Information provided in Southern Cross magazine by Bible League Australia claims that Operation World says ‘every new generation needs to be evangelised afresh or the church soon becomes nominal.’ So to ensure … Continue reading →

Don’t Let Guilt Get the Better of You

Guilt can be a destructive emotion. It can take over and overwhelm us. Don’t let guilt get the better of you. It’s easy said but sometimes not so easy to do. We all feel at times that we let people down, or that we don’t behave the way we should. As we’ve no doubt discovered, there will always be those to criticize and heap guilt on you. This can happen when we don’t do what other people expect us to or think we should. It can happen when, despite our best intentions, plans don’t work out and we are not … Continue reading →

When Pressure Comes

Sometimes no matter what we do there will be those who will criticize, who will tell us we should be doing something else, we should be doing more, we should be involved in some program or that we’re just plain wrong. Even Paul experienced this sort of pressure. In Acts Paul had an idea of what he needed to do. He was hurrying to be in Jerusalem if possible on the day of Pentecost, Acts 20:16. He calls the elders of the church at Ephesus and reminds them of all he has taught them, verses 18-21 and informs them of … Continue reading →

Prayer and Riches.

In Luke 6:12,after the confrontations with the Pharisees, Jesus went off alone and spent the whole night in prayer. Have you ever spent as long in concentrated prayer? I haven’t though I do find if I am awake at night, which happens fairly regularly to me, it is a good time to pray, right there where I am. We might wonder what Jesus was praying about. Was he praying about the opposition he was experiencing and the hardness of people’s hearts? Was he seeking the Father for strength for what he knew lay ahead of him? Maybe it was both. … Continue reading →

Practical Examples of Trusting God When Satan Interferes

Last week Mick and I had our first visit this year to the local school to teach the children about God and God’s rescue plan for a sinful world. It was one of those mornings where everything that could go wrong, did – from the dog being sick, to dropping things, cutting myself on a can, to not being able to find the map telling us which classroom we needed to go to. To add to the problems, that morning I had trouble for some reason posting my blog. All just minor mishaps that created hassles and slowed us down, … Continue reading →

God Wants Workers not Shirkers

‘God wants workers not shirkers,’ that’s what a visiting minister told us one day in his sermon. Sadly, the case in too many churches is that too much is left to too few workers. This was never the way it was intended to work. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12:4 that there are varieties of gifts and God expects us to use them. There are varieties of ministries, 1 Corinthians 12:5. Some people have a real knack for one to one relationships and welcoming people, but ask them to play the piano or do some up front job and … Continue reading →

God’s Spoilt Children

We’ve probably all met spoilt children. How does a spoilt child act? They are demanding selfish, insisting on their rights and their own way and show little regard for the feelings of others. But what about ‘God’s spoilt children’ as a friend of mine calls them. ‘God’s spoilt children’ who are they? So often I hear from pastors and others in full time ministry about the expectations laid upon them by others. Sadly, I don’t just mean those outside the church who come knocking at the door at all times of the day and night, bringing their needs. Of more … Continue reading →