Tip of the Week: Spread Out

     Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the launch of a new Crossroads Kids Club in Elgin, Illinois. This club is led by my friends from Maranatha Church. After the club ended and I was at home I reflected on my experience at the school with them. The club had gone very well—exceptionally well for a first day, in fact.
     There are a few factors to their initial success (beside the obvious one that the Lord is blessing them). One key factor is that they are a great team who really shows a lot of love for one another and that love spills over to the kids. It is fun just watching how they care for each other and support one another. This definitely sets the tone for the club and helped make it go smoothly on the first day.

     However, the tip I want to share here is the way that they used proximity to the children in order to maximize connections and learning. I have included a photo in this post of the large group time. (There were only 13 students as this was the first day, so it is "large" group time.) Notice how the staff is spread out and forming a semi-circle behind the group of children. To my knowledge they did not do this with any kind of plan in mind. They just seemed to do it intuitively, and it worked well. The kids listened attentively and participated actively.

School District Mapping

     The last several weeks I have been working on a large project that involves researching the policies of local school districts regarding the use of their facilities by community organizations (such as local churches). Often I can learn their policies by looking at their web sites. Very often board policies and administrative procedures are posted there, and you just have to know where to look. Other times though, I have needed to submit a request for the policies and procedures under the Freedom of Information Act. My goal is to gather data on all of the school districts in the six county (Illinois) portion of Chicagoland. There are hundreds of districts in this area, and so this is quite a formidable project. When done, I hope to color code each school district on county maps.

• Green means that the district is open to outside groups using their space and that this use is either free or very low cost. 
• Blue means that the district is open to rentals, but the fees are substantial.
• Yellow indicates that the district may or may not be open. The policies are somewhat ambiguous and need to be tested.
• Red signals that the district is closed to use by outside groups or severely restricts the time that space is available. For example, they may allow groups to use space only on the weekends.

     So far, I have been pleased to learn that only about 3% of the districts are red. The vast majority (probably 80%) are green or blue meaning that they are open to use by outside groups. My plan is to use this information to look for churches that are located in "green districts" (i.e., the ones that are most open) and to let them know that they should have an easy time starting a Kids Club inside of their local schools.

Curious about your district's policies? I'd love to help you research them. Post a comment or shoot me an e-mail, and I will see what I can do.

The Art of Bible Storying

Michael Novelli

     This week I finished reading a fabulous book by Michael Novelli called Shaped by the Story: Helping Students Encounter God in a New Way. My intention is not to write a review of the book here but only to introduce one concept that struck me as having profound implications for the way we teach the Bible to children (or anyone for that matter). That concept is that we as learners want to understand God's story and locate ourselves in his story. This stands in contrast to telling our own stories and then making a place for God in our stories. Often our vocabulary belies whose story we are in. When we say things about giving God the first place in our life or "putting him on the throne" of our life, we are actually saying that we are making room for God in our story. Instead, we need to understand that God is unveiling a cosmic story of creation-fall-redemption-renewal and we get to play a part in his story, which is a way better story than any that I could tell in any case! The Bible storying method that Michael describes focuses on discovering God's story and participating in that story instead of finding tidy application points for our lives as they are.
     After reading this book, I am very pleased to say that Michael Novelli is going to be leading a workshop on Bible Storying at Crossroads on March 17, 2012. He is the first of four presenters in a series of training workshops called "Spring Training." The workshops are open to all churches regardless of their affiliation (or not) with Crossroads. Learn more and register today by visiting: www.SpringTrainingWorkshops.com.

Learn more about Storying by watching this video:

A Church Leader's Field Guide to Public School Ministry, Part 2

     Two days ago, I began writing about the vision I have for a book on public school ministry. Today I want to share how I envision the book being organized. There will be four main sections, and each will have at least a couple of chapters. The sections are as follows:

The Movement: Reaching, Raising, and Releasing a Generation with the Power to Transform the World

• Chapter 1:      
• The Unprecedented Problems and Opportunities Facing Today’s Children
• Chapter 2:      
• The Hope of the 21^st Century Church: The 4/14 Window 
• Chapter 3:      
• Compulsory Education and the 4/14 Window Contextualized

·

The Moment: Doors and Hearts Are Open Like Never Before

• Chapter 4:      
• Constitutional Principles and The Legal Pendulum
• Chapter 5:      
• Our Schools Are in Crisis

The Method: Make Friends with School Leaders

• Chapter 6:      
• Community Schools: A Paradigm for Education Reform
• Chapter 7:      
• Finding Common Ground 
• Chapter 8:      
• Moving Beyond through a Project-Orientation to Relationships

The Mission: Share Jesus with Students and FamilieS

• Chapter 9:      
• The Transformational Power of Relationships
• Chapter 10:   
• Jesus-Centered Justice

Conclusion: What are we looking for? What Are You Waiting For?

A Church Leader's Field Guide to Public School Ministry, Part 1

     I am thinking about writing a book. Actually, I am beyond just thinking about it. I have moved on to the planning phase. I have sketched out a chapter outline and am looking for feedback. So, I thought I would share a little of what I am thinking here on this blog site in the hopes that some people will give me constructive feedback (either in the comments or in person or by e-mail). I will post my chapter outline in a future post, but today I want to explain the reasons that I want to write this book.
     First, I have seen how open the public schools are, and the public schools are where the kids are at. Second, 85% of people in the U.S. who come to Christ make their commitment to him before age 15. So, the best hope for the future of the church is to reach kids, and the kids are in the schools. It also seems to me that most churches either don't think it's possible to reach into a public school (and so they don't try) or they don't see the benefit or they try but get shut down because they approached the school in a wrong way.

     For all these reasons I hope to write a sort of "field guide" to public school ministry. I have served as both a public school teacher and a pastor. I have also been involved with leading after school clubs in schools for over a decade. By virtue of these experiences, God has allowed me to see things from some different angles of vision. I believe this perspective can be helpful in furthering his kingdom purposes.

• What benefits and what challenges do you see in a church trying to reach out to children inside of public schools?

• Has your church ever tried to work with a local school? How did it go?

Discipleship

     I had an interesting conversation with Wanda Parker this week. Wanda leads a ministry called KidTrek (http://www.kidtrek.org/). Wanda has led church-based children's ministries and after-school programs for many years in a variety of contexts. She is an amazing leader who zeroes in on results. She would urge church leaders to consider what we want children to be like when they are 40 years old and then to work from there—what will it take now for us to disciple our kids so that they will be what we want them to be when they are 40?

     One key takeaway from my conversation with Wanda about discipling kids is that it takes many connections with adults in a church for the child to really feel connected to the church and to grow a strong faith. Building healthy adult-child relationships with your average churched child is very challenging, but I think that there are a couple of cases that are particularly challenging:

• Pastor's kids. Having grown up as a pastor's kid and also having been a pastor and parent, I think it can be especially difficult for the other adults in the church to feel that they can speak into the lives of the pastor's kids. This is sad because it can lead the pastor's own children to feel like outsiders in their home church.
  
• Neighborhood kids. When a leader from your church's school-based ministry brings a child into your church—a child who is attending without his or her parents—it can be very difficult to connect that child in meaningful ways with other adults in the church. With your "average" kid, the parents have friends in the church, and the child naturally gets to know the peers of their parents (at least at some level). But how do we connect with the child with no parents at the church?

What does your church do to connect the adults with the children in meaningful and healthy relationships?

Challenges Facing Today's Kids

     This week I had to opportunity to share a cup of Starbucks and talk with a new friend who is a missiologist and a leader in the 4/14 Window Movement. We talked about a number of things, but what I want to share here are three challenges facing today's kids that are macro issues affecting children in many nations around the world.

1. Identity formation driven by peers and media. Parents are struggling to pass along their values to their children. Kids are orienting themselves to their peers and finding their identity in belonging to a certain peer group or tribe. This is hugely problematic for a number of reasons not the least of which is that the peer group does not love the child unconditionally as a parent would, nor does the peer group have the wisdom the child needs to grow into maturity.
   
2. Dysfunctionality of families. Families are splintered. In some places this has happened through war or AIDS. In other places it has occurred through divorce, but in many corners of the globe families are torn apart and children are experiencing less stability in their home environments.
   
3. Economic disenfranchisement. From young people rioting in the Middle East to the low youth employment rate in the U.S., young people growing up today feel frustrated and unable to achieve the material ideals they dreamed of. July 2011 saw the lowest youth employment rate in the U.S. since records have been kept (which started back in 1948).

     Clearly, this is not an exhaustive list. I am curious to know:

• Do you see evidence of these issues affecting children in your community?
• What would you add to this list of macro-challenges facing kids?