Changing Lives

The essential guide to ministry with children and families

Mark Griffiths

• Publisher: Monarch Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780857218254
• eBook ISBN: 9780857218261
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

This book offers practical insights and proven strategies for fostering a flourishing church community by transforming churches through effective family and kids ministry leadership.

Changing Lives covers everything you need to know about working with children and families - the why to, the how to, the when to and the where to.

Mark Griffiths examines the history, theology and practice of children's ministry and shares the wisdom he has gained from many years' experience of leading hundreds of groups, assemblies and youth services. In practical chapters, backed with sample resources, he shows how to communicate with children in the brave new postmodern world of church, school and community.

This one stop resource covers everything from the vision for children's work to matters such as record keeping, home visits, timetables, child protection legislation and templates for lessons.

Section 1

Children’s Ministry in Four Dimensions

The First Dimension — Bah'ith תִיַּב

The first word translated “family” is the word bah’ith תיִַּב Bah’ith communicates the concept of what we would now call the immediate family – parents and children together under one roof. We encounter this word in the instructions for the Passover meal (Exodus 12:21–28). On the very first Passover, a lamb was sacrificed and the blood of that lamb placed on the doorpost of individual homes. Inside those homes, the lamb was then made into a family meal that the Hebrew family celebrated gathered together around the table. This first Passover was the night of liberation, the night of freedom, and God instructed them to continue to celebrate this meal every year to remember what God had done. It’s instituted to remind the Hebrews (in the context of bah’ith) that they don’t serve a passive God, but an active God. The God who does things.

So every year for over 3,000 years, Jews have sat down together and celebrated Passover. It is a liturgical ceremony because at the appointed time during the meal the youngest child stands and asks, “What makes this night special?”, thus allowing the father or mother to make his or her liturgical response by explaining the story of the Passover and of the exodus. Emphasizing that they serve an active God, not just a God who does things, but a God who is doing things, a God endowed with potentiality – God was active in the past, is active now and will be active in the future.

This communication of the God who is active is fundamental to everything we do. “The God who does stuff” is how I usually put it. Theologically we don’t believe in the God who creates the universe and then walks away from His creation allowing the whole thing to wind down over several millennia as the forces of entropy do their work. We don’t believe that theologically, but sometimes we seem to communicate that in our practice. This is the God who creates and steps into His creation. The God who shows up. The God who can change things. We must communicate this to our children. When I was working as a children’s pastor in Milton Keynes I ran an event called “Frantic” for primary school children. Over 200 children came every Saturday morning. Several days before one of these Saturdays I had been to preach at a large church that had just purchased a video projector. To give you some idea of when this was, the video projector had three coloured lights at the front! You could probably see one today in the British Museum (I’ve been around for a while!).

At this point I was in my early twenties and still slightly naive. I came back to “Frantic” and asked the children if we should pray and ask God for one as well – after all, this is the God who does things! We prayed. Two hundred children and I prayed.

The following morning I preached in the Sunday services. At the end of the service someone came up to me and told me that God had asked them to give me something. He handed me a cheque for £2,000 with the words, “You know what it’s for.” I did! I purchased the projector and the following Saturday morning I put it on. Slowly (very slowly) the picture emerged on the projector screen. The children went silent. They stared. I explained, “Last week we prayed and God sent the money, so we could purchase one of these.” They started to exchange various versions of the word “Wow!” and then one little seven-year-old boy on the front row put his hand up and said, “Mark, Mark, what else can God do?”

And that’s the point. The God who does things. Endowed with potentiality. What else can He do?

That’s an example in the context of a children’s club but the same principle is supposed to be at the heart of the home. Our children are supposed to hear the stories of how God provides for us. I tell them of the time in theological college when I had no grant and no income how God provided the final payment for my fees on the day of graduation. This was in the days when things were a little tougher and if you hadn’t paid the fees you weren’t going to graduate. And on graduation day, at lunchtime, the principal came to find me to tell me the final payment had just been handed to him. I still have no idea where it came from. But my children hear this story because I want them to know the God who does stuff. My wife and I often talk about the way God has provided for us. At the time of writing I have just handed in my resignation as senior minister of the largest Anglican church in Berkshire. It’s a job that comes with accommodation in a very nice vicarage. There is a regular monthly salary. And now we’ve laid it all down. We’re not sure what is next. But it’s going to be a great opportunity to once again show our children the God who does stuff.

The earlier followers of Jesus would continue this practice of communicating the active God, but the stories would be added to. Not only would the account of the Passover and exodus be recounted, but now also the Son of God, Jesus who became flesh, who walked on water, fed thousands, healed the sick, raised the dead, was crucified, and resurrected. The bah’ith context remains the same, the principle of the communication of an active God remains the same, but the stories change and added to those stories are personal accounts of how God helped that family.

Today across the planet followers of Jesus gather in the context of bah’ith and exchange stories – stories of the Passover and exodus, stories of incarnation and resurrection, and new stories to the God who heals, empowers His church, and does miracles today.

All about the family

This focus on the home is of huge importance, yet it is not an area we give enough attention to. The work of child evangelism and children’s groups are areas that I am so excited about and which we will cover in the next chapters. They are incredibly positive but in terms of ministry within the home there were some negatives. They could be summarized as follows:

• the place of teaching moved from the home to a building

• the time for teaching moved from “day” to “day” to Sunday

• the teacher was no longer the parent but the professional children’s worker.

The communication about Jesus in the home seems to have become a lost art. And also something that is seen as a little scary. Let me see if I can take the intensity away if nothing else. I have three children. Nia is twenty; the one who has just returned from Australia working as an intern at Edge Church, Adelaide. To keep this in perspective for you, when I told her at dinner that I was writing this chapter, she looked around the table at her brothers and said, “Have you really thought this through?”

Her brother Owen is eighteen. When he was fourteen he outworked his teenage rebellion by leaving the parish church I was leading and insisted on walking the two miles every Sunday to one of our church plants. He now gets to preach and lead there. He has concluded that he doesn’t mind when I come to preach because at least it means he doesn’t have to walk.

Elliot is fifteen and the primary reason I didn’t write the good parenting guide! He recently received a school report that alongside nearly every subject had the words, “Elliot must do better.” At the end of the report was a section for Elliot to complete to explain what he would do differently the following term. It was all laid out for him. His head of year wanted him to write the words “I will do better”, his mother and I wanted him to write the words “I will do better”. We left him to think about what he should write. We gave him plenty of clues, but left him with the final decision as to what to write. When I returned an hour later to see his response I read these words, “I will join more after-school clubs!”

My children are all different. Very individual. Different motivators, different temperaments, but all great fun. But this paragraph is here for one reason only, to say to you that I am trying to work this out too. And so this chapter will not be a spiritual rampage on why you must have family prayers for two hours every day. Because I can’t teach what I can’t do. It’ll be a gentle walk through this important area of communicating faith in the home, in the context of bah’ith.

Edward Gibbon, in his book The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, comments that part of the reason for the destruction of Rome was that it no longer had strong families and therefore the empire fell from within. John Chrysostom, the fourth-century bishop writes:

To each of you fathers and mothers I say, just as we see artists fashioning their paintings and statues with great precision, so we must care for these wondrous statues of ours. Painters when they have set the canvas on the easel paint on it day by day to accomplish their purpose. Sculptors, too, working in marble, proceed in a similar manner; they remove what is superfluous and add what is lacking. Even so you must proceed. Like the creators of statues do you give all your leisure to fashioning these wondrous statues for God.

Proverbs 22:6 speaks of training up a child in the way they should go, and when they are old they will not depart from it. What is interesting there is the “the way they should go”. Rather than dictating that they need to get a proper job – whatever that may mean – we should help them seek and discern what God has created them to be and do. John Chrysostom again speaks of parents’ “vainglory” in trying to push their children into certain well-paying, high-visibility roles. Those fourth-century pushy parents, hey!

My contention in this area really is that if you understand “WHY” then you’ll work out “HOW?” I became a Christian when I was fifteen. My wife grew up in a nominally Christian Welsh Baptist home; we were first generation followers of Jesus. We had no real blueprint. We were working out how to be a family as we went. I had some advantages – I had been employed as a children’s pastor for six years by then, so I knew that reading them stories from Leviticus might not be a good idea. And Bob Hartman had managed to publish his Storyteller Bible so reading material was freely available. But we really did have to work it out. When I grew up if I was unwell my parents phoned the doctor, nobody prayed for me. At bedtime I found a book to read. At mealtime, my sister and I just ate, nobody said grace. We often ate on trays in front of the television. Not a lot of conversation except on Sundays.

So we had to introduce things into our family. Grace at meals. Bedtime stories from the Bible or one of a million Christian books that I love. When our children were ill we would take them to the doctor, but we would pray first. When they had bad dreams we would pray and inform them with a theology learned from Veggie Tales that “God is bigger than the bogeyman.” And when Nia went to Australia we gathered around her as a family in the middle of Heathrow airport and we prayed.

But we have an increasing number of first generation Christians. It’s a positive. It means we are reaching the lost. But we also want to have lots and lots of second and third and fourth generation followers, so we need to pass on faith. And allow me to be candid. This really isn’t about building in some sort of insurance policy that says my kids must be Christians or they’ll not go to heaven when they die. This is about bringing your children up in the presence of Jesus so that they become everything God created them to be right now. It’s about the Holy Spirit shaping and forming and sculpting them so they live well – knowing how to deal with hurt and pain and disappointment, responding with compassion and love and grace. Generous, forgiving and gracious – right now. Living life with the quality of eternity – right now. It is about instilling in them an understanding that they are loved, valued and accepted… even if they walk away and become one of the prodigals.

And this is really not about making perfect human beings. If I do this right they’ll be in the Olympics aged thirteen and Oxbridge shortly after. It isn’t about overprotecting and keeping them away from the harsh realities of this cruel world. They are naturally resilient. If you could listen to the newborn baby it would be saying the words, “Bring it on!” Doctors will tell you that poorly babies ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword by Bill Wilson
• A Word from the Author
• Introduction
• A Brave New World
• Section 1 – Children's Ministry in Four Dimensions
• Section 2 – Communication
• Section 3 – A Few Misconceptions
• Section 4 – Practical Help
• The Extra Stuff – Appendix
• Notes