The Children’s Ministry of Aldersgate Church is so excited to be going ORANGE! What does that mean?
When Red (the unconditional Love of the Home) is combined with Yellow (The Light of the Church), you get ORANGE. Two combined influences are always stronger than two separate
influences. This strategy focuses on the Family and Home. We realize that every family looks different and God can work through all of those situations.
Each Sunday, there is about 1 hour for Sunday School. There are weeks when children are not at church due to sickness, vacations and other commitments. That means that, as a church, we have about 40 hours in any given year to say everything that we feel is important in the life of a child.
In contrast, the family has about 3,000 waking hours with a child during any given year. Families have such an amazing opportunity to build faith in the next generation!
Deuteronomy 6:5-7 states:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
Everyday family life is the perfect environment to create an everyday faith in their children.
Offering excellent teaching and programs during the Sunday School Hour each week is very important. But instead of just focusing on teaching the children of Aldersgate during that hour each
week, we can use part of that influence to help families in how they will grow the faith of their children during the approximately 60 hours each week that they are with their children. For a child, what happens at home during the week is much
more important than what happens at church on Sunday. We want to connect our church leaders, Sunday School teachers, and parents in order to synchronize their efforts to build faith in the next generation.
The church can overwhelm families with what they should do. And that can lead to doing nothing. If there are just a few small things that they can do, that can make a huge difference in a
family. What if a family who had never prayed together begins to pray together? Or a family who had never read a Bible story together begins to read together? That has the potential to make a huge impact! There are several tools to continue the discussion in the home during the week that was started in church on Sunday. There is a Parent Cue Card that will go home each week. There is also a Parent Cue App, Facebook posts, and email.
Going forward the Sunday School hour will look different also. We will begin using a new curriculum. Our preschoolers will be using the First Look curriculum. This time in their life is their First Look at who God is. Our elementary age students will be using the 252 Kids curriculum. The name of
this curriculum comes from Luke 2:52:
“And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.”
The time will be made up of a large group time together and small group time. December is already a busy month. We will slowly move toward that change in December. We hope to have televisions ready to show video segments at the beginning of January. It is an exciting time as the Children’s Ministry is going ORANGE. I pray that God works mightily through this work.
Submitted by Children’s Coordinator, Kristin Titzell