I’ve had a long-hidden goal of writing something that may one day be read by others. One could even rightly assume that is why I started this blog some 5 years ago. Well, I officially got something published of the paper variety.
My article is in Group Publishing’s Children’s Ministry Magazine. Do you see it? I wrote that second bi-line on the cover there. See it now? “Entice Your Parents to STICK AROUND.” I was approached a few months ago to elaborate on something I had written about here at www.jonathancliff.com. They gave me a title, a topic, and I ran with it from there. The article is a great synopsis into the changes we made at Trinity Church last summer to help parents get more involved with their kids.
Fly Paper Ministry: Discover the three keys for every church event that make parents give up dropping off their kids -and actually STICK AROUND. It’s easier than you think!
If you’d like to read it, come by my office and buy me lunch. If you already have a copy, head over to page 86 and give it a look-see. If you can’t take me to lunch, and you don’t have a copy then then head over to www.childrensministry.com and sign up for a subscription today.
I had the opportunity, privilege, and pleasure to baptize my oldest son this weekend. I’ve been asked many times, “As a Children’s Pastor, I bet you’re really excited to do this, huh?” My answer is usually nice and cordial, but to be honest my excitement over my son’s eternal salvation has nothing to do with being a Children’s Pastor and everything to do with being his father.
From the time my son was in vitro, from those early morning hours of feedings, to the first steps, to the first bites of carrots, first soccer games, first words, first days of school and so forth and so forth; my prayer for him has been the very same. I have prayed the words of a song that was popular around his birth. They are the words to that song “One Pure and Holy Passion.”
Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You
It has been my prayer that when Ryan seeks after God he would find Him there waiting. It has been my prayer that when confronted with his own inadequacies and faults, it would be the reaction of his heart to reach towards Christ. It has been my prayer that when he admits his sin, believes in Christ, and confesses it with his mouth; that his next move would be to follow hard after Christ.
I often tell parents that most kids aren’t really in a good place to understand this until they are around 8 or 9 or even 10 or 11. There is no hard, firm age for these things; but there are some things we can look for in our children to know if they are ready. I encourage parents to not rush their children into a decision, and instead work to demonstrate living, active faith before their children. I also encourage them to quickly reward the curiosity of their children with answers to life’s questions and questions about God, faith, and morality.
But my son has proven to be an exception. Ryan is the most thoughtful, deep, profound, inquisitive, and reflective 7 year old I’ve ever been around. I know, I know… it’s my son and I’m biased. But I’m telling you, there are not 7 year olds like my son. He’s just in a different place emotionally than most 7 year olds. He’s different.
When he began to ask questions about faith, it wasn’t from a “What do I have to do to be like others?” or “I want to be baptized, what now?” perspective. It was more from a “Why would someone pray to Jesus?” and “I’m thinking this sin in my life might be a problem, Dad.” His mother and I diligently answered his questions, but never put the question back on him. We would answer and leave it til another day. Eventually the questions became more and more frequent. One night after an exhaustive journey through Romans, he was really struggling with a decision. I told him to just think about what he knew, and I would be here if he needed any help.
After a half hour of thinking about it, he approached me and his mother to ask, “I need to tell God my mistakes, and tell him I believe. I believe all these things about Jesus and I need to tell him.” I told him to go ahead and pray, and without putting words in his mouth he prayed for God to forgive him of his sins, and told Jesus that he believed in Him. He did it all on his own. He was taking the first steps towards following hard after Christ, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.
My prayer is that as my kids grow, these people will be around to give them the same messages I’m giving, but in a different voice and from a different perspective.
Thank you Lord that in the short time we’ve lived in Lubbock, you’ve made us a part of a spiritual family. Thank you for these people who love and influence our kids toward loving You. Bless them Lord, and keep providing opportunities for authentic relationship.
The ceremony/event/service(whatever you want to call it) where parents are recognized and children are “officially” dedicated isn’t much different than years past. We have a slide show that shows a picture of each child, with birth date, scripture verse (selected by their parents), and a meaning for the child’s name. We asked parents to email us this information in the two days immediately following the dedication class. We will help parents with the verse and name meaning if they don’t have anything specifically picked out. This is always fun, and where we get most of our oohs and ahhs during the Dedication ceremony. :)
These slides are displayed on the main screens as I read their names and they approach the stage with their child and any additional family that wants to be on stage. With families on stage I give a 60-second recap of what the parents have done by attending the class, and making this great commitment to spiritually lead their children. I also exhort the congregation to support these families with their prayers, words, finances, and service. I remind the families that their children are receiving a small Bible as a gift, and it is their responsibility as parents to help the truths of this Bible to come to life in front of their children. I will then ask that our Senior Pastor come up and with the support of the congregation pray over these parents and their children.
Each family is given a gift bag that includes the book Revolutionary Parenting by George Barna (this is usually my recommended book for those with small children looking to start good family habits,) a small decorative gender-specific children’s bible, and of course a teddy bear. Why a teddy bear? I don’t know, except its what has always been done. :) Somethings just don’t need changing, right?
I have sent out a follow-up survey to parents that went through the steps to dedicate their children, and I hope to be compiling their thoughts for future adaptations.
What would I like to see changed?
I would like to do more things at the actual dedication ceremony to bring more light on our parents and the commitment they are taking to spiritually lead their families. Things beyond my control will have to change, but stranger things have happened.
I would like to do something more celebratory for our families. I know of some churches that hold special celebration services for people to invite friends and families to. This is a cool idea, and something we will be working towards. If you do this, please share your ideas!
I would like to create a more personal gift for the families that have gone through the Dedication process. I’ve loved the things that Ned Gable did at his church with their Dedication book. (A+ Nedgible!)
I’m still thinking through how to connect this dedication process with the other family moments I identified. How can I tie in Child Dedication with Baptism and Salvation moments? How can I help parents stay open to parental encouragement and learning?
I looking into offering the class on two different dates to keep the number lower, and create a more intimate classroom setting. More is not always better. I also think that offering an identical class on a different week night, might open a door for families that couldn’t attend the Wednesday night class option.
I would like to offer this same 80-minute talk over a few 5 weeks. I think it might make a great parenting seminar type thing. I’m not sure there will be interest, but I’m going to just keep the idea on the shelf in case it happens later. I am teaching the class for our school’s parenting night, so that’s a bonus!
Overall I think that for our first go-round with Child Dedication changes it went well. There are some reading this that think everything I’ve done is super lame; but we had to start somewhere. We went from a do nothing to doing something pretty well. There is tons of room for improvement, but with this small victory under our belt I will working to evolve this event into even greater things for our parents and children at Trinity.
So here are my questions. What do you do at your church? Where are the holes in my plan? What would you suggest to add more meaning and takeaway for parents? Is there something I did that you like? Do Share!
Here is a detailed recap of what the Child Dedication class looked like:
What did I teach?
I taught the Essence of Family talk that Reggie Joiner has taught many times before. You can get the entirety of the talk in the book, “Think Orange.” You can also read my thoughts on the Five Essential Parenting Skills by reading the blog posts I wrote on all five of these skills. (You do read this blog, right? Follow the links on the class description to ready along.)
The Essence of Family: At the heart of every family is a primary calling to lead a generation to the heart of a perfect, loving God. No other passage in the Bible defines the family role as clearly as Deuteronomy 6, and in this study we will challenge parents to Imagine the End in order to stay focused on the big picture, Fight for the Heart of their families by loving God with all their hearts, Make it Personal and let kids see what God is doing in their parents, Create a Rhythm so time together as a family will nurture everyday faith, and Widen the Circle and make sure kids have additional influences to guide them.
I really love this teaching because it sits somewhere between the theoretical and the practical. It’s not a bunch of to-do’s to make your kids obey, and neither is it a bunch of parenting philosophy. I also added tons of my own story to this teaching, and really worked to make it my own. I give the ReThink group and Reggie Joiner tons of credit, but I had to make it my own and fit my style.
How did I make it my own?
Before I taught a single principle, I showed off pictures of my kids. I shared my own struggles of feeling like an inadequate parent, and my own fears for the future of my children. I was intentional about making sure the parents in attendance knew that I was in this with them. I was teaching, but I wanted them to know that I was simply out in front leading. Not sharing my infinite wisdom with lesser people (not that they thought that, but I wanted us to be clear.) I think to many times we’re scared to just be honest with parents about who we really are. This is a strength for me, so I just put it out there for them all to see. Sincerity is a great asset.
What was the format?
The class started at 6:40 pm (advertised for 6:30) and ended at 8:20 pm. But I didn’t talk that entire time. I built in 4 table talk times of 5 minutes each throughout the talk. This was key for breaking up the classroom style, and letting families get to know each other well. The table talk questions were general in nature, nothing very personal or revealing. I wanted to be respectful of those that may not feel comfortable sharing. So I would teach a point, then turn it over for table talk time. They would answer questions related to the topic I had just taught. This went about 3-5 minutes each time. I had Children’s Ministry leaders spread out at each table, to make sure discussion happened. These leaders were prepped with the questions in advance, and given some direction for how to get people to open up and share. Each person had the fill-in-the-blank notes to keep along with the class materials. It was two pages, front and back. I personally hate teaching where people fill in the blanks along the way, but I wanted to make sure everyone went home with material.
What was room setup?
We had 20 families in attendance, with two people from each family in attendance. There were 7 round tables setup with the families split evenly throughout. We had coffee, water, fruit, cookies, and other snacks setup on a few banquet tables off to the side. I also had my entire Children’s Ministry staff and some key volunteers spread out at each table. They were instrumental in making this work, and I can’t give them enough credit for being awesome. I am truly blessed with a great team!
How did it end?
I assigned homework. Not the kind of homework that is turned in, but the kind of homework that the Holy Spirit convicts them to complete. I ended the class explaining that the reason I wanted two people from each family in attendance was so that they could hold each other accountable for the things they learned. Part of that accountability was to go home and think through the 5 homework questions. The questions were:
Write down your vision for your child’s future. What values, character and traits do you want active in their lives? What are your dreams and hopes for them?
How important is it to be trusted? Who are the people that you trust, and what about them do you want to emulate?
Identify the weaknesses in yourself that you want your children to avoid. What are they?
What things can you do to help create spiritual rhythms right now? Put these on your calendar today!
Who will you commit to make a part of your child’s life? Think of names and reasons why for each person.
The key to any change is to be prepared. I’ve found to be the most prepared I need to give myself ample time to get things in order. The first change I made was to cancel the dedication that was scheduled. We did this thing every 3 months, but we would be taking a 6 month break before coming in with something radically different. I needed time to drive up some momentum, and get all my ducks in a row.
Then I began to lay out the steps parents would be taking to dedicate their children. I really wanted to add some hoops for parents to jump through to dedicate their kids. That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I was prepared to give our parents incentive to attend the dedication, but I needed to see how committed they were to the process. If you will go to our child dedication site you will see these steps laid out.
#1 Listen to the Power of Influence podcast. I created the audio file to be played on the website, or downloaded in iTunes. It’s only 25 minutes of audio, and it was meant to get the wheels spinning in the brains of our parents. The podcast is from a talk I gave at Trinity Church in August 2008. In it I talk about the power of Hannah’s influence over her son, Samuel. I know it sounds pretty self-serving, but when I was looking for some audio to have parents listen to I just kept coming back to what I had already done. Sorry.
#2 Register for the class online, and agree to the pre-requisites. What were the pre-requisites? They had to listen to the previously mentioned podcast, and had to agree to attend the class with another person. That’s right. Nobody was going to be allowed to attend the class by themselves. If they were single parents, they were asked to bring grandparents along. If the father was being a jerk and wouldn’t attend, they had to invite someone they hoped might positively influence their child. I felt it was important that everyone in attendance have someone close to them hearing the same things we would cover in the class. I hope that makes sense, but I got no push-back from parents on this. They all seemed to understand.
#3 Attend the class. This sounds like the most obvious, but it was the most important. For 40+ years parents registered kids for dedication by filling out an application. Now they had to attend this short 75 minute class. If they missed the class, they would NOT be dedicating their child. If they left 30 minutes into the class, we would NOT be dedicating their child. If they showed up 30 minutes late, we would NOT be dedicating their child. My assistant called all the families on the Monday before the class reminding them of all these details.
We blitzed the church in the weeks leading up to the class. We sent 100′s of postcard-sized flyer’s home with parents of children 2 and under, promoted it on the church-wide video announcements, had posters up in all the normal church communication areas, and sent out a huge email newsletter outlining the changes and how to register. Everyone of these communication methods just teased the class, and pointed them back to the website. The website was the destination for all information.
In future posts, I will address what we used in the class and what format I taught from. Until then, I encourage you to go to http://dedication.trinitykidsplace.com and check it out our promotion!
