Tag Archive - trinitychurch

Small Group Ministry Prayer

June 2, 2010 in Ministry with 3 Comments

Yesterday I wrote about our experience with kids in a Large Group Ministry Time, and wondered how we could move some of these positive Large Group moments into our Small Group ministry times.  I’ve come up with two ways we can help make this happen.

Video from Granger Community Church

First and by far the easiest way to accomplish this, and often the most overlooked by Small Group Leaders (SGL) is to simply pray with the kids.  I’ve lead my fair share of small groups, and I know that sometimes it can get busy, wild, and loud quickly.  Most SGL’s are simply concerned with maintaining order, and getting through all the steps required to get them to the end of their time together.  It’s not that they don’t care about praying with kids, but that they forget.  Or if they do pray with the kids it becomes something they do to maintain order.

But, what if?  What if our SGL’s prayed with kids in a deliberate way?  What if the SGL, or better yet the kids, spent time journaling the prayers of their group, and celebrated the answers?  What if the SGL would be willing to skip other elements, if a heavy prayer request was made so that ministry could happen in the small group environment?  What if we created an atmosphere of ministry time within the context by small groups, by training SGL’s to lead their own ministry time?

I’ve been convicted that maybe I’m not working to train SGL’s in the right context.  Maybe I’m helping them all by teaching them the basic elements of small group leadership, but leaving out the one thing that will help transform a child’s life.  The ability to help a kid hear God’s voice.

Do you have any testimonies of SGL’s that are teaching prayer to kids in a real and relevant way?  Testimony time?

Meeting Jesus

June 1, 2010 in Ministry with 2 Comments

The stated goal of our Children’s Ministry is “To create spiritual environments and settings where kids can easily hear the voice of God, and respond.”

Basically we say that everything we do is meant to create an atmosphere whereby kids can hear Jesus.  As a father, it’s been my prayer for my own children that they’ll hear God’s voice when he calls them, and that they will be obedient and respond.  I’ve written about Ryan’s baptism HERE, and I’ve shared countless times about what we do to create these environments for children at our church.  I work with parents during the Child Dedication process, I put tools in the hands of parents to help them talk about Jesus with their kids in their own homes, and I work to create family-friendly events that bring everyone together.  However, I’ve been thinking about whether we create spaces during our weekend experiences for kids to hear Jesus.  I’m talking real live, prayer-filled moments where kids can encounter God.

This summer we’ve disbanded our small groups, and given large amounts of the summer off to our faithful Elementary small group leaders.  In the months between what was, and what is coming in August; we’ve been using Hillsong Big! curriculum.  One of my favorite elements of the Hillsong Big! curriculum is the built-in “ministry time.”  Ministry time consists of prayer stations, altar-type ministry, and it’s all done on a large group scale.  We’ve been able to get away with this in our large group sessions, as our numbers are usually down in the Summer months.  Can you say Summer swoon?

But here’s the learning: I’ve discovered during ministry time, that our kids are hearing God’s voice. They’re responding in real ways, and they’re taking those ministry moments home to their families.  I’m a HUGE advocate of the small group model for kids, and am committed to it’s development in our Children’s Ministry, yet I’m already thinking of how I can move some of these great “ministry times” into our small groups.  Over the next few days I’m going to unpack some thoughts into how we can make our small groups a place that ministry can happen for our kids in the atmosphere of community.

Do you have much experience offering large group ministry time to children?  Is that even the culture of your church?

Kidsplace Promotional Video

May 10, 2010 in Ministry, Technology with 4 Comments

This is the most recent Kidsplace service video announcement at Trinity Church, in Lubbock, TX.  It’s edition #1 of a project to get the word out to our congregation that we have age-specific programming for kids every weekend!  Gina spoke about this here, but sometimes people fail to even know we have programming for kids every weekend.  Or if they know, they tend to think of what they may have experienced when they were kids.  More than once I’ve heard someone that visits our areas say, “I had no idea you guys had so much fun here with the kids!”, or I’ve heard “I wish we did things like then when I was a kid!”

We will be running these videos throughout the next few months.  They are only 30 seconds in length, and are designed to fit along with whatever video announcements the church is running in weekend services.  They are not designed to be stand-alone.  They will also be used over and over throughout the year.  Make sense?

We outsourced the work to a local place here in Lubbock.  All videos were filmed, created, and designed by Kevin Rhodes over at Dream Taxi.

Vision, Mission, and Values

April 23, 2010 in Ministry with 1 Comment

We are weeks into the BEYOND project here at Trinity Church in Lubbock, TX.  (I wrote about it a few weeks ago, you should go catch up HERE.)  A big part of the plan has been to get the Vision, Mission, and Core Values of our church out there for everyone to hear.  However, it’s been said a few 100 times over the past few weeks.  I was looking for a creative way to get the word out without actually using any words.

If you follow this blog at all, then you should be aware that I periodically send video updates out to my volunteer team for training purposes.  This video is one of my Unscripted videos, but I used it to creatively express our Vision, Mission, and Values at Trinity.

Well, what do you think?  Does it express our Mission, Vision, and Core Values?

Beyond: A Vision for Tomorrow

March 31, 2010 in Ministry with 3 Comments

This past weekend at Trinity Church was momentous in the history of our church.  This Palm Sunday saw the launch of the Beyond Project.  We are launching out into a new building project, but it’s more than that.  It’s not about the buildings, the improvements, or a chance to have more space.  It’s about the fulfilling the vision of our church to reach the next generations.  We’ve labeled it the Beyond Project, out of Deuteronomy 30:11, “Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or BEYOND your reach.”

The plans have been in the works for well over 3 years, and this weekend the ‘cat was let out of the bag’ (so to speak) and it was revealed to our church body.  It was a massive effort to get the word out to our church body, with packets of information distributed to over 4,500 families that attend our church.  Most packets were handed out to families that attended our weekend services, but that was not all.  Later in the day over 200 people took the remaining Beyond packets into the community, and hand delivered them to those families that were not in attendance.  It was a promotional blitz of epic proportions!

There was a write-up in the local paper on Monday morning, (albiet not very accurate in it’s reporting…) and the church and families are a buzz with anticipation of how this is going to all roll out of the next few weeks, into the next few years.  As the Children’s Pastor, I’m most excited that the drive behind this entire project is to create more space, and better environments for our children and families.  It’s going to be awesome!

Here is a video that is about 5 minutes long, but you can visit www.beyondtrinity.com for all the higher quality videos, images, FAQ’s, Vision, History of Trinity, and just about anything else you could need related to the Beyond Project at Trinity Church!

Trinity Church // Beyond: A Vision for Tomorrow from Jonathan Cliff on Vimeo.

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