ADVOCATE
Let’s Pause Together
Whenever we meet someone new, invariably we find ourselves asking the question, “So, what kind of work do you do?” It’s a natural inquiry that expresses a curiosity about the other person, helps us establish rapport and usually gives us a place to start building a relationship. Yet, in a subtle but very real way, that question of what someone does reveals who we tend to be as a people and how we view ourselves and others.
Five Favorite Ways to Nurture Your Faith and Care for Yourself
This summer, The Advocate has been highlighting resources – our Top Five Favorites to support and sustain faith formation and ministry. We close this series thinking about self-care. How do we nurture our own faith? What activities have nurtured our soul in this past year? The four of us at the Advocate share our self-care and faith nurturing, and we invite you to fill in Number 5. What has been the thing that has nurtured your soul?
Five Favourite Web-Based Resources for Faith Formation
five favourite web-based resources for faith formation
Five Favourite Classic Educational Ministry Books
Members of the Advocate Ministry Team continue our summer series sharing our five favorite ministry-related items in each article. These articles are meant to be interactive. Each time we post an article with our favorites, we invite you to add your own favorites in...
I’ve Always Wondered…
I’ve Always Wondered… About how we are really formed in the life of the Christian faith About how faith is nurtured and supported About who among us has gifts for spiritually being with children and youth I’ve been thinking and writing about this for a long time...
Stop Confirming Teenagers to Membership
Stop Confirming Teenagers to Membership. Start Confirming them to Mission! Mark D. Hinds Remember when Jesus called his disciples and how he baptized them and appointed them as junior community members? Then when the disciples turned thirteen, he convened a crash...
Simple Things: A Story Journey
"We're doing a Story Journey tomorrow to go along with our church's yard, garden and bake sale. We're featuring Laura Alary's book, What Grew in Larry's Garden. We're so excited." My good friend, Laura Duggin, minister at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newmarket,...
Simple Things: Young People Being Kind
In the summer of 2019, two young sisters set out to spread kindness around their small county in Kentucky. They created “Be Kind” yard signs and sold them to local neighbors and merchants who proudly display them in their front yards and businesses. Money raised by...
Simple Things: A New Arena for Simpler Sundays
It’s Sunday morning and the youth Sunday school teachers are MIA. It’s Sunday morning and the children’s Sunday school teachers are accounted for, but no young people are to be found. It’s Sunday morning and traditional Sunday school has become a thing of the past. If...
Simple Things: A Pre-School Tweak
If there is one thing we’ve learned as Christian educators during this pandemic, it’s that many of our parents were ill-prepared to take on the role of being faith-formers at home when our church buildings closed and our church programmes were shuttered. And, it...