Why a House Church? “Whose turn is it this week?” “I can host.” “Okay, we will meet up at 6 p.m. See you then.” Every Friday night, a group of ten adults and eight children and two soon-to-be borns gather. This group, our house church, is like a family. We cook...
Congregations need to move past the old paradigm that the church is solely responsible for developing faith formation. Instead the church should be a mentor and someone to walk alongside parents as they develop faith formation in their own children. This is what 21st...
The Difficult Times of Children: The Church’s Role When Lives Are Troubled by Rebecca Davis The ideal of childhood is characterized by the poet Francis Thompson writing on Shelley: Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the...
How Parents Can Help Involve Children in Worship by Dorothy Henderson Worship is the central unifying act of the whole Christian community. Parents, as well as other church members, believe that children belong in worship and should be fully involved as...
The Cradle Roll Revisited: Ensure that the newest generation is not forgotten by Carol Wehrheim When I was a child, a cradle roll was displayed on the wall just outside the Beginners Sunday School room in my church. A large paper cradle was at the top. From it, on...
by Karen DeBoer I dreaded the baptism day of each of our four children. I fretted about what I would wear, when to feed the baby, how to feed extended family, and whether or not the baby’s siblings would start to fight while we were standing at the front of the...
by Carol Wehrheim Celebrating a child’s baptism anniversary is one way for families to nurture the faith of the child as well as each member of the family. However, I don’t know this from personal experience. I didn’t know my baptismal date until well into adulthood...
By: Joyce MacKichan Walker No matter where it falls in the week after Christmas, the next Sunday can be a challenge. Another service of lessons and carols? A family-friendly hour that might include all-ages in leadership? Some poetry, liturgical dance – worship...
By: Doodle Harris We started Tween Camp six years ago. It began after a year of successful presbytery events for middle school youth and high school youth. Young people from different churches were beginning to connect. They’d exchanged snap chats and phone...
By: Kathryn McGregor Each summer, our church hosts a large, well-established Vacation Bible School (VBS). The VBS leaders began to notice, however, that participation by fourth- and fifth-graders was decreasing. These children said they felt that they had outgrown...
