Anglican Youth, Children and Families

A couple of weeks ago I had the great pleasure and joy of attending my very first Messy Church at Sherwood Anglican Church. Sherwood Anglican is well known for being champions of Messy Church with Sue and Glen Taylor being strong advocates and trainers for many years of this form of Church Service. Ever since I started this job, Messy Church has often come up in conversations when discussing ways we can become more intergenerational and how we can reach families to share the Gospel in ways and formats that are engaging and welcoming. Messy Church started back in England in 2004 and has since grown and spread across many different countries worldwide. This expression of church at its very heart is about family, to share the gospel and pass along the faith through a service that allows everyone of all ages to come together to learn and worship. I am not an expert on Messy Church so if you are interested in exploring it a little more head straight to their website at www.mess

The heading above is one of the most frequently asked questions we receive in our office. Although there are still some priests out there who maintain the view that church is not something which is meant to be enjoyed - that's why it's called a 'service', they say - the vast majority are pragmatic enough to realise that if families don't enjoy coming to church, they won't come! As a rule, Anglicans in our Diocese are bound by the Prayer Book (the most recent of which is the 1995 A Prayer Book for Australia ) in terms of how we are allowed to conduct services, especially those with Holy Communion on offer, and there are plenty of good reasons for having some rules - for example, I had a serious conversation with someone recently on whether Communion for a young congregation could be done with chips and Coke instead of bread and wine.  (In case you're wondering, no, I didn't think that one would fly...) So what follows is a collection of the most popul

Senior Ichthus ran in the first week of July, and it was an amazing week away for both our campers and our leaders. Senior Ichthus this year was a time of new ideas and changes, a place where we wanted to start to explore how we could challenge and engage our high school seniors in new ways. It was also an exciting time of change in the leadership, with Isaac and Mel directing for the first time and bringing their own fresh ideas and experiences to the camp.   What resulted was a week of great fun, great conversations, and a real sense of community full of love and friendship that was built over the week. We explored the book of Ephesians with the wisdom and guidance of Rev Ian Dredge and Elizabeth Greentree as our Spiritual Directors for the week. And in the week we explored some of the big ideas of Christianity and of being part of the many who follow Christ. Our campers alongside their leaders unpacked the ideas of pre-destination, the power of prayer (does it work? How

https://www.faithandleadership.com/haydn-shaw-churches-need-improve-their-generational-iq Here's an article from Faith and Leadership about a couple of key issues in dealing with multiple generations in one church, and importantly, how to be genuinely Inter-generational.  While the context here is clearly American, I could see most of the author's points fitting the Australian context without much difficulty. I was also interested in the author's interpretation of figures suggesting that statistics showing a decline in the number of people saying they have "no religion" is not necessarily the disaster some have made it out to be.

What are some of the key elements of a strong youth group - especially the ones that might not spring immediately to mind? This is a classic question and recently I uncovered a set of answers from some of our Kiwi cousins. The team of youth staff in Wellington NZ have identified these seven practices as being integral to youth ministry in their diocese. (I've added my comments on each one.) Tribal Identity:  Ensure you have a group culture and that everyone knows they are part of your group.  (Comment: There are lots of ways to produce a good sense of tribe. Some churches have a designated Youth Room or youth group name or particular rituals each time they meet.) Small Group Belonging:  Every young person will be part of a smaller group with a leader assigned to that group.  (Comment: if the YG is already small (say, ten members or fewer), smaller groups may not be necessary.  But otherwise, some kind of 'small group time' is almost essential so that people can be hear

Every two years, a highlight of my PD calendar comes around - an opportunity to interact with other leaders of family ministry and children's ministry from across Australia and New Zealand, hearing of successes and struggles across denominations and boundaries. I was surprised to learn this was the ninth time the biennial "Leaders 2 Go" conference has been held.  About 80 delegates gathered once again at the beautiful Stanwell Tops conference centre between Sydney and Wollongong NSW to share in three days of worship, fellowship and of course learning about what is happening across the world in our shared areas of ministry interest. One of the highlights was the theme itself and how this was worked out over our time together.  There was a lot of focus on the natural growth of the trees around us, tree imagery in the Bible (like Hosea 14:5-9) and how we could grow and mature over the course of the conference, and how our congregations could grow in the future. This was

“Its ministry is not flashy, its facilities are pretty basic, and it has only one full-time staff person. However, the church is now a place where young people love to be and where they are growing in their faith” Book Title: Growing Young: 6 essential strategies to help young people discover and love your church Written By: Kara Powell, Jake Mulder, and Brad Griffin. Researchers at Fuller Youth Institute America.   Available At:   Roscoe Library   Kindle   Koorong Recommended Readers: Clergy, Youth Pastors, Anyone involved in Youth Ministry, Anyone involved in Young Adult Ministry, Anyone passionate about Youth and Young Adults, ideally everyone Help! I don’t have time to read (aka recommended short version): Read Chapter One which summarises the key themes and overall research really well and then take a quick read of the ‘Chapter Highlights’ located at the end of each chapter. Then read accordingly to whatever takes you interest, curiosity, or sense of famil

Recently, I was invited to speak at a new event for Dalby parish - a parish camp.  Actually, a parish camp is not a new idea, and nor was it for Dalby, but it had been a long time since their last one.  So it seemed like a new thing all over again. St John's Dalby is a parish which I frankly like a LOT.  Last year they funded, recruited and appointed Annabel Harth as a professional 'Young Families Minister' (a stipendiary lay minister, in Churchspeak).  This showed that they were serious about engaging with families with young children, both inside and outside the parish.  This has led to all kinds of exciting experiments, including the re-establishment of a parish camp aimed at all ages. "Intergenerational" has been a buzzword for a while now in Christian ministry circles, so it's important to understand that it does NOT mean 'children's activities which adults are invited to watch and/or supervise'.  It really means activities where, over