Anglican Youth, Children and Families

Primary Ichthus always seems to come around too quickly each year and mentally as a camp coordinator, I consider it to be the end of my ‘camping season’ allowing me some time to regroup before kicking off again the July with Senior Ichthus, yet it is my busiest, most energetic camp and starts my year with a bang! Primary Ichthus was no exception this year with a gathering of 46 campers, a 22 strong leadership team, and me. And boy did we have some fun! Our theme for this year was the ‘Ichthus Cup’, with our campers being placed into four different houses to earn points to win the cup. Watching the realisation on the faces of our winning team was such a great sight, and talking to one of the mothers of that team after the family service, she told me that her daughter rarely wins anything as she isn’t all that athletic. This small interaction made me realise that this cup wasn’t won based on campers being physically capable, or being especially smart; but rather it was bas

As each new year begins, I usually receive a series of phone calls in my office, each of which goes something like this: Caller: Hi Jonathan, it’s Father Fred from St Swithin’s here. We’ve just had a parish visioning day and we’ve identified youth and children’s ministry as one of our top three strategic priorities. We’ve looked around and realised we need to start a youth group and a kids club ASAP, so how do we do that? Me: This is all good to hear but let me ask you this: how often in your church do you have different generations doing something together at the same time? Caller: Basically never, because people wouldn’t enjoy it. Each generation wants to do what it likes doing. Kids want to run around, oldies want to sit and chat. You know how it is – they all have their own needs! Me: Do you remember doing good things at church a long time ago where all the generations were together? Caller: Sure, we used to do all kinds of things – all-age Mothering Sunday services, p