Anglican Youth, Children and Families

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...

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?...

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 t...