My latest article for Ministry Matters can be found here.
Also, I would like to thank Hillary Brown and Emma Chorley for their WONDERFUL help with the Christmas pageant, and Father Robert and Father Michael for their work on our Christmas Eve family service. There's nine and a half hours left in the Christmas season, so let me wish you all a very happy Christmas and a blessed Epiphany! Posting on this blog will be much more frequent in the new year.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Thursday, 1 December 2011
"Mary Had a Baby" ... so what?
My latest article for Ministry Matters looks at how to make Advent and Christmas meaningful for children, by helping to understand how the Incarnation is still relevant today.
It also has a wicked cool picture of a Jesse tree icon.
It also has a wicked cool picture of a Jesse tree icon.
Sunday, 27 November 2011
My past catches up with me!
Hello, readers.
Some of you may have noticed some negative comments posted on a previous post of mine, disparaging my conduct in a previous job I held.
Needless to say, these posts are lies and/or irrelevant. I don't want to delete them because I don't want to look as though I have anything to hide. I was the victim of bullying at a previous job of mine, which my current boss is fully aware of and fully sympathetic to. I have worked hard to try and move past the experience, but the petty and shallow behaviour of some of the people involved seems to have followed me here.
One of them mentioned in their post that Christians are supposed to "forgive" people. To be the better person.
This reminds me of something in my mother's book, Learning to Love. How do you forgive someone who hasn't said they're sorry? Who hasn't acknowledged the hurt they've caused you? Can you break ties with someone and forgive them at the same time? She points out that Jesus says you must ask forgiveness before your Father can give it to you - without acknowledgement of wrongdoing, true FORGIVENESS - the reparation of a relationship - cannot happen. Making peace with the hurt someone has caused you is a different thing - forgiving someone in your own heart is different from forgiving and repairing a relationship. I have moved on in my own life, to a job where I feel as though I am appreciated, where I am thriving, where I am making a difference. I find it sad that people would follow me to this blog three years after the events and try to defame my character. But I am no longer eaten up with bitterness and hatred as I was three years ago. And for that, I have Father Michael and Father Robert to thank, who have shown me such support and welcome in my ministry at St. George's, as well as all the parents, who have entrusted me with their children and welcomed me into their lives.
I'm sorry for anyone who has come across these posts and hope that they will not distract you from the main purpose of this blog, which is to share ideas and experiences on the topics of children's ministry and children's spirituality.
I pray for all who have been victims of bullying, and for all who are bullies, that all may come together in love in God's kingdom.
Some of you may have noticed some negative comments posted on a previous post of mine, disparaging my conduct in a previous job I held.
Needless to say, these posts are lies and/or irrelevant. I don't want to delete them because I don't want to look as though I have anything to hide. I was the victim of bullying at a previous job of mine, which my current boss is fully aware of and fully sympathetic to. I have worked hard to try and move past the experience, but the petty and shallow behaviour of some of the people involved seems to have followed me here.
One of them mentioned in their post that Christians are supposed to "forgive" people. To be the better person.
This reminds me of something in my mother's book, Learning to Love. How do you forgive someone who hasn't said they're sorry? Who hasn't acknowledged the hurt they've caused you? Can you break ties with someone and forgive them at the same time? She points out that Jesus says you must ask forgiveness before your Father can give it to you - without acknowledgement of wrongdoing, true FORGIVENESS - the reparation of a relationship - cannot happen. Making peace with the hurt someone has caused you is a different thing - forgiving someone in your own heart is different from forgiving and repairing a relationship. I have moved on in my own life, to a job where I feel as though I am appreciated, where I am thriving, where I am making a difference. I find it sad that people would follow me to this blog three years after the events and try to defame my character. But I am no longer eaten up with bitterness and hatred as I was three years ago. And for that, I have Father Michael and Father Robert to thank, who have shown me such support and welcome in my ministry at St. George's, as well as all the parents, who have entrusted me with their children and welcomed me into their lives.
I'm sorry for anyone who has come across these posts and hope that they will not distract you from the main purpose of this blog, which is to share ideas and experiences on the topics of children's ministry and children's spirituality.
I pray for all who have been victims of bullying, and for all who are bullies, that all may come together in love in God's kingdom.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Service and pastoral care.
I've been stressing out a lot lately on how to start doing service projects with the older Sunday School kids. We have very few teenagers at St. George's, but we have a large number of 9- to 11-year-olds, and I'm working on slowly turning them into their own "clique" (in a good way), so that when they outgrow Sunday School, we'll have a ready-made youth group ready for them.
A lot of them are very enthusiastic about raising money for charities - we had a child who raised over £120 with a bake sale for Children in Need - but I want them to know more than just fund-raising. I want to do hands-on projects with them. But I don't want to do it in a way that is patronising ("hey, kids, let's go meet some poor people and help them!"), and I don't want to do it in a way that gets in the way of actual skilled charity workers doing their actual skilled work. My experience volunteering with the Children's Mission of St. Paul and St. James showed me that well-meaning groups of teenagers from the suburbs can actually be more hassle than they're worth - the staff know what they're doing, and when the teenagers come to "help with a programme for inner-city kids," the staff ends up having to babysit the clueless teenage helpers as well as do the actual programme. Sometimes, what's needed is for people to just give money and let the people who know what they're doing get on with the work.
But that can lead to isolation - children in wealthy areas of Kensington sending money off to charities without any real contact with people who are different from them, or people who are suffering. The desire to "help" can become insular or even smug, and disconnected from any sense of the realities of other people's lives, or the feeling that real love involves getting in the trenches with people as well as sharing resources with them.
Martin (our new Administrator) and I went to a course on "Power, Poverty and the Church" last week, which advocated for a relational model of service as opposed to a noblesse oblige model or a procedural/bureaucratic model. That the way to give people not just aid but agency and power over their own lives is to build relationships with them first and then to see what they need and help empower them to gain it. The idea of starting with relationship has helped to sort out some of these issues. Possibly we could get in touch with a church in a deprived area and start a youth group together - an arts group, or a sports group (or both), and work on creating relationships between the young people and seeing where that leads us. Perhaps we could open a youth club in the community space one or two afternoons per week, focusing at first solely on getting to know people, and then on serving their needs. Perhaps we could visit a domestic violence shelter around Christmas and focus not on giving (we'd bring a donation of toys but that wouldn't be the main event) but just on sharing time and activities together.
And I can't forget to grab the pastoral opportunities that arise in normal church life and share them with the kids. A child in our Sunday School is ill and has been hospitalised for the last week (she's home now), and so I've amended our Sunday School lesson plan for this week to include making a Get Well card for her. That's an act of service that comes out of an existing relationship, and the kids will take the lead on it. It's a start.
A lot of them are very enthusiastic about raising money for charities - we had a child who raised over £120 with a bake sale for Children in Need - but I want them to know more than just fund-raising. I want to do hands-on projects with them. But I don't want to do it in a way that is patronising ("hey, kids, let's go meet some poor people and help them!"), and I don't want to do it in a way that gets in the way of actual skilled charity workers doing their actual skilled work. My experience volunteering with the Children's Mission of St. Paul and St. James showed me that well-meaning groups of teenagers from the suburbs can actually be more hassle than they're worth - the staff know what they're doing, and when the teenagers come to "help with a programme for inner-city kids," the staff ends up having to babysit the clueless teenage helpers as well as do the actual programme. Sometimes, what's needed is for people to just give money and let the people who know what they're doing get on with the work.
But that can lead to isolation - children in wealthy areas of Kensington sending money off to charities without any real contact with people who are different from them, or people who are suffering. The desire to "help" can become insular or even smug, and disconnected from any sense of the realities of other people's lives, or the feeling that real love involves getting in the trenches with people as well as sharing resources with them.
Martin (our new Administrator) and I went to a course on "Power, Poverty and the Church" last week, which advocated for a relational model of service as opposed to a noblesse oblige model or a procedural/bureaucratic model. That the way to give people not just aid but agency and power over their own lives is to build relationships with them first and then to see what they need and help empower them to gain it. The idea of starting with relationship has helped to sort out some of these issues. Possibly we could get in touch with a church in a deprived area and start a youth group together - an arts group, or a sports group (or both), and work on creating relationships between the young people and seeing where that leads us. Perhaps we could open a youth club in the community space one or two afternoons per week, focusing at first solely on getting to know people, and then on serving their needs. Perhaps we could visit a domestic violence shelter around Christmas and focus not on giving (we'd bring a donation of toys but that wouldn't be the main event) but just on sharing time and activities together.
And I can't forget to grab the pastoral opportunities that arise in normal church life and share them with the kids. A child in our Sunday School is ill and has been hospitalised for the last week (she's home now), and so I've amended our Sunday School lesson plan for this week to include making a Get Well card for her. That's an act of service that comes out of an existing relationship, and the kids will take the lead on it. It's a start.
Monday, 31 October 2011
Happy All Saints' Day (Eve)!
 |
| Eleanor (Boo) O'Neill, acolyting at our All Saints' Sunday All-Age Eucharist, with the banner made by our children at our All Saints' Family Day on Saturday. It shows St. George, our patron. Each year, we'll make one more banner of a saint, so each year the "cloud of witnesses" we carry in procession with us on All Saints' Day is greater! |
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Bread!
A few parents have requested this recipe, so here it is.
This is the bread we bake together on all our Family Days, and sometimes at other occasions such as Harvest, Holy Week, etc. Bread can symbolise the Body of Christ, the lifegiving death of the fruits of the harvest (a natural metaphor for the Body of Christ!), and our communal life together.
It's virtually foolproof - even if the water is too hot and the yeast doesn't proof as well as it should, and it doesn't really rise, as happened at our All Saints' Family Day yesterday, it still tastes good!
2 cups warm water
1 package yeast
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup honey (use the same measuring cup, right after the oil - the honey will slide right out of it!)
2 teaspoons salt
Flour (as much as is needed to turn it to dough - about seven cups - and more for kneading and shaping)
Mix the ingredients together, and then knead. Set the dough to rise for at least two hours, in a warm, moist place.
Punch the risen dough down, and cover a workplace with flour. Sprinkle a little extra flour on top of the dough. The dough can then be shaped - encourage children to think of an appropriate shape for the occasion.
When you've shaped the dough, set it to rise again, then brush it with egg or oil, and bake. Smaller sculptures can bake in about 20 minutes at 190C, while larger ones may take up to 45.
Here are some examples of how you can shape the dough (these are my own work, not kids' work).
This is the bread we bake together on all our Family Days, and sometimes at other occasions such as Harvest, Holy Week, etc. Bread can symbolise the Body of Christ, the lifegiving death of the fruits of the harvest (a natural metaphor for the Body of Christ!), and our communal life together.
It's virtually foolproof - even if the water is too hot and the yeast doesn't proof as well as it should, and it doesn't really rise, as happened at our All Saints' Family Day yesterday, it still tastes good!
2 cups warm water
1 package yeast
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup honey (use the same measuring cup, right after the oil - the honey will slide right out of it!)
2 teaspoons salt
Flour (as much as is needed to turn it to dough - about seven cups - and more for kneading and shaping)
Mix the ingredients together, and then knead. Set the dough to rise for at least two hours, in a warm, moist place.
Punch the risen dough down, and cover a workplace with flour. Sprinkle a little extra flour on top of the dough. The dough can then be shaped - encourage children to think of an appropriate shape for the occasion.
When you've shaped the dough, set it to rise again, then brush it with egg or oil, and bake. Smaller sculptures can bake in about 20 minutes at 190C, while larger ones may take up to 45.
Here are some examples of how you can shape the dough (these are my own work, not kids' work).
 |
| An angel, at Christmas. |
 |
| A sheaf of wheat, at Easter. |
 | |
| At first glance, this looks like a bunny, but it's actually Jonah and the whale.. The ear-like structures are the whale's tail. Jonah is visible at the far right, being spat out. |
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
If Jesus had had MY job, the Gospels might look like THIS.
I first published this on my personal blog almost a year ago, and it still rings true, so I thought I'd share it with you!
* * * * * *
And it came to pass that it was Tuesday, and the Toddler Craft Group did meet in the Community Space. So Jesus went forth to the community space, and he did set up the paint and the glitter and the clay and the toys and the tea and the coffee and the biscuits and the banana. And the toddlers came unto the community space with their nannies and their mothers, and they did stick their hands in the paint and create an enormous mess. And Jesus did bless the children, saying, "that is exactly the point of this craft group, but my goodness, it doth make a mess."
And the toddlers sat in a circle, with their nannies and their mothers, and they did sing "The Wheels on the Bus" and "This Little Light of Mine," and they did play upon the rattles and the bells and the castanets. And the nannies and the mothers helped with the clean-up as best they could, but soon after, they departed, back to their own homes. And Jesus did then have to take DOWN the paint and the glitter and the clay and the toys and the tea and the coffee and the biscuits and the banana, and return the Community Space to the condition wherein he had found it. And he did cry out, "O Lord, why didst thou make paint so difficult to remove from teacups???" This was to fulfill the prophecy, as it was written, "my servant shall be covered in paint, yea, even up to his very elbows. But I will rejoice in him and make him great and shall give unto him the last Jaffa Cake to reward him for his tribulations."
Soon after, it was a Sunday morning, and Jesus did approach the Central Line, to go from Leyton to Notting Hill Gate. And lo, there were delays upon the Central Line, both upon its eastbound trains and upon its westbound trains. And Jesus did arrive at Notting Hill Gate, and lo, there were many tourists. And the crowd of tourists pressed upon Jesus as he approached the escalator, and Jesus' disciples said to him, "Master, why do you not curse these tourists, for they are blocking the escalator?" And Jesus said, "Truly, I say unto you, these tourists are as lost lambs. For they are not Londoners and they do not know that you are supposed to stand on the right of the escalator and leave the left side free for people to walk past." And then God sent an impatient woman with a toddler to the escalator, and she spoke out against the tourists, and the tourists did part and let the woman with the toddler through upon the left side of the escalator. And Jesus did follow her, and pass up the escalator on dry land.
As it was approaching the feast of February Half-Term, the twelve Sunday School teachers did say unto Jesus, "behold - half-term draws near, and we must withdraw to the Swiss Alps or the Canary Islands for a holiday with our families." And Jesus did look at the Sunday School rota and did despair, for the last Sunday of Half-Term was empty. And one Sunday School teacher said to Jesus, "Master, I am not going to the Swiss Alps or the Canary Islands, so I shall take upon myself the burden of teaching that Sunday." And Jesus said, "behold, this Sunday School teacher is a true son of Abraham, and has brought salvation this day. For blessed are they who volunteer when everyone else is away on holiday, somewhere sunny, with little fruit cocktails and warm sand, while we remain behind to freeze and get rained upon and suffer yet more delays on the Central Line."
This is the word of the Lord.
* * * * * *
And it came to pass that it was Tuesday, and the Toddler Craft Group did meet in the Community Space. So Jesus went forth to the community space, and he did set up the paint and the glitter and the clay and the toys and the tea and the coffee and the biscuits and the banana. And the toddlers came unto the community space with their nannies and their mothers, and they did stick their hands in the paint and create an enormous mess. And Jesus did bless the children, saying, "that is exactly the point of this craft group, but my goodness, it doth make a mess."
And the toddlers sat in a circle, with their nannies and their mothers, and they did sing "The Wheels on the Bus" and "This Little Light of Mine," and they did play upon the rattles and the bells and the castanets. And the nannies and the mothers helped with the clean-up as best they could, but soon after, they departed, back to their own homes. And Jesus did then have to take DOWN the paint and the glitter and the clay and the toys and the tea and the coffee and the biscuits and the banana, and return the Community Space to the condition wherein he had found it. And he did cry out, "O Lord, why didst thou make paint so difficult to remove from teacups???" This was to fulfill the prophecy, as it was written, "my servant shall be covered in paint, yea, even up to his very elbows. But I will rejoice in him and make him great and shall give unto him the last Jaffa Cake to reward him for his tribulations."
Soon after, it was a Sunday morning, and Jesus did approach the Central Line, to go from Leyton to Notting Hill Gate. And lo, there were delays upon the Central Line, both upon its eastbound trains and upon its westbound trains. And Jesus did arrive at Notting Hill Gate, and lo, there were many tourists. And the crowd of tourists pressed upon Jesus as he approached the escalator, and Jesus' disciples said to him, "Master, why do you not curse these tourists, for they are blocking the escalator?" And Jesus said, "Truly, I say unto you, these tourists are as lost lambs. For they are not Londoners and they do not know that you are supposed to stand on the right of the escalator and leave the left side free for people to walk past." And then God sent an impatient woman with a toddler to the escalator, and she spoke out against the tourists, and the tourists did part and let the woman with the toddler through upon the left side of the escalator. And Jesus did follow her, and pass up the escalator on dry land.
As it was approaching the feast of February Half-Term, the twelve Sunday School teachers did say unto Jesus, "behold - half-term draws near, and we must withdraw to the Swiss Alps or the Canary Islands for a holiday with our families." And Jesus did look at the Sunday School rota and did despair, for the last Sunday of Half-Term was empty. And one Sunday School teacher said to Jesus, "Master, I am not going to the Swiss Alps or the Canary Islands, so I shall take upon myself the burden of teaching that Sunday." And Jesus said, "behold, this Sunday School teacher is a true son of Abraham, and has brought salvation this day. For blessed are they who volunteer when everyone else is away on holiday, somewhere sunny, with little fruit cocktails and warm sand, while we remain behind to freeze and get rained upon and suffer yet more delays on the Central Line."
This is the word of the Lord.
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