Your Journey Blog

Teaching Your Grade School Children About God, Jesus & the Bible

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.  Deuteronomy 6:5-9

One of the positive trends we are seeing take place in children's ministry is not just teaching children spiritual content in a loving, fun and safe environment but there is a great emphasis on training parents in how to disciple their children.

Life's Biggest Adventure is a tool for parents to use with their grade school aged children as they guide them through the following questions:

• What is the gospel?
• How do I know I am a Christian?
• What is baptism?
• Why do we take communion?
• How do I pray?
• How do I start reading the Bible?
• How do I deal with temptation?
• How do I tell my friends about Jesus?

I'm so thankful for Life's Biggest Adventure!   It's one thing for me as a pastor to tell parents they need to disciple their children, but it is quite another to be able to offer them an easy-to-use tool that helps them to impart their faith to their kids.  And I'm even more grateful for what this book has meant for me as a father.  Fathers are called to spiritually lead their children, and this book helped me to be a better dad as my son and I worked through the book together.  He took new steps of growth, and it culminated with his decision to be baptized as a follower of Christ.  I will treasure the memory of those sessions with my son for the rest of my life!    Mark Albrecht, NorthBridge Church, Antioch, IL

PURCHASE HERE

Church Planting is Messy!

Last fall I hit the ten year mark of serving in my position as Director of Church Planting for the Midwest Baptist Conference (now known as Converge MidAmerica).  When I entered this ministry a well known church planting leader told me, “Gary, remember movements are messy!  They are filled with all sorts of victories, setbacks and defeats.  Don’t let the messiness of church planting distract you from moving forward in God’s mission.”

The setbacks and defeats are often ugly and come after times of great victories. Last October we celebrated two of our churches getting into new facilities. Heartland Church, in the Indianapolis area, and Crosswinds Community Church in Bloomington, Illinois both had record attendances and are on the pathway of becoming multiplying churches.  During the very next week I received two phone calls from a three year old church and a six year old church…that they were closing their doors.  With every victory there are setbacks and even defeats.  

Taking three steps forward and two steps backwards is all because we are in a battle, a spiritual battle of epic proportions!  The Apostle Paul wrote, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”  (Ephesians 6:12)  The Apostle Peter wrote these words to young leaders, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  (I Peter 5:8)   The enemy wants to not only attack churches but he wants to destroy the future of the church, its young leaders. 

I have seen those spiritual attacks come in a variety of stages: 1) The enemy tries to discourage the leader, 2) if he cannot discourage them then he tries to distract them from God’s mission with all sorts of good, well meaning activities, 3) if he cannot distract them then he tries to derail them. The enemy tries to derail through a variety of temptations that attack the spiritual, moral, ethical, and relational fiber of a leader.  4) If the enemy cannot derail them, then he seeks to disqualify them from ministry and destroy their soul, their ministry and all those touched by their ministry.

Not only do the setbacks and defeats come because we are in a spiritual war they also come to keep the leaders humble, broken and surrendered.   David Yonggi Cho wrote, “The lesson of brokenness is not a popular one today. People only want to know how to be successful, Yet, I have learned that success does not come by learning easy formulas or principles: We must learn the secret of brokenness, which gives us more grace. It is that grace that grants us ultimate success.” 

The Apostle James addressed the issue of brokenness, “But  he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

Brokenness keeps us from trusting in our success.  Brokenness keeps us clinging to our Savior.  Brokenness keeps us completely surrendered.

Over the last ten years I can say that I have experienced more of the grace of God.  It is only by the grace of God  I have been able to keep my head in the game of this type of ministry and it will only be by the grace of God that we will see His Kingdom expanded.

So we praise God not only for the victories but also the setbacks and defeats.

O God, forgive the poverty and the pettiness of our prayers. Listen not to our words but to the yearnings of our hearts. Hear beneath our petitions the crying of our need.  -  Peter Marshall

Sowing Seeds through Marketing - Part 4

Every church has a marketing plan!  The only difference is that some are better than others!  When I think of marketing I think of building a relationship with those within reach of your ministry who know nothing about your church or are disconnected from your people.  This week we will finish with another set of practical tips for sowing evangelistic seeds through effective marketing.

14.  Strive for excellence and deliver what you promise - Setting expectations in very important!  If you market that you have upbeat and inspiring music, you better have upbeat and inspiring music.  If you tell people you have quality children’s programs you better deliver it.  One of the problems church planter’s wrestle with is that of the “over promise and under deliver.”  This problem reveals itself in the lack of retention from the Grand Opening.

15.  Give yourself enough time to implement your marketing strategy - Many church planters have dropped the ball on this issue and try to execute their launch or big day in a flurry of activity because of poor planning.  Pick a launch date four to six months before and develop a weekly project planner with detailed action items and deadlines.

Here are six basics in implementing your launch or big day:

• Do your research – most of the demographic and psychographic research should have been done in your church planting proposal identifying those who will respond to the marketing strategy. If you want to reach young married couples, don’t put pictures of singles on the front. Design your piece to connect with those you target.

• Define who you are in a marketable way – if you have done a thorough church planting proposal, your vision and values should be clear and well developed.

• Brainstorm ways to get the message out and to create a new identity in the community.  Some church planting experts suggest you plan for at least fifty marketing touches into the community.

• Count the cost – good marketing WILL cost money.  Raise at least $15,000-25,000 for your launch/big day and set aside a minimum of 10% of your budget for your ongoing marketing strategy.

• Make a reasonable marketing plan with sufficient time to plan. Rushing and last minute causes mistakes. You should use the three month rule at a minimum.

• Learn something each time you execute your marketing strategy.  Marketing is one of the skills a barrier breaking leader needs to develop.

16. Keep at it! Remember marketing is building a relationship!  If you use marketing for a year and stop, you cut off your relationship with the larger community.  Then you will have to re-start the relationship all over again. The old adage “it takes six to stick” is proven true over and over again.  I realized this in year three of our church plant.  I had found a very inexpensive way to touch our community of 10,000 homes. Three times a year we would print and put inserts in the local newspaper for $500 each time.  In year three we started reaping some of the benefits of our marketing strategy, when we heard reports of people saying, “I kept getting those flyers in the newspaper and I decided to finally check it out.”  One of our members said, “I was at my neighbor’s home and they had the flyer on their refrigerator. So I asked, ‘Do you go to Countryside?’  My neighbor said, ‘No, not yet, but I really like the topics that he is talking about. We’re going to try to make it one of these Sundays.’”  One month later this person came with her family and within six months the family had come into a relationship with Jesus and became key players in the church.  I think of the hundreds of people that came to our services that had no connection with me or our people because we were willing to build a sustained relationship with them through marketing.

Excerpts from FirstSteps to Planting a Missional Church