St. Mark's Reformed Episcopal Church

Children's Ministry

We as a church firmly believe that ministering to and teaching our children is a vital and essential aspect of our ministry. In what follows please read about our philosophy of Children's Ministry.

Towards a Philosophy of Children’s Ministry

(1) General Guiding Principles & Our Broad Objectives

Our ministry to our children is of great and central importance to us. This ministry is not an attempt to dress up childcare or babysitting in Sunday School garb and then pass it off as Christian education. Rather, we are convinced that the duty and vocation of the Church to fulfill the Great Commission in regard to our children is fundamentally the same duty and vocation which the Church has received regarding adults. The manner in which we will seek to be faithful to this duty and vocation may be differently expressed, but the calling and final objective is the same.

The Church is called to be a witness to Christ and the Gospel both evangelistically and in terms of discipleship. That is, the Church is to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light (that’s the evangelistic aspect) and be a place in which disciples are then trained in the ways of Christ, learning what it means to offer to God one’s life as a living sacrifice (see Romans 12:1-2).

Therefore, our Children’s Church ministry has two main objectives:

to see that our children come to a lively faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and
to teach our children how to live as disciples of Jesus.

I hope you will notice that these 2 objectives (which are the same objectives that we have for adults, I might add) are simply summaries of the 2 main thrusts of the Great Commission (which is the Mission of the church, see Matthew 28:16-20).

(2) The 3 Goals of Children’s Ministry

Knowing God, Believing the Faith, Loving & Obeying

Having stated these 2 broad objectives, allow me to offer a few more comments in a bit more detail. I think that it is helpful to utilize 3 categories when we think about our duty to our children. These 3 categories are based upon the promises made in our baptismal liturgy, namely that the child will be taught: (1) the Lord’s Prayer, (2) the Creed and (3) the 10 Commandments.

The promise to teach these things to our children entails far more than simply rote memorization (though it should include that). In teaching them to pray the Lord’s Prayer, we should strive to teach our children how to relate to God the Father, through the Son and by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is a promise to teach them how to live a life of prayerfulness and dependence upon God.

In teaching them the Creed, we are teaching our children what Christians believe (sound Christian doctrine). This is a promise to teach them the content of the Faith.

In teaching them the 10 Commandments, we are teaching our children how to live a life that is in the pursuit of holiness. This is a promise to teach them that our love for God motivates us to desire to obey Him and to keep His word.

And now I must say something that might sound rather strange – the calling to teach children these things is not simply the Church’s calling, but rather it is the calling and vocation of the family. Allow me to explain why I believe this to be true in what follows.

Ministry to Children begins and ends in the Home

The Church’s role is not to supplant the role of the family in the spiritual formation of children, rather it is to support it.

Therefore, as a church we will strive to help parents grow in Christ, in order that they might then be better equipped to raise their children to know and love God. We will seek to accomplish this (by God’s grace) through Biblical preaching and teaching, opportunities for adult Christian education (Bible studies, book discussion groups, etc.), by learning to pray together (that is, learning to fashion our prayer lives in keeping with the prayer of the Church) and through pursuing Christ centered relationships with each other within the fellowship of the church.

Our most effective means of seeing the children of this parish grow to love and obey God will be by means of having strong Christian families.

This necessitates first and foremost that the parent(s) themselves pursue continual growth in Christian virtue and discipline. The best advice that I have heard for Christian parents who long to see their child(ren) become lifelong worshippers of God (in addition to regular church attendance and reception of the sacrament) is that they give attention to their own spiritual lives and that they do so in the context of their homes. And that will mean making a plan as to how your family is going to worship God within your home each day. The plan should be doable (that is, not overly ambitious such that you come out of the gate splendidly but fizzle out after a few days), structured (use a set form or pattern – the family prayers in the Book of Common Prayer 1928 are excellent, or ask me for some suggestions) and regular (both in terms of time and location – that is, choose a particular time of the day and a particular place that you will gather as a family).

There is no Sunday school program or children’s ministry that we can implement as a church that will be as beneficial to your children as it will be for them to join you in regular family worship. They will benefit both from the regularity of the worship and perhaps even more significantly, they will benefit from seeing you (as the parent(s)) modeling to them a life that is oriented toward God.

Whatever form your family prayers take, I should think that minimally it should include the reading of God’s Word (with a simple and short explanation of its meaning whenever possible) and a time of prayer (the length and complexity of which should be determined in keeping with the children – you want them to be able to understand and participate but you should not underestimate their ability to memorize and participate in prayers – experiment until you find a balance that is both accessible to your children but also sufficiently challenging to them such that they have something to which they might aspire).

Many of our lives are already very busy and perhaps you are thinking “there is no way that I can add anything else to our daily schedule.” In response to this, let me humbly suggest that you reevaluate your priorities. There are few things of greater importance for you to invest in as a parent than the spiritual formation of your children. Drop something else if you need to, but find a way to pattern your family life such that you read the Scriptures and pray with your children every day.

On one last practical note, allow me to suggest that you have the most control over the mornings (as opposed to the evenings) and this might be a good time to schedule your family prayers. Though it is certainly desirable that families eat dinner together nightly, this might be possible only some of the time for some families. But most families begin each day together in the home (at least there is the potential for that) and so even if it is only 10 minutes in the morning, you might try to gather the family and begin the day in prayer together.

A Description of Children's Church at St. Marks

1. The children will begin in the service until dismissed with their teachers during the singing of the sermon hymn.

2. The structure of Children’s Church is modeled after our liturgy and will more or less remain constant week to week. This provides the children with a dependable and structured pattern that after a few weeks they will begin to anticipate (and memorize). This structure is also very beneficial to the teachers, as it means that you don’t need to worry about creating something out of thin air each week.

3. Teachers will receive plenty of notice as to the subject/themes they’re assigned to teach as well as a curriculum packet containing ideas for activities, crafts, games, etc.