The Sessions

The first speaker, Christine Yount Jones is the editor for Group's Children's Ministry magazine. She spoke about erasing your fears in ministry. She said there are three things that make us afraid: being wrong, meeting your worst case scenario, and the fear of breaking something. For each of these her advice was to stick with it and learn why something isn't working, leaning into your worst case scenario because even though it will hurt, you'll come through it and survive, and last but not least if God is calling you to break something then erase your fears and break it, because he's already gone before you in it.

The next session offered some scary statistics about losing kids from the faith, because they walk away from it when they're older. I think the most important point the speaker made was that it doesn't matter how creative our programs are at church if it's not backed up at home. The family cannot be the church, but the church can't be the family either. Both are needed and spiritual develpment must be intentional in both places.

The last session was pretty cool. They had a Disney animator come in and share his testimony. It was awesome to see how his own spiritual struggles and triumphs were portrayed in the characters and scenes he drew. He designed the characters: Ariel, Tarzan, Pocahontas, Aladdin, the beast.

Then Aaron Reynolds spoke last and gave 3 important points to children's ministry. The first, we need to know the kids on a deep level...we need to understand their world. Second we must equip kids for transformation through ruthless application. And last we must bring the Bible to life for kids and teach it with heart.

In knowing the kids, Aaron mentioned a scary statistic. He stated that 1 in 12 kids are not a virgin by their 13th birthday. Can you imagine?

Well that's it for day one...I can't wait for tomorrow!