Blog post by Kati Berreth (Redeemer Kids Director)

Gospel Communities are just that, a community that is based on the Gospel. As you think about that purpose for gathering, whether it is around a meal, dessert, community event, or in a circle discussing the sermon questions, what brings you all together is your love of the Gospel and your desire for the Gospel to be made known to the ends of the earth.

With that as the purpose, the inclusion of kids into your GC is not as daunting a task as you might think. When we think about including kids into our GC, we often think that means that our GC has to be kid centered. This isn’t true, the same as your GC being young adult, single or married, or just adult centered isn’t the case. Gospel Communities at Redeemer should be and are Gospel Centered. Your GC gets to look Gospel Centered where everyone in your group gets to hear the Gospel proclaimed at some point during your meeting.

So what might that look like? Here are some ways to welcome your future brothers and sisters in Christ that are 2-4 years old into your worship of Jesus at your GC meeting.

1. (Sing and Dance together)  Kids love music so if you have someone in your group who plays the guitar, ask him or her to bring it and sing a few songs together. The more you do this, repeating the same songs, the faster the kids will be able to pick up on the lyrics and sing along with you…and until that time, let them dance to the Lord, just like David did. There are not a lot of things sweeter in life than seeing a 2 year old dance to music that praises God without inhibitions or a 4 year old singing “Here I raise my Elbowneezer:)”
2. (Pray together) After your meal or dessert and before kids go off to play (which is a great way for them to be building community as well so continue to let them play with their friends) stand in a circle holding hands (which keeps busy hands still for a few minutes) and ask everyone to pray for the person on their left. Praying together will model how to pray aloud not only to the kids but to some adults in the room as well. And if there are older kids you can modify the prayer time to assign families to pray using ACTS - Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication to focus the prayer time.
3. (Read the word together) Gather everyone together and have kids sit on laps or on the floor with their parents and read the verses that are going to be discussed out loud to the kids. If it is a long chunk of scripture you can read a few verses that are applicable or if those verses are in the Jesus Storybook Bible or Gospel Story Bible read them out of there. These books are amazing and always take everything back to the Gospel - which is great for adults as well. Be sure to ask questions as you go to engage the kids or if things are listed or numbered have the kids repeat those lists or numbers using movement…it really helps them to engage if they can move their bodies in some way.
4. (Build or Craft together) Crafting or having families build something together as an attention getter towards the text will help kids and parents alike engage in the text. Kids who are tactile become adults who are tactile and doing an activity that is related or even just gets everyone engaged in a fun way to help build community.
5. (Family Devotion together) Each week Redeemer Kids hands out a family devotional to parents as they leave. These are also posted with the sermon questions. I would encourage you all to look at these and incorporate them into your GC. Attention getting activities, books of the bible memorization, questions, and specifics in regards to prayer are all included and can be modified for your GC setting. These devotionals usually connect what happened in RK on Sunday to the sermon to help parents be the primary discipleship makers in their child’s lives…which can be modeled and encouraged in a GC setting.

Hopefully these ways to engage 2-4 year olds will help you make sure that everyone gets to hear the good news of the Gospel as you meet and will strengthen your relationships in your GC family.

photo credit: KkleinRN via photopin cc

Goal for Weekly Once-Over Weekly Once-Over is our weekly recap of some great blog posts that we've seen this past week that have been helpful. Our hope is that they would benefit you in someway. Each Thursday of every week you will see a post that has links to different blog posts. Enjoy!

Weekly Once-Over (7.25.13)

10 Basic Facts About the NT that Every Christian Should Memorize - Mike Kruger, author of Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Crossway, 2012) and the forthcoming The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate (IVP, 2013), has a helpful series on the New Testament canon, linked below, “designed to help Christians understand ten basic facts about its origins.  This series is designed for a lay-level audience and hopefully could prove helpful in a conversation one might have with a skeptical friend.”

Should I Make My Child Apologize? - "Parents frequently ask me if it is wrong to require their children to apologize when they are disrespectful or disobedient. Usually, they're concerned that they might be training their child to lie. Wouldn't it be better to wait for the child to apologize on his own when he feels genuine remorse, rather than to just repeat an apology he has been taught?"

Giving Your Child a Cellphone - Here are three tips to consider as you navigate through the process for deciding to give your child a cellphone.

Community In Gospel-Centered Discipleship - "What does community look like? What prevents us from experiencing it? What role does community play in discipleship? What keeps us from authentic community? We went through our archives and found these four articles that use scripture and the lense of the gospel to answer these questions."

Disciple-Making is Ordinary Christianity - "What is your job as a Christian? If God gave you a job description for the Christian life, what would he put on it? At the core of the Christian’s job is the task of discipleship." Eric Raymond gives helpful scenarios and examples of different opportunities to make disciples.

Blog post by Kati Berreth How can I be a missional mom?

So moms how are you doing? Almost 2 full weeks of kids being home from school or taking a break from formal schooling with little to no routine. It is freeing and also can be exhausting as most kids are used to a schedule and the change and inconsistencies in their day can throw them off. And if you are anything like me, you are spending a lot of time and energy trying to do activities to make the summer super fun. And this is as it should be when we do this out of love for our children since we are called to love them in Titus 2.4.

And yet ladies, I believe that there is and can be more to our summers than simply taking our kids to the dollar movies, driving them to this camp or that VBS, or even sitting by the pool while our kids have swim lessons texting our friends. We get the opportunity to instead do all of the above things but with Gospel intentionality.

Deuteronomy 6.4-7 says:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

And Mark 12:38 adds:

“The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Turning our everyday life experiences into missional moments

What if the day you plan to take your kids to the dollar movies you invite one of your or your child’s non-Christian friends to come along and simply do life with you? Simply inviting others into the normal rhythms of your life is one of the best ways to introduce them to Jesus. They get to see real life Christians, which makes caricatures so much harder to embrace. They get to see you love and forgive and fight and mess up and all the while point to Jesus who never messed up.

And in order to help your kids see this as a missional opportunity, plan on spending time in prayer for those friends before you go for boldness and openness in conversations to discuss how amazing Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross is and how it is impacting your life. Not only does this show your kids how to “love your neighbor as yourself” but it is also “teaching them diligently” to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

You can also do this by inviting friends to VBS with your kids or to the Firs or other camps and especially as you sit by the pool or the soccer field or the basketball court at camps. Sports are an amazing way to get to know other parents and families. There are not many other opportunities in life that give you a minimum of a solid hour to engage with strangers. And although it is tempting to take these “break times” where your child is engaged and use them to run errands or read a good book, these times can also be well spent engaging the lost. Now, don't get me wrong, take breaks times too. That's good and right and Godly. But also, see these as missional opportunities as that's good and right and Godly too.

Over the years at swim lessons and soccer and basketball practice, Rob and I have met some great friends as well as had the opportunity to share the gospel – all because we were given hours each week to spend time with the same people getting to know them and share our lives with each other. It has been a great chance to be intentional with our time as well as a chance to disciple our kids by teaching them to be missionaries, which is an essential part of who we are as ambassadors for Jesus. They need to see mom and dad experiencing life with people that don't know Jesus so they know how to do life with people that don't know Jesus.

How the Gospel applies to our attempts, efforts, and ineptness at being missional.

And yet ladies, as I write these things, my fear is that you, like me, will say, “Sure, Kati, I can do this.” And it will become just one more thing to add onto an already busy day or be a burden to you as you think about the fact that during swim lessons is the only chance you get to sit in peace for an hour during the day.

Please take these suggestions and pray over them. Pray for the Holy Spirit to move you to have a heart for the lost and have words to share when you get the opportunity to. Pray and ask for wisdom for where you do need a break and trust that Jesus' work for you is enough. Pray and ask for confidence that you are accepted because Jesus is the perfect missionary, not you. Pray every morning for your love of the Lord to grow so that you might love Him with all your heart, soul, and might desiring to teach this love to your children and share it with your neighbors. And pray for God to control your days – your summer and that you might use it to be missionally intentional because Jesus is amazing and we want the world to know Him.

grace and peace,

Kati

photo credit: Rifat Attamimi via photopin cc