Use this practical tool to determine the childcare options in your small group.
by Michael Mack
Every church's small-group ministry is different. So is every small group. That's why we all need to think through the choices that will work best in our individual situations. If you plan ahead, the right childcare option can open up great opportunities for your small group instead of becoming a burden.Â
1. What is the childcare policy for your group?
[ ] No children are present except for nursing ...
Our children are dormant volcanoes, ready to erupt for God!
Holly Allen
Dad aren't you glad we went to our cell group tonight? We got blessed? I like getting blessings over me!
Ten year old Zachary, one of the spiritual "bricks" in our church, said this to his dad after a cell meeting. (Our spiritual bricks are those 9 to 13 year old boys who draw or make airplanes during church and ask when will it be over every five minutes.) I asked Mike, the dad, to describe what happened ...
Subgroup to think of strategies for protecting the minds and hearts of our children.
Tami Rudkin
We are in the fight of our lives for our kids. With computers, music, and visual media our kids are exposed to all kinds of beliefs and lifestyles that are not only destructive but deadly. Have your group break up into small groups of three and have them make a list of three ways to fight for our kids' spiritual, physical, and emotional lives. After five minutes have someone from each group share ...
The Dads of Destiny Small Group Program is positively impacting families.
Bill Beahm Ph.D.
Something has dramatically changed in the value system of Americans today. Fathers are increasingly absent from the home, and children are being raised in a fatherless society.
A recent study by the National Center for Fathering has revealed that 72.2 percent of Americans agree that the most significant family or social problem facing America is the physical absence of the father from the home. Why ...
One of the biggest areas of contention in small group ministry can be how to handle childcare.
Michael C. Mack
It takes a village to raise a child."
This African proverb expounds the importance of community in child rearing. Oh, yes, parents take on the awesome responsibility, but I believe that in our society we also take on more of the sole burden than we should. This is true mostly because we have forgotten just how to live in community ourselves. What was normal and natural in the past has disintegrated ...
The same biblical principle underlies both small group and family.
Bettejean Sydnes Cramer
"Step aside, Ward and June Cleaver. The days of housewives in pearls and pumps are over." Rapidly disappearing are firm and fatherly chats with errant sons. A startling number of today's kids would have to hire a detective to track down bio-dad if they wanted to learn "father knows best." The grim statistics from the recent census confirm our worst suspicions–the traditional nuclear family is ...
After 12 years of marriage and a decade of Christian service, my husband and I decided to begin a new small group in our home … a very small group. In fact, our group consisted of just the two of us. It seemed that raising our son, work schedules and church obligations allowed us to minister to many people. We touched so many other people's lives that we never saw each other. It doesn't surprise ...
Family care is at the center of what we're trying to achieve in small groups.
Richard Dodge
You're about to take your wife out for her birthday, and you check the mailbox on your way to your car. It's a card from your small group leader, wishing her a happy birthday. Or perhaps your youngest child is about to have tubes placed in her ears as a way of combating the numerous ear infections she has had lately. The night before the procedure, your small group leader calls, offering to take your ...
If parents were expected to come, there would also be children. How were we to get over this hurdle?
Carol Perry
I was sure that, with all I had learned with my vast experience as a parent, I should lead a parenting small group in our church. Surely these parents could learn a thing or two from my successes and failures. So, off I set on a new adventure with my Lord.
It didn't take long for the reality to set in!
If parents were expected to come, there would also be children. How were we to get over this hurdle? ...
How to personalize prayers for children who may wander.
Sue Skalicky
Group Outreach
I had reached the end of myself. I longed to wake up and have it all be a nightmare. I wept in my bed, knowing that downstairs, directly below me, my 15-year-old daughter—smelling of smoke and having confessed to me hours before the drugs and the sex—was curled up in her fuzzy green blanket searching for answers to the ache in her heart. My heart also ached as my mind fitfully ...
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