Please Pray

I have recently been reminded by several situations going on around us of the need to pray for each other.  Particularly I am inviting you to join me in praying for these things:

• Pray for the marriages in our community.  So many people are struggling with their marriages and these broken relationships are extremely traumatic to the children.
• Pray for our kids as they figure out how to live their faith in an increasingly secular society.
• Pray for the teachers who often spend more time with our kids than parents do.
• Finally, pray for the parents in our community as they try to understand the culture that their kids are growing up in.

Tom

A Challenge to Families

Yesterday I put out a challenge to those who have never been to the Jane-Finch church to take the opportunity to go. I want to extend that challenge a bit further here.

I am calling the families of Kingsfield to rethink their next vacation and take the time and money that they have set aside for that vacation and use it for a different kind of vacation – a vacation that focuses on others rather than ourselves.

There are loads of different things that you can do, from 2 weeks in a far off country to day trips to inner city ministries. Come and talk to me if you can’t think of anything that would work for your family.

I promise you that an experience like this will invigorate and energize you more than a week laying on a beach in Mexico, or skiing at a resort in Quebec. It will also do wonders for your ability to see the people around you more like God sees them.

Oh, by the way, the challenge to go to Jane-Finch still stands!

Help!

I am looking for some feedback to help us form the schedule for MYaF.  Specifically, I am trying to figure out what to do with Sports Night.  Here are a couple of thoughts that I am having about this:

1.  Wednesday Sports Night is an event that our young people know is happening every week that they can bring their friends to that is just a fun time.  I know that there are some youth who only come to Sports Night and no other events.  I think that is great!

2.  Some parents think that their kids are already going out too often and would love to see the sports night combined with another event.  They would prefer having one event that includes some spiritual input and time for having fun.

3.  I am conflicted about this because I understand that families are busy and it can be difficult for parents to figure out how to get their kids to all of the different events that are going on.  And, we also want families to spend time together!

But, I also am sensitive to kids (often from outside our church family) who like to come to Sports Night because they know that it will be a fun time to spend with their friends.  These kids may feel like they are being manipulated if we make them sit through 15 minutes of spiritual input before or after the fun time.  By the way, this is not simply hypothetical – there are already kids in this position who come regularly to Sports Night.

So I need help.  Given these realities, how do you suggest we handle this?  Send a comment, or email your response.

Note From Julia

Hi everyone! Thanks for coming out to our third Family event for MYaF’ers. It was a fun night of baseball and then food and campfire afterward! We will be hosting the fourth event in October. Exact date will be announced through Tom’s email.

A reminder to parents that the Power to Parent will be running for 8 weeks simultaneously with the Sr. Youth Bible study. The first night will be September 28th at 7:00pm in the sanctuary. Don’t forget that we have free babysitting during this time in the nursery. We are also planning on some games in the gym for junior youth should they decide to come and hang out for those weeks. Take care, and see you at the next event!

Julia and Dan and Family!

Is This True Around Here?

Please read this post on a blog that I like to read:

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/reatheism#more-4320

In your experience, and especially relating to youth at Kingsfield, do you think what he says here is true?  How should this affect how we think about youth ministry at Kingsfield?  Add your thoughts in the comments!

Tom

Mark Your Calendar

This is a note from Pastor Phil:

To further the conversation and to clarify some questions, particularly around the role that Pastor Tom has been called to fill, we are are inviting you – and any other interested souls – to another open meeting on Wednesday, Aug.5, 7:30pm at the K-ZMC building.

Prior to that meeting Tom will be having more specific conversations with the youth themselves – hopefully as part of a camping weekend that is in the works for mid-July.

We look forward to the time together. Please do come…and spread the word.

Note From the Pettapieces

Next MyaF gathering at the Pettapiece’s! Hey everyone, thanks for coming out to the first of 6 intentional gatherings for youth and their families. It was awesome to see everyone interacting and relaxing together! The next gathering is going to be announced sometime in the next week or so. We are just trying to set a date that will work with most. There is alot happening in July! So, looking forward to having you all over again! Julia P.

Job Description Part 4

I want to respond to Daryl’s comment in a separate post, but first I want to finish this series about my job description.  So here goes….

Pastorally care for youth and their families:

• By developing and serving with a team of servants who will be actively present in the lives of youth and their families.
• By being with youth and their families (in gatherings, schools, mentoring relationships and homes).

This is the part of the job description that I think maybe has been confusing to some and I hope I can clear up some of the confusion here.

First of all you will notice that the first point includes both developing and serving with the team of servants.  This means that I will be part of the team of leaders who are actively involved in the lives of the youth and their families.  I am responsible for developing and equipping the team and for serving with them.  I will be present with the youth at events sometimes, just like the members of the team will be present with the youth at events.

But my presence with the youth will not only be at events, but also in their schools (I spent 2 full days at CHSS at the Challenge Day event this Spring),  one on one with youth in mentoring relationships, and together with the youth and their families in their homes, both during specific times set up to connect with a specific family, and spontaneously when me (with or without my family) and another family decide to hang out together.

I want to point out that I have already been doing these things and am continuing with input from parents and others to learn how to do this better.  Some of these activities are not public events that everyone can see and so I believe that at least some of the criticism of what I have been doing has been because it is not easy to see how I use my time.  Please help me learn how to communicate what I do better.

Job Description Part 3

Nurture Christ-centred and missional faith among youth and their families:

• By studying Scripture, praying, and reading to be well-equipped to guide the theology, philosophy, and mission of our ministry to youth and their families.
• By teaching, equipping and developing mature youth and their families.
• By growing adult and youth leaders who give oversight to activities and programming consistent with the vision and mission of the ministry
• By focussing on youth and their families being engaged in care, service, and mission within the body of Christ and the world.
• By preaching occasionally in the churches of Kingsfield.
  

There is a section on the Kingsfield website (www.kingsfieldcommon.ca) that lists the books and parts of scripture that your leaders are reading.  That gets updated every month or so.  This is partly for those of you who are looking for ideas of what to read, and partly our way of being accountable to you to show that we are fulfilling this part of our job description.

There are various ways that I have been trying to equip and develop youth and families.  With the youth directly this would include Bible studies, Ballyhoo night, and  Sunday School.  With families this has been more informal meetings, discussions, and helping in crisis situations.  Much of this has been behind the scenes and only those involved would even know it happened.

The growing of adult and youth leaders has been somewhat difficult at times because of the reality of  people’s busy lives (both youth and adults).  This is true across the entire body.  However, there have been and continue to be examples of young people having opportunities to get leadership experience organising specific events.  I would like to see more youth and adult leaders taking advantage of different conferences and other equipping opportunities that come up.  Perhaps I need to do better at making those opportunities known.  Can you help me be more creative in equipping our leaders?

I see identifying individual leaders and investing time and energy into equipping and developing them as one of the most important things that I can do around here.

Finally, I believe it is vital for the spiritual development of all of us, young and old,  to be involved in God’s mission on earth.   And by that I mean that we need to intentionally, and regularly, move out of our places of comfort to see what God is doing elsewhere and see how we can be part of that.  So, creating, providing, and facilitating opportunities for this is an important part of my job, particularly for youth and their families.  When was the last time your family went to Jane Finch?  This is an opportunity for everyone at Kingsfield every 6 weeks or so that will open your eyes to God’s work elsewhere.  Take advantage of it!

Job Description Part 2

I am going to take the job description in three parts starting at the top and expand them a bit.  Here is the first section:

First and foremost, maintain a healthy life in Christ, marriage, fatherhood, and friendship by nurturing discipline, self-care, relationships, and balance.

I am very grateful that this is written into the job description at the very top.  For any pastor it is essential that we have permission to keep ourselves healthy in every way.  It is possible to do many different jobs well even when a person is struggling in other areas of their life, but it is pretty hard to encourage, equip, and teach others when I am spiritually, emotionally, and relationally unhealthy.  So, I take these areas very seriously and try to make sure that my family isn’t suffering because I am at meetings every night of the week.  Accountability with Phil and Tim is an important part of my job (for all three of us – that interdependence thing again!) and we meet regularly to support and encourage each other in these areas.  Please pray for us!  Please also pray for our wives and children who do make a sacrifice every time we are not there at bedtime, or for soccer games, or when we are called away from family time for an emergency.