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Pasadena Covenant Church Models Multigenerational Ministry
PASADENA, CA (July 8, 2003) - By Steve Burger and Mary Pinley
Barbara Pettit, pastor for Children and Family
Ministry at Pasadena Covenant Church, has a passion for including
children as active participants in the church. "I have always said,
'Never do for children what they can do for themselves,'" says Pettit.
In recent years, Pasadena Covenant has been working hard to structure
itself as a Christian Formation congregation focusing on personal
transformation, partnership with the home, and holistic
multigenerational ministry. This initiative involves the whole church,
with every church committee focusing not only on ministering to adults,
but to children and youth as well.
This summer the children, youth and adults will be ministering together
in South Central Los Angeles. The ministry will include both a work camp
and a sports and arts camp. The camps are a cooperative effort by the
church's committee on peace and justice and committees on children and
youth.
Pettit says that her passion for including children in multigenerational
ministry "hit" her a few years ago when she was reviewing "The
Philosophy of Spiritual Formation of Children" in "A Framework for
Children's Ministry" written by Bobbie Bower and Evelyn Johnson (and
available from the Covenant Resource Center).
"A major task of the local church is to help children grow spiritually
through a cooperative program between the home and the congregation,"
write Bower and Johnson. "A planned program leading to growth in
godliness will include long-term modeling of behavior by mature
Christian adults, direct instruction with the Bible including God's plan
for salvation, and participation in the life of the Christian community."
"It hit me that when families come to church they often separate in the
parking lot and then do not see each other again until they gather back
at the car," says Pettit. "The only modeling of Christian behavior our
children see at church is from each other and a handful of volunteers.
They certainly are not participating in the life of the Christian
community outside of their peer group either."
Pettit says when she first started at Pasadena Covenant, she noticed
that teenagers were having a difficult time going to worship because
they weren't directly involved. It was an unfamiliar place to them and
they did not know the people," she says. She knew that worship with the
whole congregation must become a familiar experience with familiar faces
before children hit their teen years. "Children can worship," she says.
"They can be an incredible inspiration to the worship of the greater
congregation, but we must be intentional about it!"
As a result, Pasadena's worship services are designed to be
child-friendly, but not child-focused. They intentionally include
children in the same way they are intentional about including a 25-year
old or a 75-year old. Joan Reeve Owens, minister of worship and music,
trains the children's choir to understand that they are helping to lead
worship rather than performing. She gave them the experience of writing
a Psalm-based liturgy for a worship service and leading the congregation
in that liturgy.
Other ways that the church involves children include the ushers and
greeters allowing their young children to assist them in their jobs. Or
a child may be asked to lead the call to worship or read the Scripture
on a Sunday, just like any adult may. The children know that the
congregational prayer time is for them as well and they often speak out
with their prayers.
Pettit says that the worship service must be participatory, visual,
active, and story-based to be child-friendly. She point out that these
are elements that are great for engaging adults as well. And children's
sermons aren't used, says Pettit, because church leaders do not want
kids to believe that they only need to "check in" during that particular
time in the service.
Another way the church is including everyone in ministry is by involving
teens in children's ministry. "We are intentional about not using them
as warm bodies," says Pettit, "but investing in training them and giving
them 'real' responsibilities. Our 2's and 3's class is totally teen-lead
by small group leaders. . . . I remind them often that the children can
imagine themselves being a teenager like them more than they can imagine
being 40 plus, like me!"
Pettit says that while multi-generational ministry is age-old concept
and core to our faith heritage, church leaders need to figure out how it
can look in our postmodern world. She says that this means change--and
change means work.
"Children will not likely rise up and take a stand for their place in
the faith community," she says. "They will simply not come back when
they are finally given the freedom to make their own choices. That is
not acceptable to me!"
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