Despite now being in my seventh-year working for a church and being a trained-up Anglican curate (not to mention the fact that I now rock up at church with a couple of my own kids in tow), the very thought of children’s ministry is still enough to bring me out in a cold sweat!

So I thank God for Alison Mitchell who has written this little gem, a treasure-trove for anyone seeking to get a handle on the nuts and bolts of children’s ministy. Alison is Commissioning Editor at The Good Book Company, with 30 years of involvement in training children’s and youth leaders, as well as being author of numerous children’s books and reams of ‘Sunday school’ kids material! In other words, you’d assume she’d be well placed to write this book – and once you start reading you realise she definitely is. 

Of course, if you’re going to name a book “starting out” in children’s ministry, then it’s pretty important you make sure it’s not too overwhelming. I want a resource that I can hand to (or work through with) a new leader or church apprentice with confidence that it’s not going to scare them off (likewise, for fresh-faced curates!). And yet it also needs to be comprehensive enough to actually be a significant help in teaching, training and equipping people. Starting Out achieves both, making the task and privilege of children’s ministry both imaginable and exciting.

The book is only eight chapters, each one short and sweet, but between them they cover a rich sweep of pretty much everything you’d want introduced. Ranging from the general (‘Why Children’s Ministry?’) to the specific (‘Digging into the Bible’ and ‘Staying safe’), they’re an engaging blend of input, questions & activities, personal examples and prayer points. We recently ran a ‘thank you and refresher afternoon’ for all those involved in the different children’s ministries at our church, and this book was a brilliant resource to draw on in shaping that time.

A few other stand-out aspects that I really appreciated:

• I was really impressed by the way Alison presented a simple ‘toolbox’ for giving leaders confidence to dig into the details of a Bible passage for themselves – and unpack its big idea. I don’t think I’ve seen/read many people doing this quite as simply.
• Some wise words on how to use – and how not to use – published teaching material.
• Alison’s ‘Focus the fun’ element is a really useful reminder that fun is good (i.e. crafts, games, activities), but it doesn’t have to be separate from ‘teaching’ – it can be focused.
• An understanding that different people (and different kids) learn best in different ways.
• Seeing craft as a “secret weapon” – not just a convenient time-filler.
• Helpful to have the subject of discipline is purposefully engaged with throughout, rather than being seen as a stand-alone topic.
• It’s always good to feel that an author is genuinely enthusiastic about what she’s writing about. Alison’s writing oozes conviction and delight.

Maybe sometimes children’s work is seen as a bit secondary, or even worse, simply an exercise in glorified child-minding. Even when we know the ‘theory’ behind its importance, in practice the time we give to preparing (perhaps compared to a sermon, etc) can be rather lacking. But Starting Out gave me fresh joy and heaps of help for the challenge of teaching the next generation about our great and glorious God and what he has done. 

You can pick up Starting Out in Children’s Ministry from The Good Book CompanyThe Good Book Company for less than a fiver – that’s a steal!

Disclaimer: The publisher has sent me a free copy of this book, but I hope this is still a fair and honest review.

It’s often said that prayer is one of the great privileges of the Christian life. When you stop and think about it, talking to God, well, it’s an incredible claim.

Of course some would say that’s just deluded. Maybe others would call it egotistical or individualistic. Others still (and perhaps especially those coming from a religious perspective) might label such a definition as offensively simple.

Of course Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 seem to kick some of that into touch. He teaches us to pray, saying “Our Father…”. One of the outrageous claims of Christianity is that it’s possible for us (yes, even messed up, self-obsessed, apathetic us) to approach the God of the Universe as a loving Father, if we’ve become united with the Father’s Son, Jesus Christ, through faith.

And yet even when the stupendous, smack-between-the-eyes reality of that hits you afresh, sometimes with prayer we just don’t know where to start. Our personal prayers can become dry. We suffer from mental drift. Perhaps it all seems slightly repetitive.

That’s why the ‘5 Things to Pray For Your Church’ series seems so brilliant. It’s both so simple and yet so obvious, and yet there’s not heaps of books like it.

Sure, there’s books like the Valley of Vision, which serve you up with some meaty pre-written prayers to ‘pray along’ with. Likewise, I’ve been really helped by Andrew Case’s Water of the Word which is a collection of prayers particularly for husbands. And then there’s Don Carson’s A Call to Spiritual Reformation, which I found to be eye-opening in its challenge to pray in line with God’s own purposes and promises in Scripture. But with this book, you’re actually given a guiding day-by-day hand to help you think about what it is you could pray. Author Rachel Jones does this by modelling a pattern of listening to God’s word and then suggesting things to speak back to God in response. It is praying saturated in Scripture, yet nonetheless heartfelt and earthed.

The format of the series is that on each double-page Rachel focuses on a particular passage, which in turn provides an overall theme. In this book these are all related to health of a church (e.g. using our gifts, or holding to truth, or giving generously). Rachel then unpacks each passage/theme into 5 short pray-able nuggets (hence the title!). Rather than putting these in the form of verbatim prayers, these take the form of a brief paragraph in which Rachel provides some ideas (helpfully often quite specific) of what it might look like to pray in line with that particular Bible passage. Personally, I like that because it still leaves it up to me to phrase and express my prayer to God according to my own personality and vocabulary. You could even use a journal to do this if you’re that kind of person!

And though the book is wonderfully small and thin, it isn’t one you’ll want to finish quickly. That’s not the point. Neither is it an in-depth explanation of prayer (although Carl Laferton’s brief introduction is pretty handy). It’s more of a guidebook, to be taken slowly, a resource to accompany you as you get on with praying.

Practically, given there’s 21 of these passages/themes, I guess an obvious way to use this resource would be to take one passage/theme per week, and then from Monday to Friday to read one of the 5 ‘nuggets’, spending a couple of minutes each day praying for your church. There’s even space on each double-page to jot down particular people on your mind that week. And, honestly, if you did that each week for twenty-one weeks then I’m pretty confident you won’t be regretting parting with the very affordable £2.69 that it currently costs to get your hands on it. Not only that, but we trust God will have answered those prayers according to his purposes too!

So if you feel like your prayer life could do with a bit of support, a bit of inspiration or input, then you’ve only got the price of a pint to lose: get this book and give it a go. I’d imagine it would also be great to give away to a church small group, or perhaps to some of the leaders in your church as they consider what it looks like to partner in prayer for the church.

And when your twenty-one weeks are up (or however you manage it), Rachel has also written ‘5 Things to Pray for the People you Love’, as part of the same series, so you don’t have to stop there!

*****

Full disclosure: The publisher sent me a copy of the book for free, but I hope this is still a fair and honest review!

I’ve noticed myself doing this a heap of times recently. It’s my turn to give a prayer request amongst friends and, having explained whatever the issue is, the words then come out of my mouth as if by clockwork: “yeah, so please pray for wisdom.”

Of course, that’s no biggy in itself. In fact, God wants us to ask him for the gift of wisdom. James’ letter in the New Testament makes that crystal clear:

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (James 1:5)

No question about it: it’s great to want to be wise. And by wise I don’t mean ‘intelligent’ or ‘knowing lots of stuff’, but the kind of wisdom the Bible holds up as precious. In fact, there’s a whole chunk of the Bible known as ‘wisdom literature’ because of the way it champions the importance of ‘being wise’. The big headline there is that wisdom is defined in relation to God: “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (e.g. Psalm 110:; Job 28:28; Proverbs 1:7; 9:10). The wise person is the person who gets who the God of the Bible truly is, and lives a life shaped by their relationship with that God.

But a conversation with a friend the other week helped me see that often I can articulate a desire for wisdom, but I’m not expecting God to actually be using others to speak wisdom into my life.

It might be there’s some tricky situation where I’m not sure how to handle the situation. Or I’m being faced with a significant decision, and I’m at least wanting to acknowledge that I should try and make a wise choice. My prayer request shows I’m recognising I’m in need of wisdom. But I’m just not geared up to the fact that God might use others to actually encourage and direct me in that situation.

Does that resonate with you?

You ask people to pray for you, but you’ve absolutely zero expectation that someone will pipe up and actually share something that could be a blessing to you in that situation.

And that’s crazy, because the Christian life is intrinsically community-focused. I need other people to help me keep going in the Christian life and to help me know how to live. God’s designed it that way. That’s one of the reasons why God gives us the church. And so if I’ve got friends who are seeking to be saturated with Scripture and love Jesus and in whom God’s Spirit is at work, then why on earth don’t I expect them to have something valid to speak into my situation?

It’s like we live our spiritual lives in our own little pods, all the while existing side-by-side with each other, yet having very little input into each other’s decisions and situations. I’m surrounded by so much wisdom-potential all around me, and yet I act like I’m effectively a lone ranger.

Of course, if I put this into practice, then it may not be particularly comfortable. In a sense it’s much safer to ask someone to pray for wisdom, than to actually invite them to confront and challenge you with wisdom that’s spoken to you face-to-face. For a start it’s a lot harder to ignore. After all, they’re going to see you again next week and ask you how it’s going. And – yikes! – it might involve actual change.

So, a couple of action points:

• Next time I’m minded to ask friends to “pray for wisdom,” I’m going to try and also ask them for their wisdom too. Some people will presumably need more encouragement to open up than others. Perhaps it might mean creating a separate and longer opportunity for that to happen over a drink, once someone’s given it some thought. But in our politically correct culture, I should probably assume that if this is going to work I’m going to need to go out of my way to encourage people to speak wisdom into my life.

• Next time a friend asks me to “pray for wisdom” for them, I’m going to also consider whether God would have me say anything to them in that situation. That could be sharing something with them there and then, or looking to catch up with them at some other point. It may be considering a Bible truth to encourage them with. It may be sharing something God’s taught me through as I’ve gone through a similar experience. It may ‘just’ be affirming them in their desire to be God-centred in that tough situation.

What do you think? Recognise yourself doing the same? Do you find it easy to take the initiative and speak into the life of a friend? When was the last time you involved others in a decision you were making?