Making it Easy to Serve - Conference Info for registration

Making it Easy to Serve Children’s Ministry Conference Saturday November 5, 2011. St Johns York Mills Anglican Church, 19 Don Ridge Drive Toronto Sponsored by the Centre for Excellence in Christian Education (CECE) Workshop Selection – there will be an opportunity for you to participate in three workshops. The panel discussion will be presented as a plenary at the end for everyone --- 1. Learn How to Make VBS exciting and welcoming! Join us in presenting God’s Word in fun ways, where your students will learn about the gospel, God’s good news. Students will want to come and hear God’s Word, to learn more about our wonderful Lord. Learn how to build excitement within your church and how to plan tell your friends and neighbours so they can join you on your adventure? Come and explore and share in simple ways to create a fabulous VBS in your town/city. (fun snacks incl.) Presenter: Kerrie Fulton --- 2. Taking Care of our Children We will look at the many aspects that go into creating a safe, fun, learning environment for our children as they take part in various programs of Children’s Ministry be it Messy Church, Vacation Bible Camp or Sunday School. We will look at screening, privacy and behavioural issues as well as ministering to children with special needs all while keeping the children we work with safe and healthy. This will be a workshop that will help volunteers and staff at all levels understand and implement safe practices protecting both the young people and the volunteers themselves. Presenter: Laura Walton --- 3. Church Speak: communicating with church leadership to make children’s ministry a priority Let me guess. Your art supplies are a box of broken donated pieces of crayon from a grandmother, your Sunday School room (if you have a room) doubles as storage for the Men’s Breakfast, your budget has not increased in years and, when you present to vestry everyone looks at their watch. Let’s talk about how to get children’s ministry up on the priority list of your parish. Presenter: The Rev. Dawn Leger --- 4. Building A Team Are you working alone to meet the needs of children in your church? How can you encourage and inspire others to join you? Find out how to start to build a team in Children’s Ministry in your church. Come and learn what will help you to draw people alongside you. Presenter: Janet Earle --- 5. Six Kids, Sixty Kids, Kids Who Climb On Rocks This workshop will explore an innovative way to approach Sunday School using a Workshop Rotation Model of teaching. Workshop Rotation can be used in parishes with six children or six hundred children. Workshop Rotation is especially useful for parishes with "single digit" Sunday School programs (fewer then ten children), communities where volunteers are difficult to recruit, where attendance is infrequent, and for those with limited time and space to devote to children's programming. Workshop Rotation plays on the gifts and abilities of volunteers and respects the different learning styles of children. Come see if Workshop Rotation is the right fit to strengthen or kick-start your Sunday School program. Presenter: Jessica Pratezina --- 6. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Choosing Curriculum Resources for Children’s Ministries How do you choose good curriculum resources for your congregation? There are a multitude of choices available, ranging from free internet offerings through traditional resources to high-tech, multi-media options. In this practical workshop, we will identify some important considerations when choosing faithful, affordable, and effective resources for your children’s ministries. Participants will be challenged to think about their vision for children’s ministries, and to describe their congregation’s context and expectations. Then, using actual examples from various sources, participants will learn how to evaluate curriculum resources for their congregational context. Presenter: Jackie Nunns --- 7. Making the Connection to Christ-centred Character, at church, home and school... This session presents a particular teaching method that focuses on building children's ability to make connections between the Two Great Commandments, Fruits of the Spirit and stories that children encounter in every day life. Come and learn about this easy to use strategy, which can be incorporated into any existing Church School program and how it uplifts spiritual formation through story telling. Presenters: Jessica Pratezina, Wanda Costinak, The Rev. Dr. Catherine Keating --- Panel Discussion Should we integrate children into the corporate worship of the church once a month, or should they stay in for the beginning of the service every week, or should Sunday School children always remain separate from the service? Should the children come in for communion once a month, every week, never? Should we integrate worship music into our children's ministry? If so, should we use contemporary worship music or hymns? Is there one right answer? Children's ministry is more of an art than a science. Every child is an individual therefore every ministry must tailor their worship to the individuals that they are working with. This panel discussion will give us the opportunity to discuss a small number of the infinite variety of options available to us as we engage our children in worship. Our hope is that as we all share our ideas and experiences, we will be inspired to find new ways to integrate our children into congregational worship, and new ways to integrate worship into our children's ministry. Panel Moderator: Jenn Scuse ---