Reflections and vision – God’s works and His guidance

December 2024
Loran Tang, recruiter and training coordinator of Children Ministry 

Reflections and vision – God’s works and His guidance

Highlights and vision

As we are approaching the end of the year of 2024, I am reflecting on God’s works and guidance in Children’s Ministry and would like to share some highlights in 2024 as well as our vision in the new year.

Highlights

1) A team of summer interns and the youths’ participation

We did something innovative and creative in hiring the summer interns at the end of March this year. Instead of hiring two full-time interns, we hired a team of summer interns and assigned them specific projects based on their gifts and availability. We always see summer interns as a springboard for the Children's Ministry. We hope this opportunity will open their eyes and let them foretaste the experience in serving kids. Therefore, having a few more to participate in less loaded works was beneficial to everyone.

We also collaborated with the Youth Ministry and implemented the Youth Leadership Camp. The 4-day camp provided training to the teens who volunteered in the vacation Bible school (VBS). The training’s main goal was to teach the teens the right attitude and meaning of serving at church. We definitely see the Holy Spirit working in the teens’ hearts. Many of them shared that they had so much fun and joy in VBS and were touched by God. God also led some of them to commit to serving in Awana in September. How amazing God’s guidance is.

2) Training workshop

As mentioned above, we see the positions of summer interns as an introductory step to the Children’s Ministry or any other ministries in God’s kingdom. We grabbed the opportunity to equip this new generation by holding a 3-session workshop to train them on how to teach kids God’s words. The workshop was very successful to equip and engage them. One of the four participants, Yannie, is now on board of Junior Worship’s teaching team. The knowledge, experience and passions we passed to these participants will never be in vain. May God use them in different ways to bring glory to Him.

3) Demography of Awana

It is a challenge but also a blessing - we have more than 120 kids in Awana!!! As the number of participants increases, we need to have a stronger team of leaders with more mature adults to supervise the activities and to maintain the order. We also want the Leaders in Training (LITs) to learn from role models while they are there to help the clubbers. With this vision in mind, we have intentionally invited mature adults to be director(s) and leaders so that they can demonstrate how a leader should lead. In the past few months, we have seen a significant impact from this change in demography. We praise God for all the leaders who come to support our LITs with their experience and love. Their commitment and efforts are major components in our kids’ spiritual lives.

Focus of the new year

When we review the highlights of the year 2024, we continue to see all the positive impacts the workers have brought to the ministry! At the same time, we also see that many of our workers have their own challenges when they go through different life stages. In view of these, we decided to focus on engaging workers in the coming year. In other words, we will connect and spend more time having intentional conversations with them. We will make time and space for them to update us and we shall pray for each other without ceasing!

We believe that our spiritual growth cannot be fulfilled and completed without a healthy community of spiritually strong workers rooted in Christ. So, we would have a lot of small group gatherings and prayer time in 2025. Let’s journey together when we walk along with the families into Christ!