The March Conference Children's Ministry (click on blue link to see pictures)

Deuteronomy 6:4-7

Children are the Future Church and the NOW!

As your Conference Coordinator of Children's Ministry, I am here to support, advocate, educate, equip, and most importantly serve your ministry needs. Tell me how I can serve you and your church. [email protected] or call/text

515-707-5537

Lent and Faith Formation

We brought our children to Ash Wednesday service. How do we teach them about Lent? The forty days of Lent is a great time for you to encourage parents to talk about Lent as a time of service or limiting our wants. The book below is a great recommendation for parents to read after dinner at the table. It is divided up into picture book headings like Making Time, Making Space, Making Room, and Holy Week. I would not recommend it to be read in one sitting. The book gives Jesus's story and then examples of how we could do the same in our family life. The sections of the book could be read each Sunday evening of Lent.

Another way to use the book as a Children's minister is to take excerpts from the book and "spoon feed" it to your parents in your weekly media outlets. You will find great ideas on pages 20 & 21 that are in the above picture!

For example, "During Lent we make room. We invite a neighbor to our house for dinner." "During Lent, we make our lives more simple." You could share them in a text, emails, Facebook post, Instagram and a tweet! Encourage parents to do these Lenten activities with their children.

Making Room

A Child's Guide To Lent and Easter

By Laura Alary

You can order the book from Paraclete Press

www.paracletepress.com

Did you get your UMC Living our Faith magazine emailed to your inbox or did you see the article on our Facebook page? Click on the picture to take you to the article.

Sean Dunbar with the help of volunteers from St. James serves their community with sports and a time for fellowship! Read this month's article about how great the need is to minister to families and their kiddos who love athletics.

Click here to ask Children's Minister Sean Dunbar more questions...

EASY Easter Service Project

Check with your local shelter about how many dozen of hard boiled eggs they could use in the coming weeks. Hard boiled eggs are a great source of protein that keeps well in its shell in a pocket of someone who may live on the street or needs a quick add on to their family lunches for those on a grocery budget.

Once you know who will need the eggs, send out on your media sources the date families should meet you at church for egg dyeing for the food shelter. Ask families to bring one to two dozen pre-boiled eggs to church and together at dyeing stations. Have crayons so the kids can and grown-ups can write loving messages on the eggs and then dip them in the dye that you provided.

Have some snacks, play some music, and let the cross-generational service experience happen. Once all the eggs are dyed, gather the families together and tell them where their beautiful eggs full of healthy protein will be donated

Get your Youth group involved as well and ask them to deliver the eggs to the shelter or hand them out at your community shelter.