How do you reach children for Christ in your local community. Paul Muilwyk has tried something. He is the youth worker at Wollongong CRCA. By God's grace, if you want to reach children in your own neighbourhood, it maybe something you could do.
Homework Club (Towradgi Learning Centre)
I teach scripture at our local public school. As I was talking with the teachers I came to the realisation that there was a great lack of quality in homework being completed. This led me to investigate options for our church to be a homework facilitator base with the schools backing. A proposal was then brought to the church leadership for a 6 month trial ministry. The proposal was to provide for a need in our community and build a ministry to local families and children in our immediate area. The idea is that we are not tutors; we simply help the children complete their homework, reading and assignments.
Every Tuesday afternoon at 3pm after school I wonder down the street to the local public school and pick up the students involved (11 at the time of writing). We walk to the church and are greeted with afternoon tea and games until 3:30pm, then for the next hour we break into groups and we coach the students through their homework just as a parent would. None of us are teachers, or trained, we are simply fulfilling the role that a parent normally plays, providing the students with help when their parents either don’t have time or cannot speak English well enough.
There has not been many challenges in this ministry yet, we are still waiting for them to arise. We believe this ministry has been blessed by God. From 2011 this ministry will be a permanent part of our churches work in the community after the successful trial. Fruit from this ministry has been fantastic. Firstly, the relationships we have built with local community families is outstanding. We have had the opportunity to get to know some of our neighbours well. All three of our year 6 students have either begun attending or their parents have told us they intend to send their child to youth group next year. One of our other girls will be attending GEMS next year and a few other community children begun attending GEMS and Cadets before coming to Homework club.
We believe this is a great link into our community, the local public school is in full support of the program, they even gave us enough supplies of workbooks, pencils, reading books, etc. to get through the trial period. We pray that this ministry will continue to grow and develop in the years to come.
Paul Muilwyk (Youth worker)
Christian Reformed Church Wollongong
