Family mission.

Ever thought of a family mission trip? While there are many things to consider, the benefits of such an experience may make it tremendously worthwhile. Earlier this year father and son, Bruce and Hayden Smith from Bray Park, joined a team to the Solomons and I asked Hayden to pen a few words about his experience. Here is what he wrote.

"When I went to the Solomon islands Bethesda mission trip I didn’t think that I would get to do much of the building, but when we started we were being taught how to do lots of things like roofing, concreting, brick laying, frame working, cladding and building a heap of things.
I would encourage parents of teenaged children to let their kids go on a mission trip because this was one of the best experiences of my life. I learnt so much, met some of the locals in the Solomon Islands and saw so many different things. If you send your child they will come back refreshed and will have lots to say and teach you about. We also had lots of fun snorkelling and swimming in the beautiful ocean over there, the ocean is clear and wonderfully warm.
There are not many rules in the Solomon islands so when we were driving we were standing on the back of cars and trucks, when I was over there I went fishing overnight and caught 3 fish it was lots of fun but it started to rain and we were under a tarp for 4 hours.
After we had done all the work in the afternoon we would go and play soccer with the locals and have lots of fun we taught them a couple of new games like clap ball and doge ball. One of the locals gave me a necklace to say good bye to me and I really liked that. The food over there was pretty good and we had the locals cook us a feast that was lovely then after they performed a music for us.
I loved this mission trip and I would go again if I have the chance.
Hayden Smith aged 14"


As parents we aim to provide experiences for our children that will help them grow into people who serve and please the Lord. A mission trip ticks many boxes in it's potential to be a wonderful formative experience. I'm sure Hayden and his father are much richer for the trip.

Have you gone on a similar trip? I'd love to hear about it, especially how it impacted your children and relationship as a family.

Homework Club Outreach.

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

Children's ministry outreach - MOPS

Wondering how to reach out to the community in children's ministry? Why not consider MOPS for next year. Here's how it works in Sutherland... wow! Praise God!

The Ministry of MOPS,
by Marianne Vanderkolk, Sutherland CRCA.

The MOPS ministry is a very exciting ministry of building bridges and furthering relationships in the community. It is based on a Friendship Evangelism model so when coming to a MOPS morning, it looks more like a community mothers group than a church-run outreach. This, we believe, is what makes MOPS such a powerful ministry.

Since Mothers of Preschoolers can often feel overwhelmed, alone, insecure, stressed and extremely busy, the program is designed to provide them with “Time-out” while their children (Moppets) are being looked after by a capable team of helpers.

Each MOPS group structures their morning differently. We begin with a very relaxed morning tea, followed by a talk. Speakers have included people from within our church and from the community – dealing with a huge range of topics including cake decorating, hairdressing, mission topics, health and fitness topics, Discipline DVDs by Dobson, as well as using the MOPS curriculum which usually has 6 DVD sessions on various mothering topics. Then we have some discussion questions. At this time, the Christians in the group and the MOPS team can answer questions from their own personal experience and bring in their journey of faith appropriately. Following this, we have some time for a creative activity which can include cooking demonstrations, crafts and other activities.
The aim of MOPS is to bring mothers to a knowledge of Jesus Christ through friendship evangelism and subsequently, using tools such as Christianity Explained, Christianity Explored and others, to explain the gospel clearly. Since we first began in July 2008, we have seen a number of ladies come to church and church run activities (since it is a very familiar place for them and their children), go through Courses, attend a special MOPS Bible Study on the alternate week, and come to faith and also profess their faith.

The MOPS Bible study is a wonderful opportunity for interested ladies to learn about God without any prior knowledge of God or the Bible. It runs on the same day as our KYB group and so the two groups meet at morning tea. Some ladies have moved from the MOPS Bible Study to the KYB when they are ready to go more into depth.

Another aim of MOPS is to encourage young women in developing leadership skills. It has been a great opportunity for young church mums to enter into various roles and work in a committee.
We are very thankful to God for the fruit of the MOPS ministry and we pray that He will continue to bless those who come and bring more into relationship with Himself.

Children's Ministry to the down and out.

Metro ministries is the world's largest children's ministry. But it is not in the leafy suburbs of middle class America. It is in Brooklyn New York. Watch this video, it's an inspirational introduction to the work of God in children's ministry. It reminds me of Paul's words,

... God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

It's probably more important that you watch the following video than the previous one for in it founding Pastor Bill Wilson shares his heart for the work. You will get a sense of the Christ like attitude, the cost and some of the practices that makes the ministry a powerful instrument in God's hands.

Question: What attitudes stand out for you as the ones we need as we pursue children's ministry in our context?

Never too late to try.... again.

A good way to reinvigorate your children's ministry is to build on past successes. Even after a long break. This is what Sth Gippsland CRCA has done. After many, many years of clubless holidays, they have again ran a holiday club. Far from taking the, 'been there done that' attitude, this enthusiastic bunch (I know, I've met them) has experienced God's blessing in their efforts. Read about their Ship Shape holiday club, and see if this is the type of blessing you would want in your own children's ministry.

All in all it was a great event and we saw many blessings from the Lord. The children who came participated well in every aspect of the programme.

We had singing (thanks to Mrs Susie who led us so energetically) craft, Bible stories, drama...who could forget the drama team - they were so believable!

The children learnt about what it is to follow Jesus and even when we don’t show our love for Him, as Peter did when he denied his Lord, He still loves and forgives us. They learnt about the "greatest treasure" being Jesus and not things in this life.

The numbers fluctuated a bit but averaged between 45-50 each day - all in all about 60 children participated over the week. We were really happy with this number as we could manage with our team and resources.

Please continue to keep the children and their families in your prayers that they may grow in their faith.

Thanks to everyone for helping in whatever way...on team, as a helper, setting up and preparing craft, baking for our morning teas, donation of money etc, but mostly for your prayers. The parent/family BBQ and concert night was extremely well attended also.

Until next year when we hope to do another Holiday fun week we'd like to say thanks to you for your support.

Reinventing something you've already done has it's advantages, especially if the initial experience was positive. You can tap into the bank of positive feeling and rekindle latent enthusiasm. On top of this you have people with experience, skills and knowledge. Especially if you're ministry is lagging why not get some momentum by launching from success?

Our Churches outreach in State Schools

Last week I received an email from the principle of our local primary school.
"Can you please tell me who the Kids Hope mentor co-ord is? I have two children who would benefit from a connection with a mentor."
Kids Hope is a wonderful 'one to one' mentoring program in which a mature christian adult is paired with a child for one hour once a week.
If you or your church is looking for an opportunity to outreach to children at your local primary school, Kids hope may just be that open door. It's simple and Schools love it. Typically, the children who are mentored are children with special needs (Jesus' least of these?) Every week my child greets me with a big smile and leaves me with a big hug. By God's grace I know I am making a difference in his life; he tells me so.

The key points of kids hope are,
"One church partnering with one school.
One mentor for one child
One hour, once a week."

Some of our Churches (Dandenong, Wantirna, Hope in the Hills and Wonga Park) have been mentoring for a number of years.




Any church can join Kids Hope and begin to mentor. Kids hope is administered through World Vision who train and support the program. All you need to do is apply to World Vision, gather some mentors, undergo a day of training and then approach a school.

Kid's hope has given me the opportunity to share the love of Christ and to witness to the school community of his goodness, and isn't that what we are all about?

Go to the Kids Hope web site and check out

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