When Tommorrow Becomes Today

[Robert Hubbard]

I don't want to appear to be generalizing but I'm merely speaking from current personal experiences both as a lay and a paid childrens worker. In a recent children's work meeting at the church I worship at I made a comment that I hadn't thought about until after I said it. The meeting was about the future of childrens and youth work at the church. As can be all to common the work is run by retired people who are nearing a time in their life when they are becoming ready to retire from running church club's as well.

I said that it seemed that what would happen is that unsuccessful attempts would continue to be made to recruit new volunteers. Most families have two working parents and this stops them from being able to help with after-school clubs or similar. And of course some people are just to 'busy' to help with anything. All the clubs and Sunday activities will continue to run though until that day comes, the day that the current leaders just can't keep going. They'll step back and it will all stop. No one to lead so nothing runs.

Now I am being very negative here, I know. But I was just away on two weeks holiday and one of the clubs I run didn't meet one week because the vicar was at conference and one of the helpers had an emergency. That left only my co-leader.

I'm not writing just to moan about the state of children's work. They're some fantastic stuff happening that is thriving and long-term viable. No I'm writing because in the meeting I finished my thought with this. If we can see what's going to happen why don't we start planning for it now? If midweek won't be viable what will? Why don't we step out the box or just throw the box away?

There are some things happening already across the country. I help lead a Messy Church once a month that was started because midweek wasn't viable. But I still get the feeling when I go to training days or conferences that some people still think midweek clubs are the answer to our problems.

Maybe the real problem is that as children's workers, both lay and paid, we are under so much pressure from the demands of the present that we don't have time to think about the future? I hope that's not the case because one day the future will be the present.

[Janet Evans]

Hey Robert, the same sort of thing is happening in our church; everyone is so busy, including myself! To be honest, the elderly are getting neglected too. Maybe we all ought to take a step back and think seriously about our aims for the future, like you suggest, and work towards what we want to be in, say, two, five and ten years. Then leave out the things that don't really matter . . . except, what could I leave out!! :-)

[Robert Hubbard]

The question I keep asking is why are we doing so much? So far I've come up with two reasons I'm exploring to see if they are true.
1) Because we just do a lot now.
Children go to a lot of activities and clubs, adults have a lot of interest they pursue so as a church we do a lot of things. I know I personally participate in family activities, cycling, cricket, walking, rock climbing, socializing and playing music to name a few. I don't do all of them all the time but I'll do them all a some point in a year usually. So as a church we run a huge range of programs and activities because we think we'll be able to reach out to so many different people then. Life is busy so church should be too. I'm not convinced yet that this is true.
2) We can't do anything unless it's been planned and is part of a program.
Not many churches just hang out together. How many times have you had social events as a church or for the children in the church. It takes a lot of time to plan a session. So the more sessions we have in a week the more time I spend planning those sessions and the less time I have for thinking about the future or sometimes anything for that matter. I sometimes think that this even stops me from thinking about what's happening with the children even. I'm so busy planning week to week because there's so much that I don't have time to think about the overall structure and how we're discipling the children.

But maybe it's just me that's like this and everyone else has got it sorted. I sure hope so.