CHILDREN MINISTRY
The Children Ministry has two arms which are:
- The Sunday School (0-15 years)
- The Boys’ Brigade and The Girls’ (0-19 years)
Sunday School focuses on the Sunday services for the Children and other follow-up forums done either at home or in church.
The Brigade is the mentor-ship arm of Children Ministry designed to impart life skills on the Boys as they grow to become men and Girls grow to become women.
The aim of the children ministry is leading children into a living relationship with Jesus Christ. The ministry focuses on entrenching firm Christian foundation through teaching, mentor-ship and capacity building and enabling them to grow in faith and live life in its fullness. The diocese has identified this as a strategic ministry and will invest adequate resources in it. Effective children ministry will be achieved through development of appropriate curriculum, identification of necessary infrastructure and commitment of financial resources with special emphasis on staffing and capacity building of ministry workers.
This is a ministry was created to cater for the transition group between Sunday School and Youth mostly for those aged between 13 and 18 years. It is meant to take over for those who get confirmed by the Bishop to continue discipling them and reaching out to them and their age-mates in schools. We refer to those who instruct Teens as Teens’ Mentors because of the coaching role they also are expected to play. The Teens Ministry was approved by the Diocesan Synod in 2016 to set structures that would see it run as an independent department with a full time, Coordinator at the Diocesan level. We are looking forward to the realization of the same.
ACHIEVEMENTS AS DEPARTMENT:
- New and improved teaching manuals for Sunday School prepared by our very own teachers
- More parishes embracing the need to have Children Workers
- Participation in the Provincial Brigade programs and activities, conferences and training
- Partnership with other denominations and like-minded Children organizations like Childnet Tuamke and Child Evangelism Fellowship
- Continued implementation of the Diocesan Strategic Plan for Year 2014-2023
- Conferences, Workshops, Training, Seminars and Team-building activities for Sunday School teachers and Brigade Officers.
- Children Brigade Camps and Parish mentor-ship programs
- Teachers Trainings both at Parish and Diocesan levels and Continued training of ToTs
CHALLENGES AS A DEPARTMENT:
- Numbers of teachers per church still low compared to the number of children
- Budgetary allocations for funding of children activities in and out of the parishes still low.
- Lack of enough rooms for various classifications of children according to their age-groups (0-3yrs, 4-6yrs, 7-9yrs and 10-12yrs). Some still combine all children in one class
WAY FORWARD FOR DEPARTMENT:
- Coming up with a Diocesan Child Protection Policy.
- Encourage Parishes to employ Children Ministry workers to ensure availability, consistency and creativity in handling children and teachers.
- Develop an elaborate Sunday School ToT program