CC-I really need advice.

[mom31257]

We attend a church that has been developing a ministry to some poverty stricken neighborhoods. We have a public school that allows our church to go one Saturday a month and invite the neighborhood people in. We grill out, do puppet skits, dramas, have inflatables, etc. This school is supposed to 97% of kids at or below the poverty level. We bus quite a few of them in for some services. There are also people picking them up and bringing them in for the other services.

 

Discipline is those areas is getting out of hand. My dh volunteers one Sunday a month in the elementary group and said the atmosphere has totally changed and they aren't even getting through all the lessons. Our own child is scheduled to be in this group this fall. The class he is in now is having similar problems. I volunteered today and it was chaos.

 

We are very torn about staying at all. I know the kids need to be ministered to, but so do ours. We feel that ours aren't getting what they could.

 

Our dd goes into youth this fall and they are dealing with kids all ready sexually active so we're afraid every class is going to be don't have sex, don't do drugs, etc. She isn't even alone with any boys yet and won't be for quite some time, so this isn't an issue for her.

 

Has anyone dealt with these same issues or questions?

[mom31257]

bump.

[amy g.]

I'm sorry, but I left a church last year partly because their was no discipline in the Sunday school classes, and no Biblical substance to the youth group.

 

We are going to another church now, for mass only. I honestly felt that my children would be better off at home than in the environment that evolved at our former church.

 

They care so much about meeting the needs of seekers, that their is no place for mature Christians.

[athena1277]

Several years ago I worked with a church program that brought kids from the projects to area churches once a week to have Bible classes/skits/crafts/etc. If any of the children did not behave, they were not allowed to come back the next week. Granted it, we wanted all the children to come, but if one or two were ruining it for the rest of them, they were not welcome. I even remember a time or 2 when a child was so bad on the way to the church, that after the other kids got off the bus, that child was taken back home.

 

You really have to have consequences laid out for all the children and be very consistent and swift with the discipline. For some of the kids, this is the only place that they get the proper discipline they need.

[AuntieM]

They care so much about meeting the needs of seekers, that their is no place for mature Christians.

 

Unfortunately, this has been our experience in recent years. It is beyond seeker-sensitive, it is seeker-centered. While there is certainly a great need for evangelizing and sharing the Good News, it needs to be well balanced with discipleship of believers.

 

The mission field - domestic/urban as well as foreign - has its risks. The church, IMO, should be a safe harbor. Under the circumstances you (OP) describe, it sounds like the mission field has been brought under the roof of the church. In that case, I would perhaps want to minister to these young people through my service as an adult, but I would not have my kids involved without my direct supervision any more than I would send them into an inner city (oh, heck, for that matter just ANY) public school classroom.

 

So, I am validating your feelings, I think. Others are free to disagree with me, but that's my pair o'pennies.

[Rosy]

If you believe this church is God's best for your family, I would definitely keep your daughter in the main service with you, or get her plugged into serving in the Sunday School (nursery or preschool), or a combination. It sounds like that youth group would be a really unhealthy place for her. Maybe she could attend a mid-week youth service at a different church, one whose values are more in line with yours.

 

I agree with you that the at-risk kids need to be ministered to. But there needs to be a standard of behavior set and *reinforced* for ministry to have any positive impact.

 

I firmly believe that the purpose of church services are "12for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ." (Eph 4:12-13). A church that is only providing milk and not solid food cannot nurture mature believers.

 

It is very important to reach out to the community with the love of Christ. It just has to be done in a way that is healthy for everyone involved. There are ways to get groups like that under control but it requires a firm and consistent hand and a willingness to be the "bad guy". Eventually I think the strictest leaders can be the most beloved, but the reining in is hard.

[Laurie4b]

This is an issue of structuring the program and training of the volunteers. There is no reason that it has to be chaos. That's not helpful for the kids you are reaching out to as well as the ones from the church. It has much less to do with the particular kids than with the oversight of the ministry.

 

If the program is run primarily with rotating volunteers, I cannot see it working . They will not be able to establish either the relationship or the rules that enable everyone to learn and grow. You have to have at least some stable ministry leaders, but I'd much rather have 100% weekly volunteers with subs when they are out of town, sick, etc.

[mom31257]

Thanks for the thoughts. One issue in all this (I didn't put it in before, sorry!) is that we are part-time staff at this church. We are the Christian Education Pastors over Sunday School and Adult Discipleship. It would be really awkward to pull our kids out of certain ministries, yet stay in the church.

 

We have a full time children's pastor and youth pastor, but all the other workers are volunteer and do rotate some. There are a few who work a certain service permanently, though. I'm not sure what the long term plans are for discipline. I don't know if our staff, except for us, are willing to be as strict as some of you have mentioned here.

 

We only run the buses on Wednesday night; however, one lady has taken it upon herself to get lots of these children to Sunday morning and night services. Our children's ministry had a family night, which we thought was supposed to be for parents and children to do things together, and she brought at least 12-14 kids in without any parents. To me, it totally changed the purpose of the night. My dh said I know she may be called to inner-city ministry, but not everyone is. BTW, he teaches at the high school where most of these kids end up, so he does see the need for ministering to them.

 

I think those mentioning milk verses solid food really helped me realize that's exactly what is going on. It's a great way to put it in the right context. Please pray for us to make the right decision.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I think your church leadership needs to decide if this is a ministry that you are going to pursue. If so, you need to set it up in a way that meets the real needs of these kids. You need to get men involved, in my experience. Male teachers can help to maintain a friendly but firm discipline that these kids need in order to be able to learn. That doesn't mean that women teachers can't be involved but I think that men need to be front and center in this.

 

I think you also need to find Bible curriculum that actually teaches these kids. It doesn't have to be boring but it should be material with substance. Much like what we look for in homeschooling curricula for our kids.

 

If that isn't the ministry that your church leadership want - if they want the family ministry that you mentioned as their focus then they need to make that clear.

[Harriet Vane]

This is an issue of structuring the program and training of the volunteers. There is no reason that it has to be chaos. That's not helpful for the kids you are reaching out to as well as the ones from the church. It has much less to do with the particular kids than with the oversight of the ministry.

 

If the program is run primarily with rotating volunteers, I cannot see it working . They will not be able to establish either the relationship or the rules that enable everyone to learn and grow. You have to have at least some stable ministry leaders, but I'd much rather have 100% weekly volunteers with subs when they are out of town, sick, etc.

 

:iagree:

 

I was a member at a struggling inner-city church for seven years, and directed their Sunday School program for quite a few years, as I have done also in the church at which we are members presently. We have lived on the same block in a challenged area of the city for the last twelve years. The church we attend presently is located on the dividing line between our challenging urban context and a wealthy suburb, so our congregation is mixed. We have the whole gamut at our church, from PhD to GED and every socio-economic flavor in between.

 

All too often in the interest of reaching the lost and the hurting, churches compromise in staffing and discipline for children's programs. This, in my opinion, is disastrous and creates an atmosphere where NO ONE can learn, including the lost and the hurting.

 

There needs to be STRICT adult-child ratios maintained, and volunteers must have training on what is expected in terms of discipline. Do not allow anyone to volunteer who hasn't undergone this training. For older children I shoot for a ratio of 10 kids per one adult, going down for younger children to 6:1 and even less for the nursery. There also needs to be a no-compromise rule that no adult is EVER alone with the kids--there must always, always, always be two adults. I would shut down a class and have NO children's program one evening before I would compromise on this point--it protects both children and adults.

 

As for discipline, there does need to be a strict procedure in place. Anyone who cannot obey the rules cannot stay, period. The teaching teacher should focus on teaching, and the other volunteers present focus on addressing each. and. every. rule infraction with a smile and firm direction for what is expected. If a kid cannot obey with 1-2 warnings, they should have a chat with the director in the hall, and if they really cannot settle down, they must be removed from the program. Something like this: "You're really having a hard time listening to the teacher today. You'll have to sit with your mom (or if there is no mom then the child has to stay with whomever brought them or a designated "buddy"). We will look forward to seeing you again next week in class." If your church is bussing the kids in, then there MUST be two volunteers to be available if a kid cannot stay in class.

 

As for your awkwardness about pulling your kids because you are staff--PLEASE PULL THEM ANYWAY IF NECESSARY. I struggled with this issue myself, and I do know how hard this is and how intense staff pressure can be. I also struggle with it every day as we are living as white minorities in an African-American neighborhood that also happens to be poverty-stricken and higher crime.

 

Your kids were not called to this ministry--YOU were. Do not force them to do something they were not called to do. If they are truly happy to help then that's one thing, but if they are struggling, then your priority as a mother must be for their well-being.

 

I did have to do this at my former church. There were virtually no child protection procedures in place, and I never felt safe leaving my dd in the nursery. My fears were valid, unfortunately. As dd grew older, I allowed her to participate in only those programs that I personally directed. I knew for a fact that the other programs were unsafe (yes, unsafe) and also that the overcrowding, lack of supervision, and lack of training were also creating situations in which real learning could NOT take place. Unfortunately I saw that staff children often ended up being unofficial staff in their classrooms--this is a hard, hard position for a child to hold socially, and unfair to a child who has not felt God's call to that work.

 

Use these problems in the programs to open a dialogue within the leadership. Outreach such as you describe MUST include a counting of the cost not only financially but especially in terms of discipline and management. Wise stewards plan carefully and lay a good framework of discipline and teaching--without good discipline, the outreach suffers, and the kids who are growing up in the church go without discipleship. This creates a bitterness and a cynicism in those ministry kids that is heartbreaking--I am personally acquainted with kids who have grown up to reject the church due almost entirely to these issues.

Edited April 13, 2009 by strider