On Saturday we will have a whole bunch of kids here at our facility for our annual Santa Breakfast. I look forward to this every year, because we get to meet a lot of people from the community, and because it's great fun to see all the children having fun and interacting with Santa.
Kids are a big part of my ministry here - from homeschooling my own, to serving kids in our community. I was a family minister before I came here, and it has always been important to me to develop the faith of children. Lately I've been working on a comprehensive approach to the spiritual formation of children. Several people have participated with me in a discussion about this, and I think the biggest challenge is keeping the whole thing natural.
In traditional ministry settings, "comprehensive" translates: organized, formal, educational, and institutional. These are the things we know and gravitate towards. I'm not opposed to programs and ministries, and our discussions about spiritual formation will ultimately result in the creation of these. But I don't want programs to become the central component of spiritual formation, because I know that doesn't work.
So, rather than creating a "Spiritual Formation Ministry," I guess you could say we are trying to cultivate a culture of spiritual formation. And if we are successful in doing that, it will, of course, not be limited to kids. It will become the cultural reality for everyone in our fellowship.
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