Continuing the Covenant Vows to Our Children

Do you as members of the congregation welcome this child into the community of faith?

Will you seek to intentionally disciple him/her because of your own commitment to Jesus by your own words and deeds?

Will you support the educational and youth ministries of the church so that together we can disciple children in the faith?

Will you pray for the children of the church?

Do these questions sound familiar? When we baptize children at Missio Dei Church and welcome them into the faith community, we answer these questions as a unified body. Together, we make a commitment to shepherd and raise our children to know and understand the story of Good News. Because of this, I wanted to take the time to let you know about some of the exciting changes taking place in Kid’s Crossing.

When we stopped sending our fourth and fifth graders out of worship in an effort to help them learn and grow with the rest of the adults in church, we lost some of our intentionality in discipling these kids. While the primary instruction and teaching should come from the home, we as a church stand up and make a commitment at baptism that we will be intentional in discipling the kids of Missio Dei Church.

In an effort to be more intentional with our third-sixth grade students, we are excited to introduce an after-church Sunday school for these kids. Laura Vroom has graciously volunteered to lead this class for the time being. This will be a change for our third-grade students who are used to going downstairs for a portion of the service, but in the past few weeks, we have been noticing a big span of development and attention in the school-age classroom.

So what exactly are the logistics for this class? This Sunday (and following) when the communion servers return to their seats, the third-sixth grade students will be able to quietly head downstairs to the school-age classroom. They may miss the last song of the service, but this provides the opportunity for them to have a little bit more time together. Their donuts (or snack) will be waiting for them downstairs. Their Sunday school time will last until 11:30 AM.

New City CatechismTogether, they will be journeying through Tim Keller’s New City Catechism. The focus will be on giving our third-sixth grade students a firm foundation to stand upon based on what we believe and why. They will move past the focus of their time being on Bible stories that many of the kids can recite flawlessly into some of the more in-depth realities of what it means to follow Jesus and believe in Him. The New City Catechism is divided into three sections: part one is based on God, creation, the Fall, and law, part two covers Christ, redemption, and grace, and part three is about the Spirit, restoration, and growing in grace.

This is an exciting new opportunity for our church. Please join me in praying that God would use their together to help them grow in knowledge and faith. If you have questions or concerns, please contact Laura, Paul, Nathan, Michael, or myself. We would be happy to talk with you.

In Christ,

Amanda Paben

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Resources for parents: 

  1. New City Catechism for the ipad or the full PDF here
  2. Big Church for Small Kids - a blog post from Jen Wilkin 
  3. Family Worship - An ebook that helps families invesitgate what family worship could look like. 
  4. Finding Christ in the Family Room - another guide to family worship.