Welcome to the June 2006 Children's Workers' newsletter.

MethodistChildren will be at Methodist Conference at our stand in the Exhibition Space. If you are coming to Conference it would be great to chat to you about what work is happening in your church with children.
Many of you have filled in our on-line Audit and this will come to a close at the end of this month, so if you know anyone working with children who has not filled it you should encourage them to do so. During July the returns will be collated and crunched enabling us to produce a full report in the autumn.
Project groups are reviewing the work of the Connexional Team. You can now see what they think about youth and children's work in the Methodist Church and take part in their consultation called Future Present. Visit www.methodist.org.uk

Great giveaways!

Mission shaped children This month we have loads of great goodies to give away! Firstly our thanks go to Church House Publishing ( http://www.chpublishing.co.uk ) for sending us five free copies of Margaret Withers' new book - Mission-Shaped Children. Following in the footsteps of the Church of England report entitled 'Mission-Shaped Church' it focusses on ways that the Church can overcome the barriers which prevent growth in children's work in the Church. The book contains sound advice, real-life case studies, questions for discussion and guidance on sources of further advice and information. This is a real 'must-read' for anyone working in any Church in any denomination. Answer the following simple question and e-mail us with the answer to win one copy of the book -

What was the name of the report that Mission-Shaped Children followed?

You can buy a copy of Mission-Shaped Children from Church House Publishing and all good Christian Book Sellers, priced £7.99

It's your move

Know someone moving to secondary school after the summer? This practical guide from Scripture Union ( http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk ) is a helpful guide for those who will be pondering over their upcoming transition to a new school, meeting new people, and dealing with new subjects. A perfect summer reader packed with activities, reflections, and facts it will enable children to talk to parents and church friends about their fears and hopes for this important move. Single copies of It's your move! are £2.99, or if you buy ten you get them for £12.
We have twenty copies of It's your move! to give away to twenty lucky people!
Just answer this question -

Anyone starting in Secondary School this September was born in one of two years, what are they?

Send your answers to both competitions to children@methodistchurch.org.uk , the first five correct answers to the Mission-shaped Children question will receive the books and the first twenty answers to the It's your move! question will receive that title.

Training and CORE Skills

Time is running out to ensure that all those who have responsibility for training are up to speed with the new training package; Core Skills. Core will be the official training route for children's workers in many denominations, including The Methodist Church.
The conference to launch this new material, Core Skills for Training, is at the University of Nottingham from Friday 8th to Sunday 10th September. Starting on Friday night with a Training marketplace followed by the official launch of CORE with keynote speakers. Over the weekend each of the six CORE skills areas (Child development, Leadership skills, Programme Planning, Children & Community, Pastoral Awareness, and Spirituality & the Bible) will be looked at from three different angles enabling you to get the most out of the material and the conference. That makes a total of eighteen workshops to choose from over the weekend. With great food, fabulous company, and the talents of Simeon Wood on offer on Saturday night, it is a real steal of a weekend at only £150 per person. Bursaries are available on request from CGMC. Visit www.cgmcontheweb.com for more details.

Visit the new Core Skills website http://www.coreskillsforchurches.com

No place for a Child

Did you know that no fewer than 2000 asylum seeking children were locked up (one in three for over a week) while their family’s application was being processed? Studies show that detention of children can cause long-term ill effects, including depression, insomnia and ill-health. They have also shown that there are more humane and cost effective ways of looking after families during the asylum process.

A 7-year-old detained for 32 days in an immigration centre said ‘detention is like a cage, and I was like a small bird with no food in it’.
The effect of not knowing how long the detention might be is particularly damaging, especially since many of the families have fled to escape brutal regimes in their home countries. Children often feel they are being punished but don’t understand why.

The UK government needs to get the message that detaining children for immigration purposes is wrong and that it should pursue alternatives to detention. The campaign has a website from which you can lobby the Home Secretary and your MP. Electronic messaging from the site only takes a minute.

For more information on the campaign and how you can get involved go to http://www.noplaceforachild.org.uk

Snapshots Bible Notes from Scripture Union

Sally Smith from SU Australia has been in touch and has asked if we can give her some help with developing the Snapshots Bible Reading Notes for children, she says:

A new Snapshots syllabus will be written in the next couple of months for the 4 quarters to October 08. We want to use the 4 quarters yet to be written to experiment with different ways of getting kids into the Bible. It can't change a lot, but lets see what we can do in the short term.

HELP!We badly need:

1. feedback from current Snapshots readers, and all who encourage children to read Snapshots - parents,leaders, grandparents, anyone!

2. input from parents and leaders with good recent experiences to share about children and Bible reading - these don't have to be Snapshots related at all.

What ideas do you have that might help shape it?

Or maybe you know what to avoid at all costs?

We want to be realistic about what to expect from kids and their families. What's your experience? Forget what SU usually does. When have you seen 8-11s really connect with God? What can we learn from it?

PLEASE jot something down and email it to me. Please forward this to anyone who might help.

And if you'd like to join an email list to get the coordinated results just let me know.

PLEASE pray

*that you'll recall, record and send anything that might help

*that I'll be overwhelmed with feedback

Thanks. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. E-mail sallysmith@aapt.net.au

JMA @ MPH

JMA cartoon
Just a reminder that from this summer all JMA materials (including the new 2006 resources) will be obtainable from the Methodist Publishing House, not the JMA office at MethodistChildren in Marylebone Road. JMA Secretaries will receive an order form from MPH towards the end of June. There will be close liaison between MPH and the JMA office and we anticipate the changeover will go smoothly. All changes to names and addresses should still be sent to MethodistChildren

MPH can be contacted on 01733 325002 http://www.mph.org.uk

Pakistan Update

JMA members across our four nations have been raising extra funds to help the Church of Pakistan build a new hospital following the earthquake there in October. If you haven’t done something yet, you have plenty of time! Pay in any money you raise in the normal way, but let us know the amount.

Indonesia

You will have seen the terrible devastation caused by the earthquake in Java. The Indonesia Council of Churches has been helping the people affected. Local churches have been using their members and local knowledge to deliver help on the ground such as tents, food, medicine as well as medical doctors. JMA has contributed to a grant of £5,000 to express our solidarity with them in this tragedy and to help them with their work.

9-13 News

Our new 9-13 web pages will be launched soon, we now have a group of six children and young people who are going to regularly contribute music reviews and other items. If you know of anyone who would be interested in joining this group or any leaders who would be interested in reviewing or contributing resources and sharing stories please contact us.

We recently recorded a podcast interview with two young people from the Croydon Circuit (Gillian and Anne) They are offering reflections on their experience at Easter People and life at their home Church. Gillian and Anne were volunteers at the Youth Venue run by Share Jesus at Easter People. This will soon be on the main Methodist web page.

Gillian and Anne also brought with them a Band from the USA Called ‘’Tears of Solomon’’, who were performing at EP.
You can also hear the band on a podcast interview, answering questions Gillian and Anne prepared. (Live on www.methodist.org.uk)

Breakout News from MAYC

Breakout is a vibrant inspiring event for young people and their Leaders at the Winter Gardens Blackpool, MethodistChildren have a stand in the exhibition area and we are looking for volunteers to staff our stand at different times during the weekend. You will have access to the event and an opportunity to attend some of the activities.

Are you a qualified referee? Do you live locally to The Winter Gardens? MAYC are looking for referees to run football matches during Saturday 8th July at Breakout.

If you are interested please contact MAYC 020 7467 5209

Take This

'Take This' is a magazine that is produced for children in church and school. Aimed at children from 7 to 12 years old, the magazine has been produced in the UK since 1991. It can be used to welcome children to services, as a focus for Christian teaching, or perhaps as a gift from your Church to a local school. Produced monthly it is full of games, quizzes, articles, and mazes which all follow a Christian theme for the month. The magazine is not produced for profit and is available free to churches who would like to receive it.
For further information you can download an Information Sheet here.

Upcoming conferences

European Conference on Christian Education (ECCE) ‘Between Traditions’

A challenging opportunity to explore new directions in children’s ministry with others of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox traditions from many European countries. 29 Jan – 3 Feb in a comfortable, Christian conference centre near Vienna.

You are not Alone - Radical Thinking on Youth and Children’s ministry

At King’s Park Conference Centre, Northampton 7/8 November, £65
This is a training event for TDOs but there are 20 places for people outside the TDO group.

You may wish to contact your church, circuit or district to ask for financial support for any of the above.

For further information on these conference please contact us at children@methodistchurch.org.uk

MethodistChildren Destinations

Continuing on the work done from the on-line Audit we are delighted to offer you the MethodistChildren Destinations. These are distilled from the MethodistChildren Journey which we put on-line last month. A newly revised copy is available for comment on the website. The Destinations respond to the questions raised about what people could do with the Journey document as a whole.

The Destinations are designed as a 'wish-list' for children's work in the Church, with the Journey being the fuller explanation of how we intend to get there. It is our intention to publish both of these documents after Conference. What we need now is more feedback from you, the users of MethodistChildren, as to how this 'wish-list' corresponds to work you are doing now and want to do in the future. We are offering you the Destinations in two ways -

Download a copy of the Destinations here and use this to frame your thought process or discussion

or you can take part in our Paperless Consultation!

Methodist podcast logo Download the podcast which contains the outlines and discussions around the Destinations. Then, with permission, tape the resulting discussion of the young people and children in your group and send it back to us in any format at MethodistChildren - but no paper!

Streaming Audio. Choose your internet connection speed:
Broadband LISTEN Dial-up 56K LISTEN

Save file to your computer. Right click on one of the links below and choose 'save target as'.
High Quality File (2.18 MB) Lower Quality File (744 KB)

If you require any further information please contact us on children@methodistchurch.org.uk

If you wish to unsubscribe from this newsletter please click here: Unsubscribe me.

MethodistChildren is part of the Connexional Team of the

Penny Fuller, Steve Pearce, Mary Roseweir, Doug Swanney
MethodistChildren