“Close to God’s Heart”

Leusden, Netherlands – Forty children’s workers from eleven churches in the Dutch district gathered in Leusden, close to Amersfoort on Saturday, November 6th for the Dutch district’s training day for children’s ministries. There were familiar faces, long-time faithful workers and new people, all part of the children’s ministries in the Dutch local churches.

“It is always very joyful to see people of different churches who have the same heart for children,” said Rolf Noordhof, assistant to the district superintendent.

After beginning with an informal time of chatting over coffee and tea, the group listened to a Wesleyan fairy tale written and read by Gabi Markusse, a theologian from the church in Amersfoort.

“In a fascinating and playful way, she took us into a world of holiness for children,” said Monique Kalkman, a children and youth minister at Amersfoort.

They heard how they could help the children understand what it means to be holy, as God is holy, by looking at the Ten Commandments.

“We don’t want to send our children into society with just a set of rules, but help them to understand and see the heart of God in each commandment,” said Kalkman.

For the children’s worker this primarily means that they may live close to God’s loving heart, and from there serve and encourage the children to become co-workers with God in His Kingdom.

The attendees heard about how children’s ministry is all about the children and God, and not about one’s feelings and thoughts as adults. After the introduction, Henrike Klip took the floor. Klip is a student from Nijmegen, Netherlands, and has a great drive for developing Nazarene material, according to Noordhof.

Klip informed the audience that the Dutch district website for children’s ministries will be ready for use by January 2011, to share lesson plans and ideas. This has the potential to become a real treasure chest full of material for the future.

Kalkman is very happy with the lessons that Klip and others have translated from the American (English) material because they can now gear their children’s ministry to be in line with their own Wesleyan theology.

“That was just what we missed from all the other material that has been available to us in the past,” she said. “We hope and pray that this will be a blessing to our children’s ministries throughout the country.”

After lunch the workers had a choice of two out of three workshops that they could attend.

Sylvia van Asperen ran the workshop “Children in need of extra care.” It provided practical hints and suggestions on how to deal with children who have, for instance, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD-NOS) and how to react when a child throws a fit or stomps with rage. Asperen explained that it is important to have the same set of rules throughout all the Sunday classes.

“Setting up pastoral care for children in the local church” by Monique Kalkman, was the second workshop. It investigated how the church can have structure in monitoring and pastoring children, if necessary. It starts bottom up, guaranteeing that every child is seen and recognized, and ends with special care for individual cases.

“In this case, it is important that we bring in church members who are professionals in their daily life and offer them a place to serve in the church as well,” said Noordhof.

Klip ran the third workshop, entitled “The practical aspects of working with lesson plans.” During this session, the workers had lessons on the themes and goals of the Nazarene curriculum. This will be the method used next year; the workers will design their lessons and then share them on the new website with other churches.

According to Kalkman, by the end of the day they were all excited and looking forward to continuing the conversation at next year’s District Children’s Ministries Day.

“During this day it was obvious not only the level of  ‘how to tell a story to a child in a sing-a-song’ but to deal with the serious challenges of working with our children,” said Kalkman.

Full of impressions, the group once again boarded bus, train, car and bicycle, freshly motivated to minister to the children in each of their local churches.  

 

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