Ministry with Children

Moving to First Third

This blog on children's ministry began back with the Children's Summits we held at Luther Seminary. It served a useful purpose back in the days when we didn't have many web resources. But now we have several excellent web resources at Luther, and we are discontinuing this one. Join as at First Third site!

Living whole-heartedly

Worth remembering, and it's hard not to see the immediate connections to kenosis. Today I'm trying to hold on to Parker Palmer's urging to live in the tragic gap.

Bullying resources

I pay attention to anything and everything that danah boyd does, as I think her scholarship is excellent and ground-breaking. Lately she's been working with the new Lady Gaga foundation (Born This Way) to develop a set of resources on bullying. They've got five research papers, and a number of other very useful pieces up there already.

Young children and "techno toys"

There's a fascinating piece in the Guardian today that writes of the ways in which very young children -- toddlers, for instance -- engage with electronic devices. In and amongst the typical fears raised about children not getting enough physical learning, were some trenchant observations. For instance:

As you remove the reality," Huggins says, "they just make it up." Freeman says: "I'm always amused by how entertaining my two find playing creatively with cardboard boxes – still wins hands down over a few minutes with the iPhone." As for learning to count, as Wooldridge says, "Your child can push buttons all they want, but without your involvement they're not going to go beyond that."

The point is that kids watch adults, and want to do what they do:

There's no doubt that small children love pressing buttons, looking at bright flashing lights and listening to funny noises, partly for the same reasons that adults do – like rats, we can't help responding to sensory stimuli – but also precisely because adults do. A child will see how rapt her parents are by a mobile phone or computer screen, and imitate their behaviour: these things are clearly interesting, because Mum and Dad can't keep away from them.

I think the piece is a good reminder that we need to "apprentice" our kids into all sorts of practices. Engaging electronic devices is one small piece of that, but far more important are the ways in which we communicate with each other, and the patterns by which we engage silence, not to mention conflict.

Parenting advice for managing tech

Here's a nice short piece with good basic advice for parenting kids in a digital age. The five suggestions Soren Gordhamer makes are: (1) technology no longer has boundaries, (2) know when to cut it off, (3) the difference between preference and addiction, (4) focus on technology that truly connects us to our kids, and (5) model the balance. Read the article for the annotations, but these are great basic things to keep in mind.

Children, media and race

Fascinating new study just released by Northwestern University on "children, media and race" (free pdf).

Teens and the culture of "celebritization"

danah boyd has another excellent and thought-provoking essay up about the intersection of adolescence and the attention economy:

Teens’ desire for attention is not new. Teens have always looked for attention and validation from others – parents, peers, and high-status individuals. And just as many in business argue that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, there are plenty of teens who believe that there’s no such thing as bad attention. The notion of an “attention whore” predates the internet. Likewise, the notion that a child might “act out” is recognized as being a call for attention. And it’s important to highlight that the gendered aspects of these tropes are reinforced online.

So what happens when a teen who is predisposed to seeking attention gets access to the tools of the attention economy? Needless to say, we see both exciting and horrifying events play out. We see teens like Tavi Gevinson propel her interest in fashion into a full-blown career before the age of 14. And we see countless teens replicating the trainwreck activities of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and other celebrities. When teens leverage social media to propel themselves into the spotlight, they fully (and with reckless abandon) engage in a set of practices that Terri Senft and Alice Marwick talk about as micro-celebrity. They work to manage their impressions, cultivate attention, and interact in ways that will increase their fame and social status.

Great intro to Godly Play

Here's a great introduction to the Godly Play process for faith formation.

Education and natural disasters

The CyberPilgrim blog (which is mostly focused on digital catechesis) has a great set of resources for engaging issues that arise around faith and natural disasters.

Children's sermons

Here's a great set of advice for any of you out there who are tempted to do "children's" sermons. Israel Galindo's point, of course, is that if you're going to proclaim to children, then really do that -- and respect who they are in the process.