In early March the Diocese, organised by our Child, Youth and Family Educator, hosted the first Diocesan Children's Hui to bring together those passionate about Children's Ministry…

On the 9th - 10th of March 25 champions of children's ministry, representing seven Ministry Units spreading from Oamaru to Invercargill gathered together at All Saint's Church in Dunedin to spend time in fellowship, worship and learning.

The Hui was privileged to have Diana Langdon our Tikanga Pakeha Anglican National Kids & Families Ministry Enabler lead two of our workshops.

Friday night was our informal portion of the Hui where we started with a welcome, a few icebreakers to get to know each other, as well as dinner and worship together, led by the Bright Lights team from the Cathedral. The worship session showed creative ways of engaging children with prayer, including singing, a reading from the Rhyming Bible (which is highly recommend) and four prayer stations where we creatively prayed for the world, others, the church and ourselves.

The Saturday session of the Hui was the more formal learning space. We heard two presentations from Diana Langdon, with the first exploring the theology of accommodation. In Diana's own words:

We accommodate because we’ve seen God do it time and time again, and we want our kids to be part of a church that is willing to lift them up, equip them and empower them. And sometimes that means we give up some of our power and preference to help them feel at home in our church whānau

(If you would like to learn more about the theology of accommodation you can about it at Discipleship Pathways under the Intergenerational Communities training.)

Our second session was a place where four local stories were shared. The Hui heard from the Rev'd Aaron Douglas and his ministry with children at a monthly children's service, the Rev'd Andrea McDougall and her intercultural work with the communities in her parish, Julanne Clarke-Morris and the ministry of her church at Christmas time running an annual Christmas fun day for children, and Gillian Lynch with the experience she has had being part of the Strandz SCOPE learning groups.

Our final session for the day was based on the Parable of the Sower, where Diana led the group through an exercise to look at their ministries with children through the lens of this ancient story. The day finished with a quick talk about resource location, a discussion about how we can continue the good work started at the Hui (watch this space) and afternoon tea.

A big thank you to everyone who attended the Hui, who gave up their Friday night and Saturday to spend time talking and learning about children's ministry. A thank you also to the Rev. Andrea McDougall and Rachel Slade for helping to organise the event, as well as to Diana for travelling down from Wellington to spend the weekend with us, sharing some of the wisdom that she has.

If you have any questions, thoughts or just want to talk about children's ministry in the Diocese contact our Diocesan Child, Youth and Family Educator.