Facebooking in Kids Ministry

There’s no doubt about it, we have crossed over.

Gone are the days of only chatting with friends via the phone, or in the hallways at school. Today there are literally dozens of media options that keep kids connected 24/7.

Kids are naturally social, so it is no wonder sites like MySpace & Facebook have taken off among the kids and teenagers of the world. I’ve heard varying opinions about whether or not this latest social trend is good for Christians, or if it will pose another cultural problem the church must fight. Wherever we fall on the issue, we must confess that kids are there. They have Facebook pages, they text, and they unfortunately play Farmville.

Without getting into a rant against random, cheesy, farm games, let me say that I believe both good and bad can come from Facebooking. While it does open the door wide open for influences and potential risks, I have personally found it to be a great medium for conveying information, and even partaking in a little ministry work.

Below I’ve outlined some of the ways I believe Facebook can be rewarding for a Children’s Ministry. I’ve also outlined some tips I’ve found to be helpful when dealing with kids on Facebook. This social networking site holds great potential for bringing a children’s minister closer to their kids, and is a good source to extend the discipleship beyond the average Sunday morning.

Let’s look at what Facebook has to offer.

Messages – Much like email, this feature allows you to send messages to certain people. You can attach documents, links, videos etc. This is a nice feature because all you have to remember is a name and face, not some random email address like pootsybear79_TX3351@camelmail.net . Messaging is a great way to send information to kids and parents under your ministry. It is quick and easy, and even allows for a conversational style when participants select to reply to all.

Messaging is also a good way to connect with a kid in your ministry, who is otherwise closed in. We live in an era where many kids – and even adults for that matter – are more comfortable opening up behind a computer screen. Someone who is introverted in public, will not talk or participate, may be willing to share their troubles via a medium that is less confrontational. Personally I have found this to be true. There were a couple of kids in my children’s ministry that would be closed in person, yet online would be willing to talk. This medium allowed me to give them godly counsel, and ministry, in a setting that was comfortable to them. It also opened the door for them to feel comfortable speaking to me about it in person. Knowing that I was already aware of what was going on allowed these kids to feel more comfortable when we saw each other face to face.. It provided me a way to connect with kids who needed spiritual guidance.

We need to recognize though, that while messaging may present a good opportunity to connect, there needs to be some guidelines in place to protect everyone involved.

Fan Pages – This feature allows you to create a specific page for your ministry. I would highly recommend this method over using a personal page for ministry purposes. This is a great way to quickly convey information and news. Every time you make a post, it immediately goes to the newsfeed section of your fan’s pages. This is a great tool for ministries to provide simple teaching tips, inspirational sayings, a scripture of the day, or illicit conversation over a thought. I would suggest using the wall of your Facebook page (in less than 420 characters of course) to briefly recap the highlights of your kid’s church, or Sunday school, the week before. Ask your kids, teachers, and parents to get involved in the discussion. This will present new opportunities to reinforce the lessons, and get kids thinking about spiritual issues beyond 10am – 11am on Sunday morning.

Events – This feature allows you to place your events on a calendar and send notifications to all your friends. This is a great feature for promoting an upcoming rally, special Sunday, recreation activity, etc. As the date of the event get’s closer, a reminder is placed on the news feed section of your friend’s pages. Not only can you post events, but you can also send out virtual invitations to everyone on your friends list. They, in turn, can pass the invitation on to other friends. This is a great way to promote your event with no cost. This is a great tool for busy ministries with a low budget!

Notes – This section is a minister’s dream. The notes section is basically a blog that allows you to share your thoughts with everyone on your friends list. This is a great place to share experiences, testimonies, or to expound on a thought or Sunday school lesson. You can use notes to send a devotional to your teachers, kids, and parents. You can use notes for training purposes, or to reinforce the sermon from Kids Church. The notes section can be a great discipleship tool in the hand of a minister. If you open a ministry page, use this section weekly to teach your kids, teachers, and equip your parents. When you post a note, everyone on your friends list is immediately notified. This is a great way to disseminate information, and extend your ministry reach beyond Sunday.

Birthdays – Every kid is enthusiastic about their birthday. It is their day! Facebook allows you to place your friend’s birthdays on your calendar, and reminds you when one is approaching. When a birthday arrives, send a quick note or wall post. This is a wonderful way to remember and celebrate this special occasion in a kid’s life without spending money on postage, or having to remember to send a card. If you like sending a card, and have no problem remembering, then keep this up also. The birthday reminders can be a great way for you to show you care enough about your kids to celebrate their special day.

Photos – Facebook allows you to create photo albums to display your pictures. Use this feature to post photos from Kid’s Church, rallies, crusades, fun events, etc. Create a “silly photo” album and fill it with nothing but crazy pictures of your kids! Have them pose silly, or make silly faces, or catch them in funny actions, and post them in this album. This will create a place where kids can relive fond memories. Children’s Ministry is all about creating impressions and memories. The photos section of Facebook can help you achieve this goal.

FB Advertising – This is a great feature that can give your ministry wide exposure for pennies on the dollar. Create an ad campaign that reaches your community. You pay pennies for each impression, or click on the Advertisement. For less than $100 you can literally put your ministry in front of millions of people.

Farmville – There is absolutely no value in Farmville. Stay away from it. It is from Satan. It is in the Bible not to play cheesy farm games. Look it up in Hezekiah 33:5. :)

As a recap,

Facebook can be a great way to expand your Children’s Ministry. It provides opportunities to disciple, connect, inform, and relate to the kids in your church. By having access to your kid’s Facebook pages, you can keep up to date on the happenings in their life. You can see what is important to them, what they are facing, and it helps you keep tabs on the spiritual state of your kids. This is a great tool for Children’s Ministry workers because it helps you clue in to what your kids need each Sunday. It moves you from taking a bird shot approach of teaching curriculum and hoping it hits home with someone, to a place of strategic discipleship. When you know where your kids are at in life, you are better empowered to bring them a word from God that speaks to their “today.” Such empowerment moves ministry into a deeper and more influential place. It makes a greater impact in the lives of your kids.

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and oh yea, Farmville is evil.

Let me know ways in which you have used networking media in ministry. I am interested in hearing all your comments about how sites like Facebook can, or have, increased ministry opportunities for you!

The Proper Perspective on Prayer - Part II

Luke chapter 18 begins with the statement,

“And he spake a parable unto them to this end,
that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;”

Jesus preached prayer, and he practiced prayer.

In Luke 6:12 Jesus spent the entire night in prayer before choosing his twelve disciples. In Matthew 14:23 Jesus departs into a mountain to pray alone. After being baptized by John in the Jordan River, the spirit of God drove him into the wilderness for 40 days of prayer and fasting. We see him in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before the crucifixion praying for God’s will to be done, for the apostles, for the coming church, and even for you and I – those who would believe through the Apostles’ ministry.

Christ was all about prayer.

Men of God were all about prayer.

- Seth prayed in the book of Genesis and men began to call on God.
- Noah prayed and God instructed him to build an Ark
- Abraham prayed and gave him a promise and a people
- Jacob prayed and wrestled with an angel
- Joseph prayed and was elevated to the highest offices of Egypt.
- The Hebrews prayed and God raised up Moses
- Moses prayed and God parted the Red Sea
- The Israelites prayed and God gave them manna from Heaven
- Joshua prayed and the sun stood still for 24 hours
- Samson prayed and renewed his strength
- Deborah prayed and delivered a nation
- Gideon prayed and destroyed the enemy
- David prayed and defeated his giant
- Solomon prayed and found wisdom

And the list goes on and on.

Prayer is one of the most basic fundamentals of Christian living. It is our refuge, our medium for obtaining supernatural power in a natural world. It is our source for boldness to proclaim the gospel, Grace to face the toughest situations, and hope for a promised future. It is our means of communicating with an interested Father.

It is our way of life.

“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” – Martin Luther King Jr. –

In part 1, we discussed what prayer is not. In this post we look at what prayer is.

A way to bring your mind and heart in line with God’s

In prayer, we surrender to God, making his priorities our own. While teaching the disciples to pray he noted the importance of submitting our preferences to his will.

“Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-10)

Prayer does not twist the arm of a disinclined God. Rather, it gives God permission to work in our lives and bring us in line with his thoughts, priorities, and desires.

God has given us free will. He will not force himself, or his desires, into our lives. We can not automatically assume that he will step into our situations and act on our behalf without our expressed invitation.

As David Bernard notes in his book Growing A Church

“Prayer does not change God’s attitude, but it changes our attitude so that we are ready to receive what God has planned for us.

Prayer molds and transforms us so that we are prepared to receive the answers that God wants to give us.”

In short, Bernard concludes, prayer gives us the ability to

1. discern God’s will
2. to do God’s will

Christ himself gave us an example of this when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

“And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,

Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” (Luke 22:41-42)

We can come to God and ask him to move how we want him to, but in the end we must always leave prayer submitted to doing it God’s way.

When we get lost in prayer, truly lost in prayer, it transforms our minds and brings them in line with God’s mind. It brings our hearts in line with God’s heart. It makes God’s priorities our priorities. It makes God’s desires our desires.

Prayer is how we bring our minds, our hearts, our wills, and our priorities in line with God’s

It is also,

A way to die to your old nature so that Christ can be formed in you.

The apostle Paul made the statement.

“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you,” (Galatians 4:19)

The word formed means “to fashion.”

Prayer is a way for us to die to our old nature of sin so that Christ can be fashioned in our lives. Paul said, “I die daily.”

A daily prayer life will consistently kill the old man so that God can fashion us into the man or woman of God he has purposed for us to be.

Jesus told the disciples, “Pray that ye enter not into temptation.” (Luke 22:40). Every one of us will face temptation, but a consistent and daily prayer life will stop us from giving in to those temptations.

Paul told the Galatians, “This I say, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16)

Prayer has a way of keeping our spirits in subjection to the will of God, allowing us to walk in the Spirit of God and not after the manner of our flesh.

If you find yourself struggling with the desires of the flesh; that is a good indication that your prayer life is in a weak spot right now. Prayer, coupled with fasting, will crucify your flesh. It will bring your flesh under subjection to the spirit of God.

It will kill your fleshly, humanistic desires, and it will birth in you Godly desires.

The Proper Perspective on Prayer - Part I

Whatever your view point on prayer is, we should all agree that prayer is a necessary component in a Christian’s life if they are going to grow in Christ.

Doctrinally speaking…

There are three basic fundamentals to Christian living. As a child of God, you will not grow in God’s grace without these three fundamentals actively working in your life.

Church will give you a measure of growth. Weekly services will give you a measure of growth. However, if your life lacks these three fundamentals, then your growth will be greatly hindered if existent at all.

The first fundamental is the word of God. Without the word of God active in your life, you can not grow beyond the maturity level of a babe in Christ.

The second fundamental is fasting. Fasting is a way for us to crucify our flesh so that the desires and lusts of our flesh will pass away and God’s nature can be revealed in a greater light through us.

The third fundamental is of course, prayer.

But……

Before we discuss what prayer is, let us examine what prayer is not.

Prayer is not twisting God’s arm.

We do not pray to get God to do what we want him to do. It is ok to go to God with supplications and prayer requests, asking God to move in your life, but we do not go to God for the purpose of persuading him to act.

You don’t have to persuade God.

Who is sly enough in negotiating that they can be successful in persuading God? He knows every thought you think. Every word you say before you even say it. He knows the desires, the motivations, and the intentions of your heart.

Persuade – to prevail on someone to do something. To induce to believe, to convince.

Who can convince God of something? He already knows everything! Who can prevail on him and induce him to believe what they want him to believe? No one can.

Paul asked the question, “For do I now persuade men or God?” (Galatians 1:10).

Later, this same apostles declares

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come,

nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

Prayer does not give us the ability to persuade and twist God’s arm. Rather, prayer persuades us that God’s promises are yea and amen!

Prayer persuades us that God’s truth is real. It persuades us that God’s spirit is real. Prayer persuades us, and brings us in line with God’s way of thinking.

Not the other way around.

Prayer is not winning brownie points

Prayer is not a mechanical process whereby we earn favors from God. Rather it is a way of communicating with God and maintaining our relationship with him.

You don’t win brownie points by praying. Some people approach praying as a points system. For every hour you pray, you rack up points in heaven. If you pray thirty minutes, you rack up lesser points, but points none the less.

I’ve talked to people who sincerely believe God is obligated to do what they want him to do because they have been faithful in prayer. They act as if their time in prayer has been storing up brownie points for when they need to cash in on a divine favor.

God will always respond to prayer. I believe God will be swift to answer the prayers of a faithful saint. However, praying does not win us brownie points.

This isn’t Chuck-E-Cheese; we don’t win tickets that we can cash in later. Prayer allows us to build a consistent relationship with God; a relationship through which God will move and God will respond. However, prayer does not win us points that we can use to purchase power from God.

Prayer is not working to convince God to do what you want him to do.

I’ve often heard people in the prayer room begging God to move for them. I’ve heard people at the altar begging God to fill them with the Holy Ghost.

I’ve heard people begging God to heal their loved ones, save their children, touch a need, and respond to their voice.

We do not have to beg God.

God is not some obstinate deity sitting on a celestial throne saying, “C’mon, let me hear you beg.”

When we pray we should approach God in faith, believing that he rewards those that diligently seek him.

To beg God for something shows a lack of faith. We are working hard to convince him to do what we want him to do because we don’t believe he will do it without our convincing him.

Another reason people tend to beg God is because their prayer life, and general walk with God, is weak and they feel that God may be upset with them, or that they don’t have the influence they need with God.

So, if you find yourself begging God to move,

stop and evaluate why you are working to convince God to do something. Is it because your walk with God is weak at that time? If so, repent for the lack of faithfulness and believe God is still as willing and able to meet your need as ever.

If you are working to convince God because your faith is low, pray for faith and believe that God will hear you because you prayed.

Prayer is not just communication.

Prayer is not your daily “tag in” with God. It’s fine to talk to God about what has happened during your day, your week, this year, etc.

However, prayer is not where you come to God and give a report of what happened today.

It is so much more than that.

It is the intimate communication between a God and his people. It is the loving conversation between a father and his child.

It is our opportunity to bring God into our lives, and it is God’s opportunity to bring us into his heart.


To be continued…. Part II – What prayer is.