At the recent 4/14 Window Global Summit III, City Harvest Children’s Church shared their ministry and outreach methods with international pastors.
Contributed By Dawn Seow
Toh sharing the steps to effective outreach. PHOTO: Bryan Lee.
“A ‘HERO’ that stands in the ‘GAP’ will not only be successful in reaching out to the children but will also build an excellent children’s ministry.”
This was one of the simple truths the City Harvest Children’s Church team communicated to the participants who attended the Pastor Track at the third 4/14 Window Global Summit on Thursday, Sep. 8, held at Victory Family Centre.
Eileen Toh and Johann Sim were speakers at the meeting. Both of them are pastoral workers in CHCC, and Toh is the pioneer and pastor in charge of the children’s ministry there.
The “4/14 Window” refers to the demographic group from age 4 to 14 years old, which is the most open and receptive to every form of spiritual and developmental input. The 4/14 Window Global Summit is a yearly affair that allows workers involved in children’s ministry to share their experiences and ideas in raising up the next generation for Christ. From Sep. 6 to 9, Christian leaders and children’s workers from around the world gathered to discuss how to develop opportunities and specific strategies to reach this generation.
To give their audience a better idea of the children’s ministry in CHC, Toh and Sim played a video showing the history of CHCC. Sim then spoke on the topic of “Developing An Excellent Children’s Ministry” by sharing four elements that make up an effective children’s ministry, “HERO” or Holistic, Engage, Relevance and Organic.
To demonstrate his point, Sim had brought along teachers from the CHCC, who gave a live “demonstration” of what a typical weekend children’s church meeting was like. Although the crowd was made up of adults, the live demonstration completely captivated their attention; they were fully absorbed in the Bible lesson. The session was well-received and was followed by questions and positive comments.
Next, Toh spoke on “Developing An Excellent Children’s Outreach.” She gave the pastors three simple steps to effectively reach out to children: “GAP” or Group, Attract and Personal Visitation.
To illustrate her points further, Toh asked her fellow worker, Glordia Goh, an assistant pastor in CHCC, to share her personal experience of doing visitations to the group of children under her care. As she faithfully reached out to her charges every single week, her care group began to grow as many of the children started bringing their own friends as well.
Another CHCC volunteer, Cecelia Quah, a teacher, shared her experiences on how she creatively engaged the children by conducting science experiments on the bus ride to Children’s Church. For example, she once illustrated how an orange could float in water but an orange with its skin peeled could not. She then brought in the Biblical tale of Peter walking on water; explaining how Jesus is like the “skin” of the orange: if one is “clothed” with Jesus in his life, he will be like Peter and accomplish the impossible things in life. Her simple illustration not only taught the children a new science fact, but also a fresh Biblical truth.
The audience showed great interest in finding out more about the structure of the groupings, the busing system and the curriculum in CHCC.
Many pastors in the audience praised the CHCC team for their unwavering dedication in the ministry. They said they were extremely encouraged by the session and were excited to implement the ideas they had learned at the summit in their own churches.
