In the last few months, I (Alvin) have had the honour of working alongside the Church Life team with the Small Church Envisioning days (the last session is this Saturday at Immanuel Baptist Church in Toronto). While there have been several inter-department collaborations in the past, this round reminded me of its importance. Here are a few insights. I can (and should) learn from others. Admittedly, I sometimes have a
Last Saturday, I had the privilege of attending parts of the Toronto Children’s Ministry Conference. (Tanya Yuen was one of the key organizers.) At face value, it may not make sense for the “youth guy” to be at a children’s ministry conference. However, strengthening a child’s move from children’s ministry to youth ministry is crucial. A few years ago, Tanya and I wrote a booklet called “Faith Formation in Children
With October 31 approaching, many kids (and youth) are preparing for Halloween by getting costumes ready. Households are stocking up on treats. Whether or not you choose to participate in Halloween traditions, Halloween can be an opportunity for Christian ministry. Some churches decide to host events such as fall fairs, which can be opportunities to offer safe gathering places for neighbourhood young people. The key for this option isn’t to
Recently Matt, Meghan, and Alvin have been reassessing how we gauge our effectiveness with our CBOQ churches, specifically with youth ministries and their progressions. Through prayer and discussion, we’ve come up with a 3-tier engagement approach that will help us better evaluate our ministry. (Note: The tiers are not indicative of importance; they simply provide us with three different ways to measure engagement.) TIER 1 Every year, we will compile
Last Monday to Wednesday (October 7-9, 2019), 12 youth pastors came to Camp Kwasind to tackle Renegotiating Faith (RF). We were honoured to have Rick Hiemstra (Director of Research with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and principal author of RF). Rick led our group through some key insights from RF and other thoughts on attention, social media and its impact on youth. This led to some great in-depth conversations as
Justice. What is it and how do we approach discussions about it in the context of immigration, gun violence and other areas we hear every day in the news. The topic of biblical justice is huge...how do we prepare for conversations about that? The Canadian Baptist Youth team have ideas to get your conversation about justice started. In 2016, the CB Youth team released the Imaginative Hope report, which outlines
It takes time to make plans and organize the details for your group to attend large events, so with Centre Court, Avalanche and Blizzard coming up, here are some details to keep on your radar. (click on the logo to register) OPENING REGISTRATION DATES Avalanche and Blizzard registration begins on Tuesday, October 15. Centre Court starts on Tuesday, October 22 at
Are you ready for another ministry year? Chances are, you’re preparing for that first kick-off event of the year (or maybe you’ve already done it). As you putting on the finishing touches, a few reminders to make this kick-off an effective one: Be mindful of the first impression. That first impression, especially for first-ever visitors, will leave a lingering memory (positive or negative) with your students (and their parents). This
There’s a scene in the movie “National Treasure” where three characters who are all looking for treasure view a map. With it are spectacles with different coloured filters. Each filter reveals a different clue on the map (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqVxaRiekac). Like those spectacles, we reveal different parts of ourselves in different filters...in different lights. How do you define yourself? Is it based on your role like “student” or “only child”? Is it
While we have always seen mentoring as an important part of our faith, its value is especially highlighted by the statistics released in the “Hemorrhaging Faith” document. We were surprised to note that one of the most common times for youth to disengage from faith is during the transition into their Jr High years. I really had to mull this one over, but it does make sense. One contributing factor
