It seems a strange coincidence that two years ago, I was telling you about how I'd fallen into the position of coordinating Mosaic's children's ministry, and now I find that I've stumbled into the same situation here. My little church now, La Viña, is similar to Mosaic in its youth, its eagerness to replicate the church of the Bible, and the love of its people for each other, their neighbors, and the lost. In many other respects the two are so completely different that it makes me stand in awe of how diverse and beautiful God's Church is, just like its members.
The commonality that is the most ironic is my involvement in the children's department. In both churches my only qualifications for directing the kids' ministries were/are my availability, and inability to say "no." My unqualifiedness meant that, at Mosaic, within a week I was replaced by someone who actually knew what they were doing, but here, as you and I have both learned by now, this is a bit of a different world.
Today, we had our first meeting of Sunday school teachers (pictured above) to discuss what we can do better. I'm afraid, as usual, I learned more than I was able to add to the discussion. Every time I enter a new realm such as plumbing, immigration, diesel engines (all three visited last week) and now children's ministry I get to learn a new vocabulary as well as what a strong emphasis culture has on everything we do. My goal is to keep my own cultural difference out of the way, so that we can all think outside of the box and teach La Viña kiddos some lessons and ideas they'll keep with them for a lifetime.
Happy Birthday Mosaic!
I have no frame of reference, but I imagine this is kind of how a mom feels on her baby's second birthday!
1 comment:
You're going to be an expert on Children's Ministry by the time you're done! Your Spanish must be pretty good if you can keep up with the children, who probably don't slow down for your benefit.
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