Section 26 2014 Convention of Synod Board for Child Youth and Family Ministry
LCA BOARD FOR CHILD YOUTH AND FAMILY MINISTRY (BCYFM) REPORT TO QUEENSLAND DISTRICT SYNOD The LCA Board for Child Youth and Family Ministry BCYFM Strategic Plan V1.0 approved by General Church Council (GCC) in June 2013. Four high level BCYFM Strategic Priorities and associated yearly outcomes for the period 2014 2018 were identified. Our report below details some of the progress against these initiatives. The Strategic Plan also saw the launch of the Board s operating arm GROW MINISTRIES which was launched at General Synod in 2013. We are regularly updating Child Youth and Family Ministry (CYFM) content through the following tools, to help congregations and other stakeholders stay connected: Visit our website: www.growministries.org.au Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lcagrowministries Email us at: bcyfm@lca.org.au Sign up to our enews via the LCA website: http://www.lca.org.au/lca-enewsarchive.html STRATEGIC PRIORITY 1: To encourage, support and promote an awareness of the guiding principles and practices of effective child, youth and family ministry in the homes, congregations and schools in the LCA. 1.1 First Grow Ministries CYFM National Conference National Conference Re-thinking Child, Youth and Family Ministry, was held in Brisbane from 5-6 September 2013 at the Coro Hotel, Milton, Queensland. Forty (40) participants were challenged by presentations facilitated by Pastor Greg Priebbenow our keynote speaker. His topics were: What culture are we re-thinking and why? And The realities of working together to re-think child, youth and family ministry in your congregation. Greg was supported by our other conference presenters: Jo Jones, Grow Ministries and Monty Lysne, Coordinator of Discipleship Ministries, Loxton. 1.2 Grow Ministries enews Our first Grow Ministries enews was distributed to around 300 subscribers on Tuesday, 25 th February. This enews will be sent out monthly and will contain snippets of information and ministry ideas. This is an important part of our communication strategy and will be the most regular way we communicate with practitioners of ministry in the LCA. On Your Hearts will continue either bi-monthly or quarterly and will provide readers with more detailed articles and news items. 1.3 Consultation with District Church Councils During the first six months of 2014, Grow Ministries will be seeking the opportunity to meet with the leadership of each District (ideally the District Church Council (DCC) and Child, Youth and Family Ministry Committees/Teams) to share our Vision and
Mission statements and provide them with an overview of our Strategic Plan. We hope this will help us inform and partner with each district in order to grow ministry. On 27 February 2014 BCYFM was represented by Jodi Brook (National Director) and Pastor Greg Priebbenow (Board member) meet with Queensland District leadership, pastors and lay workers and conducted a 90 minute session Effective Child, Youth and Family Ministry in Modern Australia. Following this, Aaron Glover (Board member), Pastor Greg and Jodi Brook presented for 30 minutes to the QLD DCC, sharing some of the key findings from our ministry evaluation, details of our 2014-2018 Strategic Plan as well as the outline of our plans for congregational cluster consultancy 1.4 LLL Permanent Fund Allocation We continue to received significant support each year through the LLL in receiving a grant to encourage leadership training and resource development in each LCA District. This grant represents the interest earned on the LLL Youth Ministry Fund. We thank the LLL for their generous support and we are happy to report that we have assisted the Lutheran Youth of Queensland (LYQ) Elevation event held recently through these funds. 1.5 District Training Events Over the past month Grow Ministries has been present at the following District training events: Invigor8, SA Jo Jones Empower, VIC, Jodi Brook as well as Tim Wiebusch, Monty Lysne and Emma Graetz, Elevation, QLD, Jodi Brook as well as Emma Graetz. 1.6 Other Child, Youth and Family Ministry training opportunities in 2014 FaithInk Training 15-16 May FaithInk Training, Milton, QLD 24-25 October FaithInk Training SA Grow Ministry two-day Training 16-17 May Grow Ministries Conference, Box Hill, VIC 12-13 August Grow Ministries Conference, North Adelaide, SA Grassroots CYFM two-day Workshop 25-26 June Home & Church Partnership, Halls Gap, VIC 2-3 July Home & Church Partnership, SA 17-18 July Home & Church Partnership, QLD 21 st Century Faith Formation John Roberto of Lifelong Faith & Vibrant Faith Ministries, USA (in partnership with Uniting Church of Australia (UCA) 26-28 August Melbourne, VIC 2-4 September North Adelaide, SA
STRATEGIC PRIORITY 2: To encourage, support and promote the development of healthy cultures of faith formation practice within congregations of the LCA. 2.1 Lighthouse Congregational Cluster Consultation (CCC) Part of our Strategic Plan Strategic Priority 2 is: Enable the development of Lighthouse congregational clusters within various Districts of the LCA so as to support, encourage and illustrate effective congregational child, youth and family ministry. To begin this process, key LCA CYFM practitioners have been identified and invited to be part of a small team to engage in consultation with experienced coaching practitioners from the USA; Terri Elton, Associate Professor of Children, Youth, and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary; David Anderson, Vibrant Faith Ministries and Debbie Streicher, President of Lutheran Association of Lutheran Educators (LACE), have been invited to meet with us in July 2014. This main outcome of this consultation will be to assist in the development of our own home-grown consultancy program that fits with our Australian Lutheran context. Part of this consultation includes meetings with our Board and our National Reference Group. Another vital part of the development of the Lighthouse CCC is the recruitment of a suitable ministry support person to assist in the development of the consulting model and to deliver the training/coaching. STRATEGIC PRIORITY 3: To identify, evaluate and develop suitable child, youth and family ministry resources for the LCA context. 3.1 Faith Inkubators Australia. Over the past two months we have received a steady flow of Faith Inkubators membership renewals. Monty Lysne assisted us in preparing the USA resources for Australian Distribution. His main task was updating the Head to Heart resources to include a Quick Picks outline and matching PowerPoint. 3.2 FINK TANK: Consultation/Review of FaithInk Australia. It has been more than five years since the establishment of Faith Inkubators Australia. In that time we have engaged with many congregations through immersion training and provided a variety of other information sessions and 1 day training opportunities. About one third of all LCA congregations initially embraced these resources, some haven t continued while others have just used bits and pieces without embracing the whole system. As Faith Inkubators resource suite is a significant component of the BCYFM Strategic Plan for 2014-2018 and at the request of BCYFM, Jodi Brook has conducted a review of FaithInk ministry across the LCA.
The Grow Ministries Team (Jo Jones, Vicki Rochow and Jodi Brook) met with more than 10 practitioners in Adelaide on 4 March 2014. This session was independently facilitated by Matt Bishop. Following this Jodi Brook facilitated a consultation with five practitioners in Melbourne on 12 March 2014. A further 68 CYFM contacts participated in our online survey. Thank you to those members of the Church that participated in this review. The Board will be progressively addressing the feedback over the remainder of this year. 3.3 Other Resources Available 3.3.1 Taking Faith Home Taking Faith Home is a weekly lectionary based resource to help your households live, share and celebrate faith together each and every week. This resource has been developed by Pastor Greg Priebbenow, a pastor of the LCA Queensland District currently serving at St John s Bundaberg. 3.3.2 GIFT (Generations in Faith Together) This is our newest resource developed to help build partnerships of all generations in passing on the Christian faith. The GIFT resources provide outlines for intergenerational events to help people of all ages explore God s love for them through activities and fellowship. A new themed resource is available each term Term 1:Lent, term 2: Pentecost, term 3: Baptism and term 4: Advent. Some feedback we received: I'd just like to thank you and the rest of the team at Grow Ministries for putting together the GIFT Advent resources for 2013. We were able to utilise the service order and the activity sheets for our Family Christmas Service. The most successful resource by far, however, in stimulating intergenerational ministry and fellowship within our congregation during this service, was the Active Nativity. The 'simpleness' of the story facilitated the participation of many congregation members who wouldn't normally participate in regular services in that manner, which created a wonderful experience for all who attended. We are very grateful for the work you and the team do in creating these great resources, and look forward to utilising them more in the future. 3.3.3 Faith Trail Ministry Provides resources to celebrate with the families of your congregation the promises made in baptism. Each trailmark is celebrated with an event for parents and children to attend. This provides an opportunity for them to explore together how God is with then in every stage of their life and faith trail. This resource will be launched at our Grow Ministries Conference in May 2014. 3.3.4 Fact Sheets These fact sheets are based on the 12 principles of effective child, youth and family ministry. We are developing a number of fact sheets to be made available to congregations. This will be a useful resource for future congregational consultancy and the Grow Ministries conference. A new fact sheet will be produced for each edition of our On Your Hearts newsletter.
STRATEGIC PRIORITY 4: To enable BCYFM and Grow Ministries to Go and Grow through staff care and development. 4.1 Appointment of Vicki Rochow Vicki commenced with Grow Ministries on Monday 24th February 2014. Her immediate tasks will be to assist with Grow Ministries communication through an new enews and our regular On Your Hearts Newsletter as well as designing the resource assessment tool for evaluating children s and youth ministry resources. 4.2 LCA Governance Review The BCYFM is enthusiastically participating in the LCA Governance Review.