general info @ kids at Evergreen
Like in all things at the Evergreen Community, we are attempting to move away from a program-based approach to children's ministry. As a community, we want to take good care of the children among us. But one thing we don't want to see happen is have our gatherings become a place where people walk in the door and quickly begin to split along gender and age/ demographic lines (women over there, kids 6-13 over there, single men with no pets or houseplants over there...)
Our hope is that the children of our community will worship with us and become an integral part of our gatherings. This is going to be a challenge for those in our community raised in churches where the kids were kept out of sight (and perhaps more to the point, out of hearing.) It's going to require special patience and servanthood on our part to allow the young among us to sit in our gatherings, paying attention when they can, and being kids the rest of the time. It's also going to take a recovery of the idea that parents are the chief spiritual educators of their children, with the help of the church community, and not the other way around. We want to avoid outsourcing the spiritual education and discipleship of our community's children to paid professionals.
So what does children's ministry look like @ Evergreen? For now, we have a separate room where our younger evergreeners can hang out and be taught, do crafts, have snacks and be loved. The Kid's area is the responsibility of the whole community. Everyone is encouraged (ahem!) to get their background check and sign up on the calendar in the back of the room on Sundays, or here on our forum. (If you want info on the background check, email info(at)evergreenlife(dot)org, or just print out the form and bring it on Sunday.)
Also, we have a table in the back of our main gathering where older kids can hang out and be occupied while still paying some attention to the worship gathering. We'd love to see people without kids take on the role of asking parents if kids can sit with them, either in the main group or in the back of the room, and helping those kids through the things we do in our gatherings- speaking, singing, praying, listening... and coloring too.