Kingsfield-Clinton: The Kids

When we decided to venture out and start our new church, there were many (including us) that were worried about the kids. What would the new church have for the children...were they being forgotten in all this? Would they be 'missing out' by leaving a wonderful church that they had spent years at, developing friendships and learning in Sunday school classes. Were we sacrificing our children's spiritual growth by taking them away from this teaching and structure? Would we be hurting them by taking them away from their friends?

Leaving Zurich was not an easy thing. After attending there for 9 years, I had built some wonderful friendships with some really awesome ladies!! It has been hard, but we can keep in touch with friends if it's important to us! Yes, the kids miss their friends and their Sunday school etc. from Zurich, but we here at Kingsfield all agree that our children are learning a lot in our new church and God has really filled that void that I thought I would sense when we left.

When the vision for Kingsfield first began, none of us knew what it was going to look like. We didn't know whether there would be a separate teaching time for the children. I often wondered how on earth we could ever run a Sunday school with such a wide variety of ages in our kids. We also had all sorts of freedom when it came to making decisions here about how we would structure things. This was both exciting and scary (for a control freak like me :) The freedom to learn from week to week and make changes in how we run things has been exciting for me! The way our service is structured right now might not be the way it looks in a month or two...and that's okay! For right now, we've decided that it's important to involve the kids in our worship. So after our 10:30-11:00 am coffee & chatting time, we have singing. The kids get to take turns playing instruments and are encouraged to sing along :) Here are some pics from this morning:

Devon, Maia and Monica preparing for some singing :)

Izzy & Lyric doing the actions to one of the songs...the kids LOVE it!

Obi & Maia playing the big drum during the worship time.

After our singing and some time to share prayer requests, it's off to Sunday school for the kiddies (which is one living room over :) Today Bonnie taught the kids about how Jesus died to take away all the bad stuff they've ever done and said and thought and took our sacrifice and paid the penalty for our sin. The kids really "got it", Obi came up to me afterwards and with his bottom lip quivering confessed to a lie he had told me that morning and asked for forgiveness. Bonnie was moved to tears to see how he had internalized the message as I hugged him and explained that I forgave him because God has forgiven me from so much too! Immediately his tears were gone and his eyes lit up "I know" he said with a big smile :)


Here's little Marly holding up her picture with great pride :)

Since starting our new church, I have been so excited to see how much the kids LOVE it! This past week on Thursday Obi said to me, "Mom, is it Sunday?". "No, why?" I asked. "Because, I want to do church!!". Then there are the Sunday mornings when I hear the kids talking from my bed. "Hey guys, we don't have to GO to church...we just have to walk downstairs for church" Giggle, giggle, giggle. It is such a beautiful thing to me.

Yes, I'll admit, I went through a time of discouragement that we haven't had a lot of people out to Kingsfield that didn't come along with us from Zurich, but God has really been confirming to us lately that we don't need to measure success in our numbers. We can see that God is present here when we look at the fruit. The joy that our kids have when it comes to church, the relationships that we are building here. The times of pure joy and brotherhood/sisterhood as everyone pitches in to help set up and to do the dishes afterwards. It's awesome. We are loving it. And I know that in time, God will draw others in as well. In HIS time. This is such a difficult thing for me to remember sometimes. So right now I am relishing every moment of Kingsfields services, and coffee times, and lunches, and I wait for it to grow. It will. We don't need to be in a rush. We don't need to worry about people being disappointed in us, or feel like we're failing. We just need to be ourselves.

What a great relief.

Melanie