The roots that we establish in our youth sustain us throughout our lives, anchoring us, supporting our growth, shaping our values, feeding the people we become. In September, 2022, St. Andrew’s Children’s & Youth Minister (now Director of Next Generational Ministry) Kyler Vogt launched The Roots, the centerpiece of our Sunday morning ministry for children ages 3 through 5th grade. Discover the depth and breadth of his vision below:
In one of my sermons approximately two years ago, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I presented to the congregation something that was the culmination of months of hard work, deep thought, and contemplative prayer: Vision statements for the Children’s and Youth Ministry programs at St. Andrew. I used the metaphor of a tree to embody this vision, with Children’s ministry being the roots. According to those statements, which were adopted by the church council, our vision for Children’s and Youth Ministry is:
“At St. Andrew Lutheran Church, we believe that Children’s and Youth
Ministry is a baptismal calling for the entire congregation. Based in the
Gospel and reflective of our Lutheran tradition, our Children’s and Youth
Ministries are built around three practices: age-appropriate fellowship
activities that help us build relationships with one another; educational
opportunities that teach us to understand and live in response to our Core
Values and our Affirmation of Welcome Statement; and the introduction to
practical ways we can live out those values while working in service toward
justice.”
And, even more specific to this note, our vision for Children’s Ministry is:
“To ground our children in the basics of our five core values—God Care,
Earth Care, Self-Care, Neighbor Care, and Community Care—and help them
practice recognizing and living them out in their daily lives so that above all
else, they can be grounded in the truth that they are a beloved child of God,
and that God loves them very much.”
There is no doubt that the education hour on Sunday mornings is the centerpiece of our children’s ministry, so this is the most crucial place to ensure we are putting this vision into action. The Sunday School program has been an incredible asset to this congregation’s children and families, with all the thanks going to the volunteers who donated countless hours of their time and energy coordinating, preparing, and teaching. The biggest expression of gratitude must go out to Lisa Staul, who was the Sunday School Director for the last three years including throughout the pandemic. Now, the space created by the pandemic has given us the opportunity to transition to a new model for our kids on Sunday mornings.
Introducing: The Roots! The Roots is our new Sunday morning children’s program, designed to emphasize the foundations of our faith, especially our core values. The Roots is also formatted to enable us as a congregation to widen our involvement in children’s ministry with manageable commitments in the areas in which we are most passionate.
For The Roots, we have been reevaluating what Bible stories not only do the best job teaching our core values, but also those which are good entry points for our kids. So many famous “children’s” Bible stories are dominated by violence and archaic/problematic understandings of God that can do more harm than good if they are made the foundation of our faith. Sometimes this can even cause difficulties for teachers who find themselves teaching a story that they aren’t sure about themselves. The Roots will be a space where kids and grown-ups alike can ask questions, while intentionally being focused on Bible stories that emphasize the love of God and the life and teachings of Jesus.
The Roots is a rotation-based program, and there will be six rotations in each unit. Each unit will be two weeks long and will focus on the same Bibles story both weeks. This will allow us to do three rotations each week, making six per unit. The six rotations are: Bible Story, Games, Art, Music, Service/Justice, and Science. While story, art, music, and games have been a part of our ministry for a long time, the service/justice rotation will allow us to teach kids how to translate the lessons into real-life actions, and the science rotation will help us teach our kids that God is at work in and through science too!
Here is where you come in: a major goal of this new program is to introduce a wider portion of our congregation to our children’s ministry. We want each rotation to have a team of three people who will take turns teaching on their rotation week. This means when we reach this goal of three people per team, each team member will only be leading for 15 minutes every six weeks, with each team member leading no more than five times over the school year. My hope is that this makes volunteering with The Roots an option for a lot of our church who were too constrained by time in the past. Ultimately, I am aiming to have 25% of the volunteers for The Roots be people who have never volunteered with our Sunday morning children’s programs before. Let’s make it happen!
If you want to join one of these teams, or if you just want some more information about The Roots and what it looks like to be a part of it, send me an email at kvogt@standrewlutheran.com. I am so excited to launch this new program, with your help!
Grace and Peace,
Kyler Vogt
Director of Next Generational Ministy