January 6, 2025
Dear Parents and Guardians,
I wanted to take this opportunity to reach out to each of you. I feel we need to touch base on a few things regarding our elementary school children's program on Wednesday nights. We love having a room full of students and their enthusiasm is apparent. We want to ensure that our Children's Program is helping fulfill the church's overall mission. As we have begun to look at this goal, I feel it imperative that we make sure you as parents are aware of what we are aiming for. As a children's ministry we strive to support families involved in our church by helping parents and guardians disciple their children with a biblical foundation beginning with knowing Jesus as Lord and Savior and then striving to live daily for Him. We hope that as a family you can build upon this life of service to Him in your homes.
I believe this mission, if you will, is three-fold. It involves what we teach at church in the short time your child is in our care, your personal discipleship, and what you as a family strive to do outside of the church walls to build that relationship with Christ. Our struggles have been lately that children attending as a whole group are not in the mindset to be discipled when they come in the doors most evenings. We realize it has been a long day at school for most of them as it often is for me as well, but nevertheless, our focus on knowing Jesus more deeply is extremely important.
We have also had the issue of liability brought to our attention. Should the need arise to reach an adult quickly for a child, the absence of an adult guardian or parent would be frowned upon. We need a parent or responsible adult for these young children either in Bible Study or serving in some capacity while their children are in our care.
We are asking for more support at this point to refocus behavior in the group as well as cover our liability. We are asking that each child attending the K-5th grade group have an adult present in the building so that if the need arises, we may hand the child off to you. This may mean that while you are in Adult Bible Study, if your child is having a particularly hard time following rules and procedures, that they are escorted to sit with you for the remainder of the night. They of course will be welcomed back the following week to try again. I do know that we have a couple of kids that are attending with older siblings, and the same is true there. If a K-5th grader is struggling to behave, we may require the older sibling to take the child at that time. Our goal in doing this, if necessary, is to allow the remaining children the opportunity to stay focused on learning more about Jesus without repeated interruptions.
So, in short, we are requiring your presence or the presence of a guardian at church while your child attends the children's program beginning January 15th. If a child arrives without supervision, we will send them back to your car. We have a great Adult Bible Study that you are welcome to attend while your child is in the Children's Program, or you may volunteer to help us in the children's room as well. We are requesting that you escort your child through the serving line and eat with your child before we take them to Bible Study. We ask you to make sure your child knows who the responsible person is each week that brought them. We will then bring the kids back to the Adult Bible Study when it is over to reunite with you.
We feel this will help to foster the environment of growing to know Jesus and to be more like Him. We thank you for bringing your children to our program and we are excited about the refocusing we are doing to draw each precious child closer to Jesus. Thank each of your for your support. If you have questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me or the pastor, Tom Heath. We would both be happy to answer any questions you have.
God bless each of you.
Amber Caswell
FBC Meadow Children's Program
806-548-2253
fbcmeadow@gmail.com
Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it."