Minute for Mission: Educate a Child, Transform the World

October 17, 2021

Educate a Child – DREEAM House

During my first year as a pastor, there were certain milestones I knew to look forward to. I looked forward to the first time I stood at the communion table and invited my congregation to share in the feast, and the first time I marked an infant with water and proclaimed how much God loved her in baptism. I looked forward to my first Christmas and first sunrise Easter service. But there were other firsts that I didn’t know about that caught me off guard with their beauty.

One of these unexpected firsts was when the first day of school rolled around in my town. I was able to call or text each of my children and youth and hear about how their new school year started. I got text messages from high school freshmen with concerns about how far they have to get between classes. I talked to a brand-new second grader about how much she already loved her new teacher and how her class gets to go to the library twice each week.

These check-ins felt as sacred as the regular rituals of worship. I was letting these young people know that the love their church family has for them extends beyond the walls of the church.

Our love for our schoolchildren extends into their education. It extends into collecting supplies so that all the children in their school have what they need. It extends into attending school board meetings to make sure schools are safe and equitable places. Our love for these children may even send us all the way to the statehouses, to the Senate, to the U.N. advocating for children to be safe and be able to learn and grow everywhere.

And if our love for these children can extend so far and reach out in so many directions, it is amazing to imagine how much wider, deeper, stronger and more powerful God’s love for them extends.

As a pastor and an advocate for education, one of the ways I serve our denomination is on the Educate a Child Roundtable. In this group, we gather to equip, educate and empower churches to support education on the local and national level through direct support and advocacy. For more information, you can reach out to the Rev. Dr. Alonzo Johnson in the Presbyterian Mission Agency.

Rev. Beth Olker, Pastor, Macedonia Presbyterian Church, Field Staff, Racial Equity and Women’s Intercultural Ministries, PMA Member, Educate a Child Roundtable

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Dwayne Batcho, Production Clerk, Presbyterian Distribution Center, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Doug Batezel, Vice President, Information Technology, Board of Pensions

Let us pray

Holy God, since the moment you placed people into your world, you have taught us lessons of compassion, justice, mercy and hope. We pray that the schools in this nation and around the world would be safe places where children of all ages can grow and learn and thrive. Keep helping us extend our love and our hope into the lives of the children we call beloved and the schools we call neighbors. Bless the teachers and staff, the students and parents, and make us all partners in your kingdom work. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Old school, new school

Christian educators and other leaders are using every tool to reach children and their families during pandemic

August 10, 2020

Children using weekly Sunday School materials e-mailed to families by The Presbyterian Church of Bowling Green, Kentucky. (Photo by Leslee Kirkconnell)

When members of the Christian Education Committee at Pisgah Presbyterian Church in Versailles, Kentucky, met to discuss options for their children during the pandemic, they decided to try something radical.

Knowing most church families have at least one parent (sometimes both) working from home while trying to home school their children — and that if kids spied one more thing to study, they might run — the committee went old school.

Pisgah is sending letters in a packet sent to each child. Inside is a biblical story featuring a character who must overcome a great struggle. Included are optional family discussion topics, such as how the story relates to what family members are experiencing now.

Callie Northern, Pisgah’s director of Children & Family Ministries, said they want each family member to know that “God is always with us.” To help them believe and trust this, the letter also includes optional activities for families to build the story together — with play dough, drawings and ways to act it out.

“Several parents have been very appreciative of the letters,” she said. “One family said they love giving the lessons to their children’s grandparents to study together.”

Pisgah’s old-school approach is just one of the many creative ways that Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations and worshiping communities are reaching out to children, youth and their families during this critical time. Other examples:

First Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, started two online youth groups for grades 4–6 and 7–12. During check-in, the Rev. Chrissy Westbury, the church’s associate pastor, asks for their “roses and thorns,” giving them the opportunity to share their fears and concerns — and what they found hopeful. “If we can’t be there for them during what will be a defining and traumatizing moment in their lives,” Westbury said, “how can we expect them to find any relevance in the church?”

Youth at The Presbyterian Church of Bowling Green, Kentucky, are writing notes to isolated members of the church. In addition to meeting weekly online, they’re discussing activities they can do when separated, like a virtual movie night. With a particular browser add-on, everyone can watch and chat in real time together about the movie. “We’re also emailing weekly ‘grace and gratitude’ multi-age (curricula) to all family members,” said Leslee Kirkconnell, the church’s director of Christian education. “This is an excellent time to help parents be the primary faith educators we know them to be.”

First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood, Florida, features lessons for young children on its Learning Center YouTube channel. They also have weekly online Waumba Worship for young families and young adults (“Waumba” means “Creator” in Swahili).

Certified Christian educator Jenna Campbell of First Presbyterian Church in Stillwater, Oklahoma, has constructed a website containing helpful resources for parents, children and youth on topics including family life and seasons in the life of the church.

An intergenerational collaborative effort at Memorial Presbyterian Church in Midland, Michigan, among the church’s chancel choir, two local high schools and Central Michigan University led to people in each group singing together Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” on Easter Sunday. Memorial’s senior pastor, the Rev. Matt Schramm, and the director of Worship and Arts, Megan Farison, joined in. Watch the video stitched together by MPC’s worship intern, Elijah Schweikert.

The Presbyterian Mission Agency’s associate coordinator for Christian Formation, Stephanie Fritz, said she’s amazed at how educators and faith formation leaders across the denomination have been resourcing and leading faith communities. She said many are looking ahead to summer to find alternatives to Vacation Bible School and traditional mission trips.

“We need to look at them as leading the conversation about how our churches and faith communities will look different as we emerge from this,” Fritz said.

Paul Seebeck, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Mike Kirk, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Stacie Kizer, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation

Let us pray:

Lord, we thank you for those who weather the storms and take on risk and sacrifice to reach the least. May your blessing and protection be always on them as they live out your example. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Eradicating systemic poverty through education

Presbyterian pastor works with mission partners to launch new bilingual Christian school in Mexico

May 6, 2020

The Rev. Mark Snelling (right) with students at a Christian school in Dakar, Senegal. (Contributed photo)

The Rev. Dr. Mark Snelling, a lifelong Presbyterian and pastor in the Seattle Presbytery, wants to see impoverished children in Mexico break out of the cycle of poverty in a wholistic and sustainable way. He is confident this is possible through education, specifically Christian education.

Centro Cultural Tikvah, a new Spanish-English language immersion school is expected to open in August in Mazatlan, Mexico. This international school for hope, as it is called, is an outgrowth of Snelling’s work with mission partners in a dozen nutrition centers throughout Mazatlan’s poorest neighborhoods and his current work as executive director of a multi-denominational mission organization, GO on the Mission, a nonprofit he and other church and business leaders helped found in 2008. The organization works on holistic and sustainable development projects to help eradicate systemic poverty in Mexico and Senegal, West Africa.

Snelling grew up as a “missionary kid” in a small town in Alaska where his parents had been called to plant a church for the indigenous Tlingit people. This experience taught him the importance of cross-cultural ministry. In his years as a pastor, he served in mission outreach to a long-ignored people group deep in the mountains of Southern Mexico.

Snelling’s favorite quote is “Why worry when you can pray?”

The new school will start small, with kindergarten and primary year one classes only; then it will add a grade level each year until it serves students through grade 12, just like the Christian schools have been built in Senegal. The students will represent a blend of economic backgrounds studying in small classes of 15–20 students per class. The curriculum will encourage oral and written fluency in Spanish and English, critical thinking skills and developing a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

In Senegal, Snelling said, 95% to 100% of Christian school students pass their advancement exams, compared to less than 50% of their counterparts in public schools. “People are lining up to get their kids into these schools,” he said — not only in Senegal, but in many places across Africa. “You care for kids and you’ve got the hearts of the parents,” Snelling said.

In Mexico, two lead teachers, yet to be hired, will have the opportunity to create and build upon the school’s organizational design: one for the kindergarten program (K1–K3) and one for the primary program (grades 1–5). Middle and high school programs will be added in the years to come. The school will provide top-quality bilingual education, computer training and entrepreneurial financial management skills training.

Similar to the Christian schools in Senegal, the school in Mexico will have a balance of tuition-paying students and scholarship students. Classes will initially and temporarily be held in a church, but the plan is to build a separate building for the school.

Many of the children do not currently attend school, particularly the children Snelling works with in the nutrition centers. And, those who do attend public schools seem to be struggling in passing their advancement exams.

“As the basic needs of the people are met,” Snelling said, “doors are open to help meet emotional and spiritual needs as well,” Snelling said. “Every effort matters.”

For more information about Centro Cultural Tikvah, an international school for hope, email Snelling at msnelling@comcast.net.

Tammy Warren, Communications Associate, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Luke Choi, Office of the General Assembly
Mickie Choi, Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program

Let us pray:

Gracious and wonderful God, we thank you for the magnificent world you created. We thank you that you have made us a people who seek relationships with others and with you. Keep us ever mindful of your presence among us. Amen.