5 years later

 After my latest weird dream sequence, I found my mind wandering to an alternate scenario where our church never split up.

I did the math and realized that it has been about 5 years since it all started. At the time, Sophia was a baby and I wasn't able to be involved much in the discussions that followed. It was painful to feel cut off at such a crucial time! 

If you read my blog a long time ago, you probably remember that Andrei and I both were involved a lot in our church even before we were married and had kids. And the church played a big role in our courtship and wedding.

I look at the kids now and imagine that in our old church, they would have both been attending Sunday school by now, and I would have probably been involved with music again or been attending a small group.

If we had all stayed in the same church, I had imagined the kids growing up with "church friends," who would possibly become friends for life. The year I had David, 4 other families were expecting babies. They were girls, but still could have been playmates for him.

-One family emigrated to Germany on a heritage visa, after their second child was tragically born at 24 weeks and passed away in the NICU here.

-One family emigrated to Canada, after years stuck in a cycle of poverty here.

-One family went back to the church the wife had attended before they married.

-And the other family started attending a more modern church with an impressive children's program, as that was something important to them.

If the church split had happened 3 years later, the pandemic would have been starting, and church would have been online. The arguments about music and lighting and coffee hour wouldn't have happened. But...maybe we would have argued about masks and whether or not to meet in person. In fact, I'm pretty sure the large group who broke away did in fact keep meeting, and gave each other Covid.

If the church split happened now, 5 years later, the kids would be old enough to entertain themselves as we attended the discussion sessions. I'd probably get too emotionally involved...even more than I was when it actually happened. 

Sadly, the church split probably would have happened over Ukraine if it hadn't happened already by then. I think that there was already some disagreement over the Crimea, not enough to really cause great offense, but I think that it would be hard to worship together while sharing different views on what is happening today.

It's probably good that people went their separate ways, but I always wonder if there's a way to address disagreements in a timely manner so as to prevent church splits. Or is it inevitable that churches eventually have a big conflict? Or should churches do some "pruning" periodically? Or just plan to split into smaller groups once they get to a certain size? For example, outgrow the space? Instead of looking for a new building, just split up?

Do you ever think about how life would be different if something happened in a different year?

Christian Education Rant

David has been more willing to attend Sunday school, which is his only school-like activity during the week. He is tolerant as opposed to enthusiastic, but no tears at least. Sometimes I wonder if it is very stressful for him, because he talks a lot about going home. After he spent some time with my MIL during worship, he had to keep tabs on where everyone was and make sure no one was going home without him. I told him we were going to go back upstairs to see the rest of the family after we did our Sunday school work. And I think he may see it as sort of a ticket to go home! But nevertheless, he is slowly adapting.

It has been fascinating to watch David's peer group develop, after years of teaching Sunday school myself. Preschoolers have the best comments, and very short attention spans! I shake my head just remembering how we kept trying to have "lessons" with them when they were only 2 years old. Of course there are older kids too, up to age 6 or 7. But there are 5 or 6 that are David's age, so they form the majority.

Earlier this fall, an announcement was made that in the next month or two, preschool parents would be expected to stop attending Sunday school with their offspring. I was a bit outraged at this decision being made for us! I know that it is difficult for the teachers when there is a peanut gallery full of parents. And some kids do act more mature with their parents absent. But who was going to accompany the young ones to the potty? Help with the complicated craft projects? Remove an unruly pupil? And what about the ones feeling anxious? It just didn't seem like something you could do on a specific timeline, especially when the kids aren't EXACTLY the same age. 6 months or a year can make such a huge difference developmentally.

Ideas?

Lent is starting soon (next week or the week after depending on the church calendar), and I wanted to put a brainstorm request out there.


If you’re a parent/caretaker or otherwise work with kids, what kind of activities do you use in preparing them for Easter/Resurrection Sunday (or Passover, for that matter)?



I feel that there are so many Advent materials out there, and it’s easy enough to just get out the seasonal picture books. But we just don’t have as many Easter books as compared to Christmas. I’m working with a fairly blank slate, as David doesn't know about the Easter bunny or egg hunts.

"Why am I doing this, again?"

How much do you think a 2.5 yr old can comprehend?

They are 8

Maybe I've mentioned this before, but these two girls were born the fall I moved to Russia. Every once in a while I look at them and think, that's how much my life has changed.

While they were being transformed from infants into the savvy schoolgirls they are now, I did a lot of growing, too.

When they were babies, I was a college graduate in a strange land. The one on the left is Nastia; her family lived near one of the orphanages and I would visit them sometimes. My Russian was limited but the young mother would always pray with me. They had very little money, but she would always feed me and it was always delicious. Their family has become very dear to me and they recently had a baby in the spring, who shares my name.

These two were once the littlest pupils and we made a special Sunday school group for them. Now they are with the big kids.

They both got to be flower girls in various weddings. By the time I was getting married, Uliana (on the right) had a little sister. We asked Uliana to carry my train and Sasha to scatter flower petals.

By next year they will be even taller and wiser and prettier. And maybe I will start to measure milestones by how big David is. But I will always remember those girls and the early years.

The youth at my Russian church

When I moved to St. Petersburg I was focused on children’s ministry since I had just been ministering in the summer camps. But my church that I settled into had just a few kids on Sunday mornings, and no teenagers. I didn’t really have anywhere to bring the teenagers I’d met. We did a few McDonald’s outings and such. One girl and I went to the zoo. But really, what teenager wants to hang out with a random 20-something American lady? And furthermore, what Russian parent wants his or her children hanging out with a stranger from the U.S.? At least, that was what I worried about. The good news is that now a lot of those teenagers are grown-up now and it’s not as awkward to go out for coffee. But I remember one boy who took his own life. You only have so much time…

Doing ministry in a big city is different in that local churches don’t necessarily gain a reputation in the neighborhood. “Oh, I know that church, we went to a Christmas program there.” Nothing like that. Parents can’t ask around to see if other parents have sent their kids to such-and-such VBS. The Protestant churches aren’t really known around town, and the Orthodox churches are known more for their location/building than for fellowship opportunities. So it really takes a friend leading a friend for new people to be able to discover church life.

That brings us to the present. A few people in our church are involved in summer camp ministry, which is great. Our pastor talked about presenting the Gospel and all those little hands shooting up in the air because they wanted to receive Jesus. That brings back so many memories for me. Of course it always looks slightly questionable to an outsider, but I know what it’s like to be there and watching a person’s demeanor changing as the Holy Spirit works. Children are fully capable of understanding the need in their own hearts!
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After coming back from these adventures, one young man in our church is totally broken over the future of our teenagers. Kids are in Sunday school now; then they sort of “age out” as Sunday school gets boring. After that we have Small Groups, which they could technically come to, but it would be a little hard for them to travel to a different neighborhood and stay out that late on a school night.

Do teens need a separate ministry? I remember being motivated to serve as I attended youth group and had fellowship with other teens who were facing similar life issues, growing up Christian while attending a secular school. But I’m not sure if it was the fact that they were peers or just the fellowship itself that helped me feel like a part of the Church. I know that I would have been terrified to speak up at a Small Group if there had been people of all ages…but then again, I always enjoyed the Russia team, which was mixed ages.

People argue that Youth Group needs to be “fun” to attract youth. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It’s fun to play games and unwind, but I’m not sure if they affect a person’s reaction to the Gospel. If he’s interested, he’ll keep coming regardless. If he’s not interested, he may keep coming just for the social aspects. But I agree that a person needs to be able to feel relaxed and safe in order to share about deeper topics.

There is also the idea of a shared commitment…doing something together. From a parent’s point of view: my child is going somewhere to play games with some religious fanatics. It doesn’t seem to have hurt him. But wouldn't it reach a parent's heart to see a child getting involved in volunteer work, getting priorities straight, maybe learning some practical skills? And the youth is getting more than a feel-good experience; he's contributing to something bigger than himself.

So back to our church. Pasha pleads in a choked-up tone: We have to reach our teens before they’re gone. In a few more years another group of them will be teenagers, and then the others, and they will all gradually slip through the cracks and leave the Church.

What is more important? For the youth to have a program just for them, or for the youth to be included in the life of the church? Should they just patiently listen to the sermon and tag along to events with their parents, or should special attention be given? I feel the urgency too and once again I don't have a solution, but I can see hearts being set on fire to reach the youth. The desire is being channeled into prayer, and surely the Lord will provide a way.

I've seen some discussion around the Internet about integrated churches, where there is no division of ministries by age. Again I cannot say what is best, but I love when ages are mixed, as long as no one is left out. While we don't have a youth program, why not work with what we have? I’d really like to get some of the girls helping out with Sunday school. Other Sunday school teachers could be mentors and the teens would get a chance to serve. Of course they are helpful as it is, but having an official responsibility would be a chance for personal growth.

 I realize that this was more of a personal meditation and not so much a response to a Bible passage or other body of text. Maybe I'll come across some confirmation later as I read. Any thoughts?

Teaching Sunday school

Sunday school. It always seems like despite our "best" efforts to come up with an organized curriculum and rotating teaching schedule, Saturday nights (and Sunday mornings!) often consist of last-minute phone calls, cutting out flannel-graph figures, and typing up memory verses. Even with a good plan, the lesson can feel pretty disorganized.

You never know if they're actually learning something.  You just hope and pray. Recently, one of the mothers (herself a Sunday school teacher) came up to me inquiring what the previous lesson had been about. It turned out that her 2 yr old (who usually colors and runs around in the back of the room) had started retelling the contents of the lessons, particularly since we'd been using the flannel-graph.

Whenever it seems like the kids aren't paying attention, I think to myself...they must be hearing, if passively. Oh Lord, please let these words fall on fertile soil! Help them to be active listeners!

When it comes to curriculum, I often disagree with the conclusions made in the Sunday school materials...comments like: Jesus worked hard helping people; therefore Jesus wants you to study hard and get good grades. Or, it's too hard for Jesus to go to all the countries preaching; therefore we need missionaries.

Nevertheless, there are good ideas in there, and this time we were going to talk about missionaries: about the privilege of sharing in the Lord's work, to His glory. read more/-

I had asked one of the mothers to share about her missionary work in another area of Russia as a young lady. We did a little interview with her. I think it's good for the kids to have Russian missionary role models. When we asked them where they would like to serve, they threw a lot of ideas out there that indicated they were thinking more about travel than missions work. So we had to clarify a bit.

Afterwards, we had prayer time. The kids wanted to pray for Finland (not sure why), Tunisia (so there wouldn't be war), and Japan (obvious reasons). We finished praying and one little girl said, "Oh, can we please pray for [city in Uzbekistan] too? The Church there is being persecuted!" She's right, as her family (of Russian ethnicity) is from there and had been involved in an underground church. Difficult times in some ways, but encouraging all the same.

One-room Sunday school

I've probably mentioned this before, but wanted to pose it more formally as a discussion topic. What do you do about having different ages in one Sunday school classroom?

We used to gear the lesson toward school-aged children and have older kids be helpers and toddlers color quietly or play with blocks if they were unable to sit through the lesson. When we've tried to have an additional, more "active" lesson for the toddlers, it has been too disruptive for the older kids.

I was recently doing some brainstorming, and took a look at the current ages of the kids. The age break-down has changed a little bit. We now have (approximately): 5 teenagers, 8 school-aged kids (grades 2-6), 6 preschoolers (aged 3-6), 3 toddlers (1-2 years), and an infant. read more/-

We don't gear lessons towards teenagers as they have their own meetings, but in general all the groups are growing in number and it's not like we have just one toddler to entertain. We could do a full-fledged lesson with the preschoolers, maybe even including the 2 yr olds.

If we were able to find another room, how should we do a split? 6 and up? Readers and non-readers? What about the non-verbal kids?

And if not, how can we make the lessons accessible for everyone? Is there some way to sneak in more action for the toddlers and deeper questions for the older kids?


Current status...

We are sort of "on hiatus" with it being summer, but we still get 5-10 kids on a Sunday morning, and try to keep them entertained.

Today there were THREE of us with the kids, and we still could barely manage! A craft with the youngers, a game with the olders, cleaning up after the 3 yr old...oh no, the 2 yr old is unattended! There she goes...got her!

Even the board game we brought out was boring for the older set, and they got a bit antsy.

They're good kids, though...thank God for kids!

You are (not really) special

There was something rubbing me the wrong way about some Sunday school play scripts we were looking at. The message of almost every scenario was either "You are special in God's eyes" or "Everyone is special in God's eyes."

I'm not sure why, but to me this seemed like an incomplete representation of God's love for us and of how we should relate to others.

For one thing, take out the “in God’s eyes” part and you could have any bumper sticker or maybe group therapy message.

The typical scenario goes like this:  
All the animals (flowers, letters of the alphabet, etc.) are arguing about who is more important.

A mediator enters the scene, tells everyone to hush and work together, then they collectively make a pretty rainbow/bouquet/picture, and finish with “EVERYONE IS SPECIAL!”... read more/-

Now, when the disciples were arguing about who was greatest, Christ said something a little different.

Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me." (Mark 9:35-37)

To end an argument with “everyone is special” to me sounds like “it’s a tie, you all win.” But the point is that we ought not to seek victory OVER one another. Our response should not be “see, you’re not better than me,” but “It’s true, I’m not better than you.”  1 Corinthians 1:28 says, "He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him."

However, I realize that there is another side to it. People do need to hear different messages, based on their life experiences and the condition of their hearts. I’ve never particularly felt unloved. Kids from an orphanage might feel differently. Anyone who’s faced rejection at one time or another might have really needed to hear “you are special.”

So it isn’t that the message of being special and unique and loved is necessarily false or unchristian. Overused, perhaps?

How much do children need to be told that they are “special”? What do you think? How can we teach them their worth for the Kingdom in such a way that brings glory to God? That demonstrates what a privilege it is to be called His child? That allows them to look at others not as EQUAL to but as BETTER than oneself?

Little man

An attempt to make a Sunday school craft...

Since I used ribbon instead of yarn, Zacchaeus was having trouble climbing that tree. I wonder how nimble he was in real life?

What about the NT?

Has anyone else noticed that Sunday school materials seem to be heavy on the OT heroes and scant on the NT?

I noticed that in our church we seem to focus on Christmas and Easter with some OT heroes in-between, and then maybe some general topics like friendship, the fruits of the Spirit, etc.

But what about the first church, the first martyrs, the epistles, ...Revelation?

I opened up my craft book to take a look at the repertoire. After the Resurrection there is a small section titled "Christian Life." That is the extent of the material pertaining to everything after the Gospels.

To be fair, there ARE selected stories that are usually covered: Pentecost, Ananias and Sapphira, Paul's conversion, and Paul and Silas in jail. Other stories might be used to illustrate more general topics such as church fellowship. But there is so much more!

We wanted to do a short survey on the books of the NT as an introduction, but it is hard to find materials on the General Epistles, for example. Or maybe I am just not looking in the right place?

Teaching kids: In your pocket

When I took the TESOL course, we talked about having some conversation starters “in your pocket."

While I can improvise with adults, it’s harder to entertain children “on the fly,” especially without visual aids.

I realized lately that some of the challenges that I have with teaching both at church and in the orphanage come with capturing all the kids’ interest at the same time and starting the lesson with everyone together.

The “presentation” part of the lesson is often the most important since everything else builds off of it. If a few kids are late or don’t tune in right away, then the rest of the lesson probably won’t go very well either...

If you only have one attentive student at the beginning of the lesson, and you decide to wait, you may lose your one enthusiastic student. On the other hand, if you use up your introduction material right away, latecomers will be lost.

So I was thinking that I need to have some back-up activities on hand: something that is educational and serves to engage the kids as they gather. A few no-fail games that will always work. Any ideas?

A Tale of Two Christmases

(in photos)

I finally got a photo of one of our window decorations. We ended up with 7-8 different pictures telling the Christmas story. There were a few casualties, but we still had enough to decorate each window.



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On Christmas Eve we had a little service at church. Dec. 25th is a work day, so we just had a short service and then lingered for some refreshments. Also, some ladies from church made handmade gifts for the children, which turned out wonderfully.

The kids made the angels hanging in the background. :)





And finally, January 7th was Russian Christmas. Our Bible study decided to observe the occasion by creating a manger scene out of clay.



We also had a concert on January 9th to wrap up the holiday season. We heard hymns, poems, and other meditations on the meaning of Christmas.

As you can tell, I had a very creative holiday season! What's next? ....Easter?

"Stained glass" Christmas decorations

This is going to be a picture-less post, but here's a link with some examples if you're visually-inclined: http://www.windowbutterflies.com/FreeChristmasPatterns.html

I had never thought of fake stained glass as something that could be nice to look at. However, once I tried it, I learned that any picture you can draw or trace can be made into a window decoration using special paints. They are translucent when dry, which gives it a more natural look. We are using it as a Christmas craft. I'm not suggesting that you leave them up all year round. :)

The process is really simple and low-tech (for those of you who are doubtful about your craft abilities):

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• 1) Ask for window-cling paints at your local craft or toy store. You will also need some kind of clear plastic surface to work on.

• 2) Make the outline of your drawing with black paint (or the color of your choice) by placing a pattern underneath your plastic sheet, or by drawing free-hand. * Let dry 1-2 hours, depending on how thick the paint is, etc. You want it dry enough to not run into other colors.

• 3) Fill in all the areas with the colors of your choice, being sure not to let them touch. ** Let dry overnight.

• 4) Peel off and stick to a window pane. Can be removed and reapplied several times!

*Tip: Think about how you want to break up the space into shapes.
**Tip: Keep in mind that any pieces left isolated (such as "floating" facial features) will be detached from the rest of the picture once you remove it from the plastic.

The contour drawing from my tester can be found on this post. I liked the way it came out once I had filled in the different colors. But it was a very small picture, and the ones we are doing with the Sunday school are meant to fill up a whole window! Of course there are more technical difficulties as you get bigger, the main one being that as you use more paint, the drying time is longer. Try not to move them right away.

Concerning age: Even preschoolers can participate, if they can be taught how to regulate how much paint they are using (squeeze some out, then spread).

Learning from kids

It was the end of a 3-part Sunday school series. First we weren’t clean enough to come before God (Moses and his dirty sandals), then Jesus became the bridge, then we received a gift that we hadn’t earned ourselves. It sounds funny described that way, but those were the main points given in that book I’m not so crazy about.

After going over the third part, we reviewed the whole unit. Then we learned the verse, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” –Eph. 2:8,9.

After that, the kids had a drawing assignment. They were supposed to draw the true path to God. I had drawn some false paths on the paper with works, money, etc. At the previous lesson we had talked about Jesus being “the Way” and at this lesson we had talked about salvation coming through faith, so I expected the answer to include those concepts, although I wasn’t sure exactly how the kids would draw them. I made the drawing assignment challenging on purpose because I wanted to make them think, not just regurgitate what they had heard. They’re smart kids, and I know they can memorize anything, but can they apply it?

When I went around monitoring, some of the kids didn’t recognize the other paths as false. It seemed that they were confused about what kind of things please God, such as good behavior, and what agent actually opens the way to fellowship with God. Some of the older kids were already drawing, and I saw a pattern. I don’t know if one started and the others copied, but almost all of the drawings had a cross, a church, a Bible, and a person praying. They had drawn what to them represented Christianity. It seemed like they had answered the question, “What should Christians do?” Go to church, read the Bible, pray. We hadn't talked about those things at all during the lesson. All I had been looking for in the answer was the cross. But maybe they were simply drawing what to them was the manifestation of having faith.

Ironically, the Adult Sunday school lesson also dealt with grace. It seems to be the eternal question!

A Colorful Lesson

Today I helped teach Sunday school. Our lesson was based on Genesis 37, Joseph and the coat of many colors.

Our lesson was a theatrical performance featuring live action, puppets, and flannel-graph. I played the part of Jacob, wearing a wig, beard, and robe. My 12 “sons” were puppets, engineered and voiced by Olya. Yulia was story-teller and flannel-graph engineer.

So I came in, pretended I was a visitor from a far-off land, and told about my sons. I told about my son Joseph’s dreams with the help of the flannel-graph. After that it got tricky. We switched to a scene with the brothers and I went behind the curtain and helped to make sheep noises. Olya and I got a little confused about which puppet was which. Then I went back out again to play Jacob. The brothers came to deliver the sad news, and the puppets then threw a “bloody cloth” towards me. This was problematic in two ways: 1) the blood consisted of magenta colored paint. 2) The cloth didn’t make it to me but sort of dangled on the edge of the puppet-show curtain. I laughed out loud and had to try to turn it into grief. Then as I “grieved,” the kids giggled. Yulia told them not to laugh because my “son” was dead. One of the older girls yelled, “I know what happens later! He’s not really dead!” Finally I stumbled out of the room saying goodbye.

I changed out of my Jacob outfit and was standing in the hallway trying to decide when to go back in. Suddenly I heard one of the little girls ask to go to the bathroom, and I rushed further down the hallway to hide. But she came right up to me. I thought she was going to say something about the costume, but she said, “Leeza, what’s ‘perfect’?” Like the great teacher that I am, I said, “Ummm, didn’t Yulia tell you?” I didn’t know what point they were at in the lesson anyway. I went back into the room and Yulia was trying to explain to the kids about God’s perfect love. I think they got it. Then we closed in prayer and did a craft.

Maybe it wasn’t the “perfect” Sunday school lesson. But it was memorable!