Fired up...not burnt out

Most churches are committed to providing a biblically-based nurture programme for their children, but many rely on the goodwill of parents and other adults to supply the leaders and helpers.

This book is designed to help the non-specialist understand the biblical rationale for nurturing children in the Church and gain the basic skills needed to be an effective leader.

Comprising five sections which explore key principles for nurturing children, the material covers:

• The importance of children’s work and understanding the learning process
  
  
• Using signs and symbols and involving children in prayer and worship
  
  
• Spiritual development and growing in faith
  
  
• Making the Bible accessible
  
  
• Enhancing our storytelling and other practical skills
  
  
• The wider community and management, health and safety issues
  

Each section includes introductory notes, Bible readings, thinking and discussion pointers, case studies, practical activities, checklists and short prayers. All the material has been thoroughly field-tested, both with groups and individual readers.

Margaret Withers taught in several Inner London schools and for the Open University before becoming a Diocesan Children’s Adviser in Rochester in 1989. She has spent the last decade heavily involved in providing training and support for voluntary children’s leaders in parishes.

In 1996, while Children’s Officer for the diocese of Chelmsford, she established children’s work as an integral part of Reader training as well as providing a similar input to several theological courses. The increasing demand for simple basic training for inexperienced leaders led to her writing a four-evening course for a group of parishes in 1998. This formed the basis of Fired up … not burnt out. After a further two years in Rochester, she was in April 2001 appointed Archbishop’s Officer for Evangelism among Children.

Margaret is author of Welcome to the Lord’s Table and Toby and Trish and The Amazing Book of Acts, both published under the Barnabas imprint.

Margaret Withers brings knowledge, insight and depth to this book. It will greatly encourage those who work in the Church among children and equip them to reflect on the ministry to which they have been called.
From the Foreword by Canon John Hall, General Secretary C of E Board of Education and General Secretary National Society (C of E) for Promoting Religious Education.
Duncan Johnston writes in the Diocesan Missioners' Mailing: This is not a book to sit down and read from cover to cover. It is a workbook for church leaders and children’s workers and is designed to act as a training course in leading children’s work. It has five sections: communication, using the senses, worship and spirituality, the place of story and sharing the faith. The beauty of the book is its practical nature. It starts from the (not unreasonable) assumption that the reader is involved in children’s work for one of a number of different reasons; including ‘because no-one else will do it’. It very helpfully takes the worker with all their fears, mixed motives and guilt feelings, and encourages them that they are called, gifted and affirmed by God. The book is extremely comprehensive in its scope. I could not think of an area of children’s ministry which is not covered by Margaret Withers. Those of us who are working in evangelism will be particularly interested in the final section of the book on reaching out. In this section she encourages workers to think creatively about when, where and how the church can reach un-churched children in their area. No subject is dealt with in any real depth, but the reader is challenged to think and apply the ideas to their own contexts, partly through the use of well-crafted scenarios which illustrate the point being made. The brevity of the book (128 pages) is made up for by the existence of hundreds of bullet points - several for each page. Each section sets out its aims and concludes with a summary. The appendices are very helpful (behaviour management and child protection, especially) and there is an exhaustive and helpful subject index. Withers dips into theory of communication and how children grow spiritually (including Westerhoff’s four steps of spiritual development), but never becomes out of reach of the ordinary Christian. The book can be used by individuals, but is intended for working through as a group of children’s workers. I have no doubt it would make a good course of training in the local church.

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