Barnabas E-News July 2008

Are you winding down or winding up? Maybe July's arrival means that a summer break from your children's groups is imminent and you are looking forward to a change in routine? But maybe July means that your summer holiday club programme is suddenly closer than you realized and there is still so much to do! Whatever July brings, we hope that our Barnabas resources - the books, the web ideas and articles or even maybe someone from our growing team - will be able to help you not get too wound up or simply unravelled completely in the months ahead.

For those with some space this summer, we are launching a series of ideas this month that might just help you and your church think in new creative ways about God's mission in your area. However many children you may or may not have in your regular Sunday or midweek groups, the sobering truth is that all of us are reaching only a fraction of the children in our communities with the gospel. So how can we think outside the box about our work?

Well, all children are of course in schools, and schools have never been more open to creative partnerships with local churches. To take our story to where the children are and to do so professionally, creatively and appropriately within the school's educational context is such an opportunity and one which is very dear to us at Barnabas. But how do we do it? What are the guidelines? Where do we start?

Feature Article

This month's feature article is by Chris Hudson and explores one particular approach. Your own place of worship is such a valued resource for schools, and the RE curriculum encourages local visits there. Chris explains some of the ways that these visits can become really memorable experiences for the children and their teachers and how they can develop and deepen fruitful relationships with your local school.

Read more...

To accompany this, Margaret Withers shares from her rich experience the many ways in which schools and churches can work together. God calls us to care for all the children in our community and to share God's love for them in word and deed. She offers some practical advice and starting places for doing just this:

• Breaking the ice
• Mission-shaped schools
• Not just taking assembly

Summer programmes

This month, we also offer you another Footsteps to the Feast outline with a summery flavour, called Seaside Surprise, which is based around the story of James (his Festival Day comes later this month) and his adventures travelling with Jesus.

As usual there is a wealth of material here and maybe it could be used over several sessions or all-age services in the coming months.

We're growing again...

Your Barnabas Team is growing and we are being joined by a number of new, talented freelancers, who in some cases are already busy at work in schools. This means that we are even more available nationally to help your church offer positive RE experiences to local schools with one of our very popular Barnabas RE Days. You can read more about these and about the team on our schools website.

Out and about

In July the team can be found in Wells, Tonbridge, Cowplain (near Portsmouth), Drayton (near Abingdon), Wolston (near Coventry), the Keswick Convention, Birmingham Christian College and Thame.

Over the summer

And what about time for yourself over the summer? It's vital that we as leaders find space for reflection and new inspiration for our work and this could be the ideal time to dip into one of our many inspirational BRF books that are guaranteed to stretch and strengthen your faith.

We recommend The Path of Celtic Prayer; Twenty Questions Jesus Asked and The Growth of Love plus of course our Quiet Spaces journal, which many have found a very practical way of exploring an important theme biblically, in bite-size chunks and written by a range of contributors.

Have a good summer

From the Barnabas Team

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