Supporting Children's Leaders

Early consultation by the planning group with leaders of children's and young people's ministries in the church is important. One member of the planning group should be allocated responsibility for meeting with the Sunday School teachers, youth group leaders and/or any midweek activities which have a teaching role among children or young people. Consider the following:

• Give time to inform, inspire and invite children’s and youth ministry leaders to participate in Giving in Grace both for themselves and for the young people they serve. Don't assume that they will get on board automatically.
• Make space for leaders to explore their own feelings about Giving in Grace and share with them the commitment of the church leadership to engage with the initiative.
• Make use of the discussion document Money matters to children to form the basis of discussion with young people's leaders.
• Make every effort to ensure that children's ministry leaders do not feel excluded from Giving in Grace by virtue of the time they give to the children.
• It may be helpful to make available copies of the Theology discussion paper which sets out the thinking behind Giving in Grace.
• Ensure early on that children's ministry leaders know about and can access the teaching resources available in the all age resources Preach Exodus! and the Harvest Festival resource.
• Make it clear that the involvement of children in Giving in Grace has nothing to do with raising money. It does, however, have everything to do with teaching meaningful and life long lessons to our children about money and encouraging them to develop early habits of giving and generosity. As noted elsewhere we neither want nor expect them to be part of the solution to the financial problems of the church.