Children in the Cell

by | Jan 29, 2009 | Uncategorized | 4 comments

mario

by Mario Vega

Today’s subject is based on the conditions of counries in Central America. Those conditions have two important components: families have an average of three kids and houses are very small.

These two components combine at the moment of celebrating the cell meeting in the houses. There are always more children than adults in an insufficient space. It was decided, under these conditions, almost since the beginning of the work with cells that children should be attended in a different area than the adults. While the adults were celebrating the cell meeting, the children were taken to another part of the house to receive a Bible teaching.

In the future this would be a measure that we would like to modify, but for several years it was the resource that allowed the adults to focus on the cell meeting, knowing that their children were being attended, most of the times, by young people that were willing to help.

Next week I will share with you about the changes that were introduced.

In the mean time, could you share with us how you have been working with children in the cell meetings?

Mario

Translation in Spanish:

¿Cómo atender a los niños?
El tema de hoy se basa en las condiciones de los pases centroamericanas. Esas condiciones tienen dos componentes principales: las familias tienen un promedio de tres hijos y las casas son muy pequeñas.

Esos dos elementos se combinan al momento de realizar la reunión de célula en las casas. Siempre hay más niños que adultos en un espacio insuficiente. Bajo esas condiciones, se decidió casi desde que comenzamos a trabajar con células que los niños deban ser atendidos en un área diferente a la de los adultos. Mientras los adultos realizaban la reunión de células, los niños eran llevados a otro sector de la casa para impartirles una enseñanza bblica.

En el futuro ésta sera una medida que habramos de modificar, pero, por varios años fue el recurso que permitió a los adultos centrarse en la reunión de célula sabiendo que sus hijos eran atendidos, normalmente, por jóvenes dispuestos a ayudar.

La próxima semana compartiré sobre los cambios que luego se introdujeron. Mientras tanto, ¿podra usted compartir cuál ha sido su manera de trabajar con los niños en las reuniones en las casas?

4 Comments

  1. eric miller

    I would love to hear principles of how to incorporate children into the G12 idea. Although we are not a G12 church we do operate with many of their principles. We have a children’s meeting on Sunday after worship during the preaching. Our Children’s leader has been scanning the internet trying to find how she or if she should / could do a school of leaders for kids (how long what to focus on teaching wise) and raising up children leaders to lead cell groups. we are missionaries in the Philippines and could really use some input on this one!

    Thanks!

    Eric Miller

    Reply
  2. Pastor Chris

    We have been experiencing some difficulty as well in our Kids Slot of the Cell Group. Many houses are not big enough to have another room in which the kids can meet comfortably. Many times people want to take them into the children’s rooms, but then toys and such become a distraction. We normally have our adults take turns in pairs (Male with Male, Female with Female) leading the kids slot program. I think the kids are enjoying it, but any advice in this area would be helpful. We normally have the kids with us for the fellowship time and worship and then send them into a separate room for the Word portion of the study, at the end they come back in and pray with the adults to close the evening. The other thing that can be hard is our adult sometimes take up to 1 hr to go through the word study part and that seems too long for the kids.

    Comments?

    Pastor Chris

    Reply
  3. Joel Comiskey

    We normally have the kids with us for the WELCOME and WORSHIP and then the kids go to another room for the WORD time. With the WORD AND WITNESS, it can reach the one hour mark, but I don’t think it’s wise to go beyond that. We’ve found it helpful if the kids share what they’ve learned during the refreshment time. I don’t have any EASY answers about house size and rooms full of toys. Perhaps someone else would like to comment on this?

    Reply
  4. Jeff Tunnell

    All Cells that are not children’s cells are simply in the practice of arranging childcare for the younger children and having the adolescent & older youth remain in the cell meeting with adults. I see an unfortunate apathy toward truly including youth in cells intergenerationally. I am looking forward to your next blog on the changes made.

    Reply

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joelcomiskey

joelcomiskey

Joel Comiskey, Ph.D., founder of JCG Resources

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