Imagine spending an afternoon at the zoo with some recent refugee families through World Relief, or serving breakfast as a family at New Horizons Ministry for teenagers who are living on the streets. Now consider joining in a “Kenya Night” where adults and children of all ages enjoy Kenyan food, music, activities, and joyful dancing and singing with some of our Kenyan friends.

Or how would you and your child like to help make 150 sack lunches in the Fellowship Hall one Sunday after church to give to the children’s summer program at Urban Impact in the Rainier Valley? Children’s Ministries is considering all of these options as we begin to work on plans for an exciting new focus next summer on Families in Mission.

We hope to offer multiple outreach opportunities geared toward families with preschool and elementary children, but with the possibility that all church members can participate in some of the activities. We envision offering two mission trips for families with older elementary age children as well as a variety of one-time options in the morning or early evening (the times most appropriate for preschoolers) that are oriented toward serving our local community.

This as an important focus for Children’s Ministries, since most of what our ministry does throughout the year, such as Sunday School and special events, is for children and families within our church. A mission focus will help families look beyond ourselves to walk with others in need, while taking advantage of children’s innate ability to be powerful agents of grace.

For the past five years, God has been placing this vision on the hearts of several Children’s Ministry leaders and our church staff, and we have been asking God to show us the next step. In addition, a number of families have approached Dianne Ross in the past two years to discuss the possibility of offering a family mission trip.

After discussing the idea with Pastor Dan and Session, we are very pleased to now be able to do this. We encourage all Bethany families to take part in some manner, in order to help our children recognize that they can participate in God’s work in the world.

We are cooperating closely with Rev. Lynne Faris Blessing and the Local and Global Outreach Committees to forge connections with our local outreach partners. Our focus is on allowing our partners to determine places to serve that they believe we can be most beneficial, rather than simply choosing an activity ourselves.

A Families in Mission committee is being formed and will begin planning in November. They will continue working throughout the winter, spring and summer to plan and implement a variety of activities. Therefore, we will not hold Vacation Bible School this year, so our volunteer and staff energy can still plan and staff summer Sunday School, Children’s Church, and August sermon release times.

This is in line with our philosophy of trying to model good stewardship of time and resources to often over-extended families in our society. Our goal is to create space in scheduling and prevent volunteer burnout by offering various activities in alternate years, rather than trying to keep piling new activities on top of those we already do. For example, we now offer the Family Advent Gathering and Family Lenten Pancake Supper events on alternate years; the elementary musical and the 4th-9th grade choir are also offered every other year. This enables us to meet a variety of different needs without over-programming our church family.

We are excited that God is leading us on this new journey and look forward to seeing what He will do in our midst. We ask the congregation to join us in praying that we will all learn how to come alongside and build relationships with others and that God will continue to show us each step in this exciting and sometimes daunting adventure! If you are interested in helping plan or assist with these activities, please contact Julia Sensenbrenner or Dianne Ross.