One of the most significant obstacles we face in ministering to hurting kids and children from disrupted homes is that they don’t tend to come to our churches. Statistically, children from ANY type of family other than married biological parents are significantly less likely to attend church. So, if you’re serious about ministering to these hurting kids, and there are tons of them no matter where you live, you have to get outside the walls of your church and take your ministry to them. Fortunately, through my work with these kids and speaking at various conferences, I have been fortunate enough to meet a handful of people who are doing just that. Rachael Groll is the Children’s Ministry Director at Living Waters Church (http://www.livingwaterschurch.tv/) in Meadville, PA. She has started a program through her church that goes out and finds these kids where they live and ministers to them. Rachael was kind enough to answer some questions for us about the ministry she started, why it works and how it impacts the kids she is ministering to and the church.

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Q: Hi Rachael. Why don’t you start by telling a little bit about yourself and your church?

A: HI Wayne. Thanks for the opportunity. I currently am the Children’s Director at Living Waters Church. I oversee all programming of children, from birth through age twelve. This includes our Bus Ministry, Sidewalk Ministry, Wednesday night programming, and Sunday morning services. Living Waters is unique in our area, in that our focus is really to seek out the lost and bring them Jesus. You see this throughout every area of our church. We have a mobile food pantry, evangelism teams that go out into the community, a foster and adoption ministry, and we host several community events throughout the year. One of the things we focus on as a staff is really getting outside the four walls, and ministering to the community.

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This week’s weekend reading is on a topic I had never heard of before seeing this article (8 Steps to Companioning). It is something called companioning. I don’t know all the details, but it appears to be very similar to the idea of mentoring or discipleship. Read through this article from Christian Works and think about how it might apply to your work with kids.

Ideas for Further Thought and Discussion

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Getting kids to talk about their emotions plays a huge part in helping them to process those emotions, get past them and move on with their lives. When you can combine that process with candy, well that just creates an all-around great situation. That why we were so excited to come across the M&M emotion game at Living a Rad Life.

In this game, you use snack sized bags of chocolate covered candy (M&M’s) in order to get kids talking about their emotions. You and the child (or every child if you are working with a group) starts with one fun-sized bag of candy. On your turn, you pull one candy out of the bag and share an emotion/experience based on that color. Only after sharing do you actually get to eat the candy.

In this version of the game, you have to do one of the following depending on which candy you pull out of the bag:

• Red: Share something the makes you Happy
• Brown: Share something that makes you Sad
• Green: Share something that makes you Angry
• Yellow: Share something that makes you Excited
• Blue: Share one poor choice you’ve made today and what you could have done different
• Orange: Share one good choice you made today

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Christmas is such a special time for those of us who love the Lord. It is a time to celebrate the birth of our Savior. Unfortunately it has also become one of the most stressful times of the year.

The hustle and bustle of shopping, church programs, getting together with families and friends tends to create self-imposed stress. As adults most of know when to back off, say no and we’ve learned to take time to enjoy the season.

Unfortunately for many kids, their families, surroundings and circumstances don’t give them the option of a calm Christmas. Most are stressed to the max. For many kids, it’s the unknown in terms of what this Christmas is going to be like that is causing stress.

There are many things you can do to accommodate these children. One of the things is to be aware of is the kinds of foods stressed out children need. Foods that are comforting in the mouth (such as apple sauce) feel good and comforting to many children.

When my son was in third grade he ate jar after jar of applesauce. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with him eating so much applesauce. Now I understand that the softness and the comforting feeling in the mouth helped him as he was adjusting to his dad’s moving out. The applesauce met a need he had.

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As children’s ministry leaders you may have found the article posted last week, “Understanding the Short-Term Legacies of Divorce,” interesting and relevant to the work you are currently doing with the children in your church. This week, as we discuss the long-term legacy of divorce, you might be inclined to think that understanding these is not as important as many are not likely to show up until children have left your ministry. Quite to the contrary, it is important for you to recognize the long-term legacies of divorce so that, as church leaders, you can help an individual child to better cope and potentially even lessen the impact of a particular long-term legacy.

While the long-term legacy of divorce may, and likely will, still affect the child in future years, your input today may help to lessen the severity of the impact as opposed to the child who hasn’t been exposed to the love of Christ and a loving church family.  As churches become more cognizant about the impact of divorce on children they can step up minister more effectively to these children. This can take many forms including hosting support groups such as DivorceCare for Kids for elementary age children and “The Big D” for teens dealing divorce. Churches can tailor a bible study class or VBS to accommodate hurting children of divorce. These types of ministries and programs can and will give children better outcomes overall as they grow and mature surrounded by the love of God in a church family.

It is important to remember that not every child of divorce will be affected by divorce in the same way. The purpose of this article is to discuss general long-term legacies of divorce that many children experience. If you read the statistics on some of these issues, it can be frightening and disheartening. When I became a single parent, my children were eight and twelve years of age. At first I bought into all the hype and statistics about children of divorce. I felt like my children were doomed. I remember praying and begging the Lord to not let my twelve-year-old daughter get pregnant at fifteen and to allow my son to graduate from high school and not get involved in drugs. What a pitiful prayer! I shudder to think what would have happened to my children if I had held onto those pathetic thoughts. Along the way, the Lord helped me realize my children could survive and thrive.

Today, we want to look at some of the long-term impacts that divorce has on children as they mature into teenagers, young adults and even adulthood. Much of the information in this article comes from my own observations from working with children of divorce for over thirty years. It also comes from the nation’s leading adult support group called DivorceCare and from interviewing many adult children of divorce.

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Anger is an almost universal emotion. If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve been angry at some point, and kids are no exception. Kids get angry for any variety of reasons.

• It could be family related turmoil – like when their parents divorce. In fact, it is one of the most universal reactions we see in kids when they experience any sort of family transitions. When visitation arrangements change, kids get mad. When dad doesn’t pick them up for his time with them, they get angry. When mom starts dating some new guy, they begin to boil. When they have to move, change schools, deal with new siblings, listen to one parent bash another, and on and on and on, they get angry.
• It could be a reaction to stress – from school or family or sports or just not having time to be kids. Kids today are more stressed than ever, and anger is a typical reaction to stress.
• It could be in response to fear – about what is going to happen in the future, how a family situation is going to turn out, how the kids at school will react, feeling embarrassed or any number of other things.

The list is endless, and teaching kids how to deal with anger and coping mechanisms they can safely use as they move from irritated to annoyed to angry to enraged is critical to helping them move past the anger and deal with other underlying emotions.

This craft from the website Home Stories A to Z is an awesome tool for helping kids both to deal with anger they are currently feeling and to deal with future bouts with anger. The instructions are simple (and included on the template):

• Download the template from this site.
• Color the various triangles on the sheet. If you want the colors to match as you use the anger catcher, color the number and coping mechanism the same color as is printed in the triangle between them. We didn’t do this as we were making our anger catchers, and it doesn’t make a difference in its use.
• Fold each corner towards the center of the page so that the numbers and color names are facing you.
• Turn over the anger catcher
• Fold each corner into the center so that only the color names are visible.
• Fold the anger catcher in half so that the color names touch and the numbers are on the outside.

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The following relates my experience volunteering in my very first 13 week session of Divorce Care 4 Kids (DC4K) back in 2011. Since that time, I have gone on to lead a number of DC4K groups at multiple locations and will lead my next group starting in mid January of next year..  I hope that you will find this telling of my experience both informative and useful.  Ultimately, I hope in some way that it will lead you to getting involved in DC4K ministering to children of divorce or ministering to hurting kids in some other capacity.

One question that I get asked more than any other since I started working with children of divorce is:

What can a church do to minister to children of divorce?

I believe there are number of things that the church must do in order to truly minister to children of divorce. One significant thing a church can do is to start a support group for kids who have been, or are going, through a divorce. The best program that I am aware of for churches is Divorce Care 4 Kids (DC4K).

What is DC4K?

Divorce Care 4 Kids is a 13 week curriculum developed by Church Initiative who also produce Divorce Care, Grief Share, Single & Parenting and Chance to Change. According to the DC4K website,

DC4K is a special group to help your children heal from the pain caused by a separation or divorce. DC4K provides your children with a safe and neutral place to recognize and learn to share their feelings.

For 13 weeks your children become involved in a fun, caring group at a church near you. The weekly session topics help your children learn that God’s love strengthens them and helps them turn their sadness to hope and their anger to joy.

Each session is filled with motivating and exciting activities. Games, crafts, role-playing, discussion times, journaling and activity books help your children process the divorce and move forward in their lives. The music CDs, snacks, read aloud stories, exercises and Bible verses teach your children to relax and rest secure in God’s love. The Kids Like Me and Stories from the Bible video dramas present stories of children just like your children, who are experiencing divorce-related problems and have found help and encouragement.

DC4K is a powerful ministry for kids 5–12 years of age.

What Topics Does DC4K Cover?

During the 13 week course, the DC4K curriculum covers a variety of topics in a setting where your kids can feel safe. The topics covered by week include:

• What’s Happening to My Family?
• God Loves Children in All Kinds of Families
• Facing My Anger
• Journey from Anger to Sadness
• I Am Not Alone
• God’s Plan for Me
• Developing New Relationships
• Developing Money Smarts
• It’s Not My Fault
• Telling My Parents How I Feel
• Forgiveness
• Loving My Parents
• Moving On: Growing UP and Closer to God

What Does A Child Experience at a DC4K Session?

Although you can customize what you do for any given week, a common session might include:

• A video presenting circumstances that a child of divorce can relate to.
• A video presenting a relevant Bible story.
• Journaling and drawing pictures in a child’s Activity Book.
• Arts and crafts projects which allow children to express themselves.
• Singing and listening to music.
• Playing games.
• Connecting with leaders and other children of divorce.
• Stretching and exercising to help reduce stress levels.
• Reading scripture.
• Eating together.

How Do I Find a DC4K Group in My Area?

Go to http://www.dc4k.org/findagroup and enter your zip code, or search internationally, to find a group in your area.

An Introduction to My First DC4K Experience

When I originally envisioned this article, I didn’t expect it to be as long as it eventually turned out to be. I thought I might hit on some the highlights and some of the things I learned from my time and be done. In the end, I decided that perhaps the best thing I could do was to give you a glimpse into our class itself so that you can see how a class like DC4K can impact the adults who run it and, more importantly, the kids who attend. Continue reading

How is your church doing in meeting the special needs of step families (sometimes called blended families)? Recent government statistics show that in the United States almost 9% of all kids live in a step family (this does not include children living with cohabiting, but unmarried, couples). In his article Understanding the unique needs of step families, Ron Deal explains the importance of ministering to step families.

Ideas for Further Discussion About Step Families

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The Superpower Game is simple game that doesn’t require any preparation or materials, but it can tell you a lot about what a child is experiencing. You ask one simple question:

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

As the child answers, listen for clues to what they are feelings and what they are going through. Think about why the child might want a particular superpower and/or what emotion it might help them to deal with. For example:

• Invincibility or Super Strength could be an indication that the child is anxious about something or someone.
• X-ray vision might mean the child is struggling to understand what is going on and wants to be able to “look inside” of his/her parents to figure it out.
• Flying can signify that the child is overwhelmed and just wants to get away from it all.
• Power of Healing might suggest that the child is worried about their parents or someone else and what they are going through.
• Time Travel could suggest that the child is dealing with regrets or guilt that they want to go back and fix or a desire to have things “the way they used to be.”
• Telepathy and Mind Reading can indicate that the child feels “left in the dark” or insecure and wants to know what other people are thinking.
• Precognition or Knowing the Future could relate to anxiety about what might happen next in the child’s life.

Of course, these are just guidelines.  It is possible that a child just wants a certain super power because it seems cool, so you may want to take the conversation a little further:

• Why would you want to have that power?
• Would you have a superhero name? If so, what would it be? If not, why not?
• If you had that power, what is the first way you would use it?
• What are the positives and negatives of having that power?
• Would you want to have a superhero costume? If so, what would it look like?
• Would you have any superhero gadgets? If so, what would they do?
• Would you want your friends and family to know that you had the superpower?
• Would having a superpower change how you think about yourself? If so, how?

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For many of us, Christmas is a joyous time filled memories of Christmases gone by, but for many children the season brings all kinds of additional stressors and emotions.  This includes children spending this holiday season suffering through their parents divorced, with absentee parent(s) and under tremendous stress for any variety of reasons.

At Hope 4 Hurting Kids, we’ve put together the following simple infographic to help you help hurting and stressed out children navigate this Christmas season.  It includes an explanation as to why Christmas is not always the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year” for kids, tips for parents and others for helping children this season and a brief reminder of what Christmas is really all about.  This resource is intended for parents, children’s pastors and anyone else who work with children.

Please click on the graphic below for a larger pdf version of the resource for printing.

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