Matt Altman, our Kids Ministry Lead at RADIUS Church, spearheaded a trip for our Kids Coordinators to attend the ETCH Conference this fall. Below is his story:
In early October, Cortney Broadwell, Sabrina Owens, and I journeyed out to Nashville, TN, to be a part of the ETCH (Equipping The Church and Home) Conference. It was awesome! We were encouraged and challenged throughout our time there. A few key takeaways….
1) “Research shows strongly that for adults who are spiritually mature, the #1 thing they experienced as a child, in common with other spiritually mature adults was….regular Bible reading.” This takeaway not only affirmed the first pillar of our RADIUS Kids Mission (“Know God’s Story”), but reminded us all of the importance of teaching and reading the Bible with our kids on Sunday mornings at church and throughout the week in the home. We were each challenged to consider how we can be more intentional in this area.
2) The importance of knowing our people….Multiple sessions we attended emphasized value in knowing our people and extending lots of grace and compassion to folks we don’t know as well. We heard several stories of how families’ lives were changed because leaders and servers at a church loved them really well. This was a great reminder for our team that we have many kids who come to church on Sunday mornings with a variety of backgrounds and experiences, needing us to show them love and kindness as we seek to build relational bridges with them.
Our time together was rich, and I am excited to see what fruit comes from our RADIUS Kids ministries across all of our campuses as we seek to invest in our youngest disciples!