Understanding God’s Heart for Children offers the opportunity for learning through reflection on experience and exploration of scripture, enabling Christians to hear and understand God’s desire and purpose for children.
It was born out of an international conference, Cutting Edge 2001. Representatives from NGOs and CBOs working with children around the world raised questions about the theological response to practical issues that many children face every day: poverty, neglect, abuse, exploitation, war, disability, and disease, to name a few.
This programme was designed to help people begin to answer those questions in their local contexts.
How does this build capacity?
Understanding the vision and purpose for work with children can re-inspire those who have been working in the sector for a while, and improve motivation to keep working, and to work better.
Methodology
The course is designed for use by single churches, groups of churches and/or organisations and Viva partner networks and consists of seven sessions:
- Our Perception of Children
- God’s View of Children
- God’s Vision for a Child-Friendly World
- Our Part in Making God’s Vision a Reality
- Comparing God’s View of Children with UN CRC
- Comparing God’s Vision of World with UN WFFC & SDGs
- Principles for our Work
These sessions include theoretical understanding as well as the opportunity to determine how to practically apply learning and a participants’ questionnaire is completed at the start and end of each session to assess learning and generate feedback.
As this initiative has evolved, the session material has been used creatively in a variety of contexts. All over the world, different people, churches, communities, and child care agencies are doing this same seven sessions, as weekly or monthly studies, as a weekend workshop, or in other formats. We encourage networks to share how the course was run, and feedback they may have in order to share learning with others thinking of running the programme.
Common intentions for running the programme are to:
- explore childhood issues
- discover God’s desire and purpose
- understand children’s roles and place in the community
- know how to adapt existing children’s activities within family, church or organisations
Inevitably, a course such as UGHFC will raise more questions than can be covered. Significantly, participants may wish to explore Child Protection Policies and practice to ensure safeguarding of children in their context. It is a good introduction which often paves the way to further training.
Find out more?
Download the Understanding God’s Heart for Children Facilitators Pack.
En Espanol: Entendiendo el Corazón de Dios por la Niñez1 y Entendiendo el Corazón de Dios por la Niñez2
We would love to hear from you if you use the resource or have any questions about it. Please contact us on (+44) 1865 811 660 or info@viva.org
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