Aspirations for children and youth ministry

Aspirations for Ministry is a resource designed to help congregations, and the wider Church, develop ministry with children and young people.

This resource presents the aspirations accepted by General Assembly 2018. Each one is the practical outworking of a theological principle, offered with questions for congregations to consider. We hope it will be a valuable resource in assisting you to build on the Year of Young People, rooting such developments within a theological framework.

While these aspirations have been created for the purpose of developing congregations' ministries with children and young people, they are relevant to the whole Church community. To get the most out of them, we suggest you enable the whole congregation to explore them rather than giving the resource only to those working with children and young people.

There are many ways your congregation may choose to engage with the resource:

  • Set aside time to explore each aspiration over the course of several Kirk Session meetings
  • Use the material provided as a series for home groups, gathering people together at the end to combine ideas
  • Run a sermon series based on the material, coming together after each for discussion on how to apply the ideas
  • Gather a group of interested people together for a day to discuss how the aspirations can be worked out in your context

We invite you to choose whichever method you think will work best for your congregation. Why not revisit them regularly and use them as a check point for your youth work?

Getting a copy

Every Session Clerk has been sent a hard copy of the resource, and you can also download an electronic copy.

Discussion cards

To aid you further, we have produced a set of discussion cards for you to use. Presbyteries are being sent multiple sets which you can borrow (just contact your presbytery clerk).

Stories

We would love to hear how you are embedding the aspirations in your congregation and invite you to share your success stories and challenges. To this end, please email sfarrant@churchofscotland.org.uk.