About our resources for Children and Families
We believe that you are never too young to pray for and be concerned about the persecuted church. But creating family-friendly resources around the issue of persecution is always a challenge! It means that we have to deal with some difficult, even unpleasant situations. We have to talk about violence and injustice, while at the same time not causing hatred, or leaving children feeling upset or frightened.
So, we operate on a number of principles:
- We rely on you – the parents and the teachers. You are the best judges of how and when to use these resources. You will best know what to share with the children and how to frame it in the most appropriate way. So please feel free to adapt any resource to suit your situation.
- Our resources are broadly aimed at 6-11-year-olds. This is not to say that children younger or older might not be able to use them, but please be sensitive and careful, especially with younger children. We realise this can present a challenge in situations such as smaller churches that have children’s groups with a broader age range. So, once again, we rely on your judgment as to what to distribute.
- Our resources are usually designed for use in the home or in a church setting. However, we’re aware that many schools use them as well. That’s amazing and fantastic, but, once again, we are relying on your judgment as to when and where this is appropriate. Obviously, if you are a teacher and you wish to use them that’s great.
- We try to present what is happening in an appropriate, family-friendly way. We believe that children can actually appreciate the core issues. They know about bullying. They know that some people do bad things. They understand that sometimes people get hurt. We will always do our best to use appropriate language, whilst not hiding the truth. Similarly, where we have to use more ‘grown-up’ terms, we try to include clear and unbiased definitions. And it is important, as well, to emphasise the positive aspects without brushing anything under the carpet. Encouraging children to air their thoughts and discuss things openly is also important, to avoid them chewing on things they don’t fully understand or experience emotions they find hard to cope with.
- As an organisation, we refuse to give in to hatred. It is our role to speak up for people who are being treated unfairly, but we are Christians: Jesus told us to love our enemies. Our aim is to present the facts about what is happening, while not stoking up any form of religious hatred or generalising about any other faiths or nationalities. So, we do our best to explain issues around persecution from other religious sources, without implying that everyone from that faith feels that way, or would act in that way. We are not anti-Islam, or anti-Communism, or anti-Hindu or anti-anything like that. We are pro-Jesus and pro-freedom of belief.
- None of our children’s resources require any fund-raising activities. Wonderfully, many children do get inspired and want to raise money. Sometimes, we include examples of what other children have done. But, again, we leave that up to you. (But let us know if they decided to raise money – we’d love to say ‘thank you’!)
- We try to make resources as accessible and also as safe as possible. We try to make all the instructions easy to understand and all the activities as safe as possible. So, for example, although we talk about secret church and secret Christians, we never ask children to keep secrets or suggest any activity that they have to do in secret. Again – we are relying on your judgement. If we get it wrong, let us know!
Thank you to everyone who uses our resources for Children and Families. We’re so grateful for your support of our persecuted church family and so humbled by knowing that literally thousands of children and families are praying for and supporting the victims of persecution around the world.
