Culver Palms

Children’s Ministry Mission Statement
Children: The Gospel Embraced

We are committed to excellence in ministering to our children and youth, where faith formation and development is the highest priority, where the gospel is embraced, where the love of God and the life of Jesus are intentionally taught, where hope is provided, where questions are valued, where children are lavishly loved, welcomed, included and encouraged, where adults joyfully provide love, mentoring and instruction, so that our children join with us in serving God and become faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

Classes
We offer a weekly schedule of stimulating Bible classes for kids of all ages, with application of principles to daily living. Classes feature training in such Christian virtues as honesty, kindness and fair play taught through creative teaching methods, utilizing crafts, visuals, music, movement and hands-on application.

Children’s Worship
Our program of worship experiences is planned especially for children. We have age appropriate worship services for both preschool and elementary ages.

Cradle Roll and Nursery
Our nursery provides quality care for children up to 12 months of age. Attention is given to create a loving environment that enhances stimulation and participation of the children. Cradle Roll class occurs during the Bible class hour and the nursery is available during the worship hour. We have available a private nursing mom’s room especially designed with mom and baby in mind. The room is comfortably equipped with glider rockers, foot rests, cribs, changing table and closed circuit television so that the mom’s can view the worship service and listen with earpieces so as not to disturb the little ones. This room also has an adjoining restroom for convenience. Parents are provided with pagers so that nursery attendants may contact them if necessary.

Service Projects and Holiday Parties
Elementary children participate in parties and service projects, such as preparing Thanksgiving baskets for people who need encouragement. There are also holiday parties for all ages.

Summer Camp
Children grades 4-8 may attend a weeklong summer church camp in Idyllwild. This camp is sponsored by the Long Beach Church of Christ and is built around a yearly theme and features sports, drama and Bible study.

Today as we have traditionally done many times before, we join together as a community of believers to dedicate the children born over the past year to the Lord. The parents and everyone present vow to guide and teach their children the ways of the Lord. There are so many things to consider in the life of a young child.

Hopefully, on each parent'svery important list of "to do's" is an introduction of their child to God with deliberate opportunities that lead to the development of faith

formation, a desire to walk according to the Word and live Spirit-filled

Teaching a young child about God begins from the cradle. Proverbs 24:6

says, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will

not depart from it." This involves a devotion to deliberately spend designated amounts of time with our children. It is never too early to introduce a child to God.

Stories of God can be taught right alongside words, shapes, letters and

This past Sunday I worshipped at the Chula Visa Church of Christ where Matt Raines, minister shared that according to research, the number one reason children stay in the faith is that their parents modeled lives of commitment to God before them. Matt shared that ways parents can model lives of commitment to God include:

1. Demonstrating personal reading time and study of God’s word.

2. Family time that includes devotion and worship. The Hebrew writer encourages us to come together to provoke one another to love and good works. (Heb. 10:24)

3. Truly committing ourselves and our familes to God. The greater our commitment to God, the greater our relationship with him will be. Joshua 24:15 demonstrates that serving God is a choice we make.

Our Culver family provides weekly opportunities for our children to commune

with one another in an environment that fosters a love for God, the

progressive development of an understanding of who God is and how he works

and moves in their lives based on songs and stories from God's word. All of

this occurs in a lively, engaging, interactive and safe environment

surrounded by individuals who love the Lord and want nothing more than to

see our children grow up and become servants of God who are living

testimonies to others by the Spirit filled lives that they live.

Our Sundays at Culver include three opportunities for children to

Children's Worship Hour for both pre-school and elementary children.

There are many other opportunities for service and fellowship among our

children as well as opportunities for believing adults to come alongside a

Dating back to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 6: 4-7, we find that

God gave explicit directions that we follow his commands, serve him, and

impress the same upon our children by the examples that we set before them.

These are all ways that we can join together as a community of believers at Culver Palms to actively participate in the giving of our children to the Lord.