For us, children are not simply the future of the church. They already belong today.
We want to take children seriously in their own world, give them room to get to know Jesus for themselves and to experience church as something they truly belong to and can contribute to themselves.
We want to take children fully seriously in their own world – with their questions, their enthusiasm, their challenges and the very different needs that different ages and personalities bring.
In our early days we were mainly teenagers and young adults, many of us unmarried and in a similar season of life. We were a fairly uniform bunch.
When families form and children come along, this dynamic does not get worse. It becomes different.
And that is exactly part of a living church for us.
Children need different things from teenagers. Pre-teens need different things from small children. And adults need something different again.
That is why we want to create spaces that suit each season of life. At the same time, we do not want to divide church into separate worlds.
Again and again we deliberately celebrate services together with our children. We also encourage them to join prayer meetings and other moments of church life – even when these are not planned as a special children’s programme.
This is not just my parents’ church family. It is mine too.
During the week there is also a regular meeting for our children. Here there is room for fellowship, play, faith, creativity and for building relationships with one another.
It matters to us that children do not only know church from services, but also experience it in everyday life: as a place where they belong, find friends, ask questions and grow in faith together.
Every two weeks our pre-teens meet together. It is about friendship, faith, questions, discovering things together and getting to know Jesus more and more in their own lives – in a way that suits this special age between childhood and the teenage years.
A large part of our shared life happens quite unspectacularly in everyday life. Many of our families and children live close to one another, meet during the week, visit each other, play together and share part of their lives.
We do not only want to offer children special children’s events, but also include them in the spiritual life of the church.
That is why we keep encouraging our children to come along to our prayer meetings and to experience for themselves that prayer and talking with God are something quite natural in the life of a church.
Children from our church, from other Christian families and children with no Christian background at all spend a special day together full of creativity, games, fun and encounters – and experience in a natural, loving way how precious they are to Jesus.
The Schatzsucher Akademie (Treasure Seekers Academy) is our discipleship work with children.
It is about more than knowledge of the Bible. We want to help children get to know Jesus for themselves, trust him and discover what it means to live with him.
Sometimes the Schatzsucher Akademie takes place on single days, sometimes we spend a whole weekend together. And again and again an outreach together is part of it.
We pray together, discover the Bible, ask questions, have adventures, eat and play together and try out in very practical ways what it means to walk with Jesus.
Children can get to know God.
Take responsibility.
Serve others.
And live their faith themselves.
The Schatzsucher Akademie is meant to be a safe space for this – full of joy, relationship, challenge and real experiences.
A day together to discover, learn, play, pray and experience.
We will announce the date, time and venue soon. The programme is in German.
Feel free to get in touch →