FFS 308: EVENTS: Bridge 45 Panel

Today on the podcast, Sean speaks with Louie from Morningstar Community Church in Oregon about a Q&A Panel he does in his ministry. Once a quarter Louie brings in pastors and leaders from the church to answer serious and silly questions from the 4th and 5th graders. This allows leaders in the church to see how deep the 4th and 5th graders are thinking. It also allowed the preteens to see different leaders and levels of pastors and leadership coming in to invest in them. Louie has done this for the last couple of years once a quarter and the event is always themed. One of the events was pastors, and he brought in pastors like the Senior pastor, youth, worship, college, pastors from all areas of the church. Another event was living out their faith in school and Louie brought in teachers from the church. Two Sundays before the panel Sunday he will have the preteens write down their questions so that he has them ready for the panel, also allowing him to weed through the questions. Most of the time Louie has just sprung the questions on the panel the day of, but this most recent event he sent the questions to them ahead of time because they were deeper, and he wanted scriptural backing for the answers. Louie is the moderator of the questions and he also reminds the students that they brought the panel in to answer the question, so the students don’t attempt to answer. Having this type of event allows the pastors and leaders to become more real to the preteens and it opens the eyes of the pastors and leaders to who the preteens actually are. Here are some of the questions Louie’s preteens asked during the last Panel: Did Jesus have a choice to love us? How long did Adam and Eve live? How do I know other people believe in Jesus? How does God know us all? Why is the cross shaped like that? How do you know if someone is growing in God? When did you accept Jesus? Is it possible to come back alive? How did Jesus come back alive? Will I pick my age in heaven? What's heaven like? Is it true that heaven has golden streets? How do we stay connected to Jesus? Have a question about preteen ministry or a unique preteen ministry idea that we can feature on our podcast?  Send it to [email protected]. Looking for a great community of preteen leaders that you can plug into? Join us at http://fourfivesix.org/.