Hi!

My name is Ellie and I love Jesus, teaching the Bible and seeing disciples grow in their relationship with and knowledge of God.

I have a son and daughter and baby on the way and it has been the parenting journey that has really made me consider deeply how we bring up the next generation in the knowledge and love of Christ. I trained as a medical doctor, I love sport, art and music and my husband and I serve in the leadership of Kingsgate Church, a Relational Mission, New Frontiers Church in Bury St Edmunds.

I grew up in a New Frontiers Church in Brighton and from the age of 13 to 18 years, I served with my family in the kids work. During these years, I learnt a lot from my parents, both of whom are school teachers and passionate about Jesus, about how God cares for children and it is the job of one generation to train up the next. It wasn't until a few years ago, however, that I turned my attention again to children and youth work when my husband and I took on the youth at our church. 

The last few years has been a journey of rediscovering the enormity of God's heart for babies, toddlers, children and young people and how precious a part of the body of Christ they are. 

Another big factor in the development of this project has been a prophetic word the Lord gave me over my son. Before I even conceived him, I felt the Lord say that it would be a boy and his name was to be Jacob, because he would wrestle with God and man and overcome. I felt (and hoped!) that the wrestling would be wrestling in prayer. I did not consider myself to be an expert pray-er (though I realise now, that this was largely because of a misconception I had about prayer) and I prayed earnestly for 2 years that God would teach me to pray, so that I could teach my son to pray.

God graciously answered that prayer and when my son was four years old, we began praying in a very simple, systematic way, that helped him bring all of his emotions and situations before God. I noticed that whenever we went through our systematic way of praying, he would go from angry or sad to full of joy and peace again. It was like the Holy Spirit responded to these simple words to wash clean his young heart and remind him again of how much God loves him. I realised that God had shown me something very beautiful that could bless other children, families and adults too and so this is how the prayer cards idea developed.  

The desire to write Bible teaching material grew for two main reasons as we emerged out of lockdown and were looking to relaunch our gathered children's ministry. Firstly, we had tried various materials in the past and I personally was always dissatisfied with the content. It is not that there are not other great resources out there, but my particular passion is that children start grasp the storyline of scripture within its context and get past the superficial understanding of Bible stories, into a richer appreciation of what God is showing us about Himself through these narratives. The BibleProject has been a big influence on me and I love tracing themes and watching them develop through scripture. I want to help children grasp the character of God, how the Bible fits together as a whole and how it points all the time to Jesus.

The second reason was that, as we considered our youth and the sorts of arguments and objections that get thrown at them in school, my husband and I realised that these can unsettle children's faith, if they do not already have a good grounding of core doctrine and how to handle scripture, especially some of the trickier parts. So the teaching material I am writing contains perhaps deeper theology than a lot of other Sunday school material, but it is presented in ways that the children will be able to understand and enjoy. In the words of Albert Einstein "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."

Being able to pray and read and understand scripture will set children up for life, but there is another core part of the faith that I believe is also foundational. They need to develop for themselves a personal relationship with Jesus and experience the power and love of the Holy Spirit.

God saves us by His Spirit and He empowers us by His Spirit to be His witnesses. It is the internal witness of the Spirit that gives us that whole-hearted, unshakable assurance that we are children of God and it is the Spirit of God who helps us to understand scripture and become more like Jesus each day.

In each of the teaching series, where the work of the Spirit is mentioned in the scriptures, I have written prophetic, worship or prayer activities that will help you as a group learn to invite the Holy Spirit to minister among you. I have also made prophetic challenge cards for youth groups to practice the gifts together.

I am praying that the next generation will be a Spirit-empowered generation who are grounded in the scriptures, pray with power, witness with boldness, worship with whole-hearted abandon and will see their generation bowing at the feet of Jesus and this society transformed by the love and grace of the gospel.

I pray that these resources will help you and your churches towards that goal.

Blessings in Christ,

Ellie