Growing up in a Jesus-Centered Community: The “Why” Behind Potluck, Prayer & Play Sundays
Growing Up in a Jesus-Centered Community
The vision behind Potluck, Prayer, and Play at North City
We want our children to grow up surrounded by a Jesus-centered community that helps them know Jesus, practice following him, and discover their place in the life and mission of the church.
At North City, we invest in the faith formation of our children throughout the life of our church. Every Sunday, and most Wednesdays, we create intentional spaces for children to learn the story of Scripture, encounter Jesus, practice faith, build friendships, ask questions, and be formed alongside others their age.
Those spaces matter deeply, and they will continue to be an important part of how we disciple our children.
But there are some things that are especially difficult to cultivate in an age-specific classroom or program.
A child needs opportunities not only to learn about following Jesus, but to experience themselves as a meaningful part of a community centered on him. They need relationships with adults beyond their parents and children's ministry leaders. They need to be known across generations. They need opportunities to contribute, take responsibility, discover gifts, and eventually lead.
That's where our first-Sunday rhythm offers something different.
Potluck, Prayer, and Play is for our whole church—babies, children, teenagers, parents, young adults, empty nesters, and everyone in between. It is intentionally intergenerational because we believe there are dimensions of discipleship that can only develop when we actually share life together.
Within that all-ages community, however, we are paying particular attention to our children roughly ages 5–15.
These are significant years of formation. Children are gaining independence, asking increasingly complex questions, developing their sense of identity and belonging, forming relationships beyond their immediate families, and becoming capable of meaningful participation and leadership.
So as we experiment with this first-Sunday rhythm, we want to keep asking:
How can we increasingly bring our young people into the center of the life of our community—not simply as people we are forming, but as people God has already gifted and through whom God can form us?
That means First Sunday isn't a break from children's discipleship. It's another dimension of it.
During our regular Sunday and Wednesday rhythms, we can emphasize biblical content, age-appropriate formation, spiritual practices, and relationships with peers and trusted leaders.
On First Sundays, we can turn up the dial on belonging, intergenerational relationships, participation, and leadership.
A five-year-old can help set the table.
An eight-year-old can pray alongside an adult.
A ten-year-old can help welcome people as they arrive.
A twelve-year-old can lead a game for younger children.
A fifteen-year-old can help plan part of the gathering and begin taking meaningful responsibility for the experience of others.
And all of them can eat with adults who know their names, play with people outside their age group, hear the prayers and stories of older Christians, contribute their own voices, and gradually discover: I am not just a kid who goes to this church. I am part of this church.
That distinction matters.
Our goal is not simply for children to accumulate Christian information before adulthood. We want them to experience following Jesus as a shared way of life—to know him, practice his way, and grow up embedded in a community of people doing the same.
A steady circle of faith
No single program can create that.
It happens through hundreds of ordinary experiences over many years: lessons and conversations, meals around a table, prayers offered together, questions taken seriously, games played, opportunities to serve, mistakes met with grace, gifts noticed, and increasing responsibility given.
Parents have a unique and irreplaceable role in that formation. Our children's ministry leaders matter. Their peers matter. And we believe the wider church community matters too.
Our vision is for every young person at North City to grow up with a steady circle of people who know them, love them, pray with them, invite their participation, and help them learn the way of Jesus.
That is the larger vision.
Sunday children's ministry serves it.
Wednesday programming serves it.
Our families serve it.
And Potluck, Prayer, and Play gives us a particular opportunity to practice the intergenerational relationships, belonging, participation, and leadership that are harder to create anywhere else.
Why Potluck, Prayer, and Play?
The simplicity is intentional.
Potluck creates a table.
We practice hospitality, share food, hear one another's stories, and become familiar with one another. A child gets to sit across from someone who isn't their teacher or parent and simply become known. Relationships need repeated, unhurried proximity. The table gives us somewhere for that to happen.
Prayer turns us toward God together.
Children hear adults pray honestly. Adults hear what children care about. Young people discover that they don't merely observe the spiritual life of the church—their gratitude, fears, questions, and voices belong within it.
Play gives us shared joy.
Play allows relationships to form across ages in a way structured conversation often cannot. When an adult joins a game, learns what a child enjoys, laughs with them, and gives them their attention, we communicate something simple but important: I'm glad you're here. I enjoy being with you.
And woven through all three is an increasing invitation to participate and lead.
We don't want to wait until someone turns eighteen to tell them they have something to offer the church.
As children grow, we want the opportunities we entrust to them to grow too. We can notice their gifts, invite their ideas, give them real responsibility, allow them to try things, coach them when something doesn't work, and celebrate the ways God is already at work through them.
This isn't leadership development added onto children's ministry.
It's discipleship.
An experiment worth learning from
We call Potluck, Prayer, and Play an experiment because the form can change while the vision remains.
We're experimenting with a first-Sunday rhythm and asking what happens when we intentionally create more room for shared tables, shared prayer, shared joy, intergenerational relationships, and meaningful participation.
And particularly for our 5–15-year-olds, we're asking:
Do they increasingly experience North City as their community?
Can they name adults beyond their parents who know them and care about them?
Are meaningful relationships developing across generations?
Are they becoming more comfortable praying, wondering, questioning, serving, and talking about faith?
Are we noticing their gifts and creating meaningful opportunities to use them?
As they mature, are we giving them increasing ownership and responsibility?
Are the relationships formed on First Sundays carrying into the rest of the life of the church?
Do parents experience North City as a community helping them nurture their children's faith?
We will listen, observe, ask our children and parents what they're experiencing, and continue adjusting the rhythm as we learn.
Because ultimately, Potluck, Prayer, and Play isn't the vision.
The vision is a child growing up in a Jesus-centered community.
A child who learns Scripture and learns people's names.
Who receives from the church and contributes to it.
Who is prayed for and learns to pray for others.
Who is taught and eventually teaches.
Who is led and gradually learns to lead.
Who has adults beyond their parents who know them, delight in them, challenge them, and keep showing up.
Who grows up knowing:
I belong here.
These people know me and love me.
My questions matter.
God has given me gifts.
I have something to contribute.
I can follow Jesus with these people.
That's what we're trying to cultivate—not just on First Sundays, but throughout the life of North City. First Sunday simply gives us a unique place to practice it together.
- Pastor JD