“Jesus listens to people and heals them if you ask him,” observed Tommy,* an eight-year-old with no church background. Tommy has been learning about Jesus through reading stories from the New Testament with other kids. Today’s story was on the 10 lepers who were healed. “Jesus says, ‘What do you want me to do for you.’ And I’ve got a headache,” he admitted.
“I’ve got a toothache,” another eight-year-old chimed in.
“I have bad dreams.”
“OK, let’s all ask Jesus to heal each one,” Tommy said.
The kids looked around. There were ten kids, aged 8–11 crammed into the small Glasgow, UK, living room, as well as one adult whose main role was to point kids back to the story and keep them from swinging on the light fixtures. “OK, Jesus, we pray for this bad tooth to be healed in Jesus’s name. Amen.” One at a time, the kids prayed for each other to be healed.
No one had taught them to do this. But there were so many stories of Jesus healing people that they’d started asking, “Can we do it? Can we ask Jesus to heal?” And prayer for one another has been the result.
This is a unique expression of church for kids and by kids. This is “Pizzachurch.”
Pizzachurch emerged somewhat organically. Adam and Charlotte, who lead a Microchurch** in Glasgow, realized they didn’t want to just sideline their kids (“you go color in the corner while we talk about the important stuff”). They wanted their two kids, aged 6 and 8, to have an important place in church life and to learn to follow Jesus in ways that empower them. So they asked their kids what they wanted church to look like for them. “We’d like to have pizza,” they said. “We’d like to learn about Jesus. And we want to be able to invite our friends.” Pizzachurch was born.
From the very beginning, this was an expression of church led by the children. Adam and Charlotte’s kids would think about who they wanted to invite, they’d pray for them at bedtime, and then would ask them at school: “We get together and we eat pizza and we talk about Jesus. Do you want to come?” And the kids always said yes.
Charlotte would then text the parents to see if the kids could come. It was all very straightforward. “Hello, Tommy’s mum… Adam and I lead a group of kids from school. We get them together on a Friday night. We order pizza. And then we talk about a story in the Bible about Jesus. Would Tommy like to come?” And the parents always said yes, none of whom are church-goers.
This was a testimony to the relational equity Adam and Charlotte had been building up over the years with local families, equity grown at play groups, sports clubs, or chatting at the school gate. “We just shared life with people,” they said. “We made friends, made ourselves and our home and our kids open and available to people.” In addition to engaging culture in this way, they were consistently doing activating prayer. “We've prayed for these families for six years faithfully. All of that has fed into these kids and their parents saying yes to wanting to come into our home and learn about Jesus.” (Take a walk through Adam and Charlotte’s neighborhood and hear a little more about how they’ve been praying for their city here.)
Soon there were about 20 kids coming to Adam and Charlotte’s flat every other Friday evening to eat pizza and learn about Jesus. They would come together and eat, share life, just chat and have fun. They would share their highs and lows from the week. And then they would split up into two groups—younger and older kids—for Discovery Bible Study.
One of the things that’s really set Pizzachurch apart from your average Vacation Bible School or Children’s Church is that the kids are in charge of the learning process. That’s because one of the basic principles of Discovery Bible Study is letting the Holy Spirit guide the participants in discovering truth—even if the participants are kids. It’s been a counter-cultural experience for the kids to have freedom to lead their own discovery process. “The biggest learning is for the adults to get out of the way and not be the expert in the room,” Adam said. “You know when you’re off task with the kids when they’re all looking at you, instead of talking to one another.”
It’s been a real joy for Adam and Charlotte to see kids emerging as leaders in the groups. Charlotte shared, “One of the kids was like, ‘Oh, let’s do a break-the-ice game. I’ve got this toy. Can we pass it around and we’ll say something about our week?’ Giving kids opportunity to do stuff like that and not being like, ‘No, we (adults) are the ones in the know. You sit down and you listen to us.’ But saying, ‘Yeah, you can fly with this. Go ahead!’ has been really important.”
After reading the story, the next step in Discovery Bible Study is retelling it. The older kids decided they wanted to retell the Bible story by acting it out. Every week there was a big discussion over who would play which parts, and they would end up acting the story out 10 times so every kid had the chance to be Jesus. By then they’d know the story forwards and backwards.
Creative story-retelling isn’t just for the older kids. When the 5–6-year-olds learned the story of the paralyzed man being let down through the roof by his friends, they decided to use an Iron Man toy to act it out. One of the children who happened to be obsessed with superheroes told his parents in great excitement all about it. The next time his parents saw Adam at the school gate, they asked, “Did Jesus heal Iron Man?”
One of the outcomes Adam and Charlotte have seen from Pizzachurch is that the parents are noticing a change in their children: “Kids who were getting bullied at school, or anxious, or whatever, are shifting and are more peaceful because they’re encountering Jesus. We’ve had some really significant encounters at the school gates with some of the parents.” Places where their kids had been struggling for years had suddenly seen breakthroughs. Adam and Charlotte shared, “We had a Christmas party, and we put on a movie for the kids. And then we sat the parents down and we just told them why we do Pizzachurch. Charlotte told her testimony about Jesus and why she follows him. And all the parents there voiced a desire to learn what their kids are learning. They’re seeing such an impact that they want to read the same stories.” So Adam and Charlotte are about to put together a group for the Pizzachurch parents to do a Discovery Bible Study as well.
“We're not doing this to reach the parents of the kids,” Adam maintained. “The parents are a fruit of the kids. The kids are really important and the main focus.”
Several sets of believing parents have asked about sending their own kids to Pizzachurch. “That’s great,” Adam and Charlotte told them. “But why don’t you start one yourself?” Adam and Charlotte expect to have five different Pizzachurches going across the city by this summer, and they’re helping to mentor and train the adults who will facilitate the space for the kids.
It’s really important to Adam and Charlotte that their kids understand the why behind Pizzachurch. “They know this isn’t just a fun thing,” said Adam. “It is fun—and it should be fun. And it’s not just about pizza. It’s actually about being on mission with Jesus, working with him.” Adam and Charlotte tell their kids, “You carry hope and love and light into the world that your friends really need. You get to learn about Jesus and your friends get to learn. And that’s why we’re doing this.” Kids are learning what it means to follow Jesus, and their lives are being transformed as a result.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
If you’d like to learn more about how to facilitate Discovery Bible Study with kids, there are some great resources out there! Kids Around the World, an organization Novo partners with, has put together a guide and a bookmark on how to lead a Discovery Bible Study with kids effectively, and you can also watch this training recording on how to do it here.
*Name changed
**Microchurches often use homes, but some minister on streets, in local community halls, in schools, etc. A Microchurch is a full expression of church according to the biblical mandate of the ecclessial minimum of what makes a church: community (spiritual family), worship, and mission, as modeled again and again throughout the book of Acts. Microchurches are uniquely potent for the Kingdom, embedded in culture, are formed around smaller numbers of believers living as spiritual family (Oikos), and are able to multiply more easily than traditional church forms.
ABOUT THIS STORY
Adam and Charlotte Penketh lead The Gathering Network—a decentralized network of Microchurches across Glasgow, Scotland, UK. The Gathering was birthed by a faithful group of believers called out of traditional church six years ago, and is now in a season of fruitfulness, growth and multiplication reaching beyond Glasgow—with new teams being formed in several different areas of Scotland and the UK, as well as influencing new Kingdom initiatives in Australia, Sweden, and elsewhere. As a part of the Novo Gospel Movements Division, Adam and Charlotte lead a core team of 15 anointed leaders, who all have normal jobs and carry the fire and love of Jesus out to the people of Glasgow. Adam and Charlotte live in the north of Glasgow with their two kids Arielle (8) and Asher (6), as well as a 2-year-old Golden Retriever called Blu!
Now, Pizza Church is only part of what the team in Glasgow does–in fact, there is a cool new project in the works. They are opening up a shop-front in the north of the city which will be easily accessible and used for all kinds of ministry opportunities. Learn more about the project and give here.