Tony Cummings quizzed Steve Squires, Jo Squires and Damian Herbert about children's work BIG MINISTRIES

Jo and Steve Squires

The release by Elevation Records of the 'God's Love Is Unstoppable' album by BIG Ministries puts into the CD racks one of the most significant and fastest growing children's ministries to have emerged for years. One of BIG Ministries directors, Jo Squires, spoke about the vision behind their work. "Our primary focus and passion is offering churches across the country high quality events that are full of energy and are God-focussed, relevant, challenging and fun! Some of these events are for children (aged five to 11), some are for families, others are Sunday morning all-age services. We also offer training in a wide range of children's and all-age ministry areas. At events we use songs, Bible stories, puppets, games, challenges/talks in interactive and creative ways with lots of fun to facilitate children's worship of God in ways that make sense to them, and the world they live in."

Jo spoke about the origins of the Birmingham-based ministry. "During my degree at London School of Theology I spent some time focussing on how we can help kids to connect with God at church and in their everyday lives. In 2003, as part of my first job as a children's worker in Solihull, we put on an event for 350 kids and it was here that I had one of those 'moments' where you feel like 'this is what I want to do with my life'. Over the next few years BIG Ministries grew from the spare room in our house where my husband, Steve, and I developed a charity (c 2006) that had vision for running events which helped kids to connect with God in ways which make sense to them and providing resources that helped churches to do the same."

Co-director and singer Steve Squires has been rather taken aback how BIG Ministries has taken off. "I'm not sure we expected it to grow as quickly as it has. As with most things that grow, it takes clear vision and a lot of work but more importantly it's providing something which seems to tick the right boxes. We've also been keen to try and do something 'different' and we feel so fortunate to have people who have captured this vision and have got excited enough by it to enable us to move from our spare room into office premises. This generosity and belief is certainly something that sticks in my mind. People are key!"

Music is a key element in BIG Ministries' work. A four-track EP was released independently in 2005 (in fact, two of the songs on that release have made it onto the 'God's Love Is Unstoppable' album). BIG's music man Damian Herbert spoke about the recording sessions. "We've been writing songs since the beginning and we always hoped that God would use these songs to reach way more kids than we ever could. The experience of recording these songs is unforgettable. Our time at ICC Studios was such a blast; it is such a uniquely creative place and it was great to meet and work with so many people. God blessed us with a brilliant team of musicians and singers who were passionate about God, music and deli sandwiches. We were so privileged to have Mark Edwards leading the project. From our very first meeting in pre-production, Mark really 'got' what we were wanting the album to be and we were blown away by how he got the songs sounding. He also seemed to get that we needed to be amused and so Mark, Steve and I had a lot of laughs; he even scheduled that in for us. By way of a summary, here are a few words that are significant for the recording sessions. . . 'Jesus, commitment, energy, laughter, Domino's pizza, blinking lights, leather couch, hiding and surprising, passion, beef sandwiches, pop, seaside and. . . songs'. We hope that when people listen to the album they'll be able to hear something of the fun, energy and passion that so many people have put into it."

(photo: Hayden West)

Surprise guests on the album are Tom & Olly. Damian explained, "Mark knew the boys and, after hearing our songs, he thought that they would be perfect for adding a different dimension to what we already had. He was right, very right. Tom & Olly really understood what we wanted to achieve and injected their own very special brand of fun into the album."

Damian selected a couple of highlights from the album. "'Unstoppable' is based on the big list of things that can't stop God's love, found in Romans 8:38-39. Jesus' death shows the extent of God's love for each of us, his resurrection shows us that not even death can stop this love. The song helps kids to understand that there is absolutely nothing that can separate them from the love of Jesus; this is an incredible assurance in an ever-changing, crazy world. Also, the song rocks! 'Thank You For Listening' is another song we really hope that kids get to hear. We speak and Jesus hears us; it's something that seems so normal. The song tries to recover some of the awe and wonder of that truth. Steve had a poignant moment in the studio singing, 'It's a total mystery that I speak and you hear me/You respond amazingly with what I really need.' And was excited at the thought of kids listening and realising this incredible truth for the first time."

A lot of the singing on the album was done by Steve Squires. He commented, "As a singer I love coming up with melodies but really need others to help shape some of the songs. I don't think we always set out to write 'children's songs' per se but rather to write stuff which explains complex subjects in simple ways. I think children are very capable of picking up complex music that is fun to sing and thematically accessible. I enjoy the creative process of songwriting and also write stuff outside the realm of children's songs. At the moment I'm particularly interested in Folk'tronica. . ."

Jo spoke about BIG Ministries' influences and helpmates. "Doug Horley has been a great support and influence for us in our ministry. He is a very gifted songwriter and children's worker, and it's been an honour to work alongside him on a number of occasions. He and his wife Belinda have been so encouraging and supportive right from the beginning, it's been super! Doug's inspired us to push for excellence and relevance, particularly in our music. Ishmael also has a lot to answer for (in a good way!) particularly paving the way for 'itinerant', 'event-style' children's ministry."

(photo: Hayden West)

Steve was keen to emphasise how local churches can develop their own BIG Ministries variant. "We love the events side of things but part of what we try to model is that anyone can do this stuff and you don't have to be some wild and crazy children's worker to have something to say to kids. We're only really just starting to write resources but we have loads of plans. We're keen to produce something that's fresh and not just re-invent the wheel. We write stuff in response to what we see in churches. We meet some people who feel very alone in their churches and so as part of our 10 BIG Bible Stories series we produced Bible stories which are 'all-singing-all-dancing' but also versions which could be done by one person in their church. There's a lot of good stuff out there so for us it's about producing something that 'scratches an itch'."