Welcome! The ECCE is the European Conference on Christian Education. We are a group of pastors, ministers, educators, and other Christian professionals who work with children to educate them in Christian faith and morals.

Our mission is to help children develop a strong and lasting relationship with Jesus Christ, build a vibrant Christian community for the next generation, and protect our children from dangers within and without our community. We are guided in all things by the Gospels.

Please read below to learn more about our organization, our triennial conference, our projects and practice, our efforts to protect children, and more.

We are a loose collaborative of pastors, ministers, and educators involved in Christian education and Sunday School. We do not have formal membership, and most of our business is conducted at our tri-ennial conferences. The organization exists to connect participants for fellowship, curriculum-sharing, friendship, and more.

The ECCE is divided into the following five regions (mostly for the sake of making communication easier): United Kingdom and Ireland; Northern Europe; the Latin Countries; Middle Europe and Eastern Europe. While the main language of the Assembly, our governing body, is English, the Assembly also makes every effort to translate texts into French and German as well.

You can download our governing statutes at http://www.mmiweb.org.uk/ecce/downloads/statutes.doc

By the way, we’ve done a bit of junk removal around here. It’s made our space more comfortable for gatherings. We like having a place to prepare meals for groups and to clean up easily afterward.

The ECCE holds a conference every third year in a different European member country. At these conferences, we take care of our governing business, including appointing new representatives to the Assembly. We also offer a wide range of seminars, panels, colloquiums, informal meetings, and other events for attendees to share information, build relationships, and deepen their faith life.

Here are some past conference topics:

• Between Traditions? New Directions in Children’s Ministry
• Christian Identity in Europe
• Through the Eyes of a Child: Living and Learning in Faith
• Freed to Meet Others
• Christian Education in Pluralistic and Multifaith Europe
• Challenges for Christian Education in a Changing Europe
• Learning and Worshipping Together
• Biblical Tradition Meets the Child
• Living Peace Together
• Children as Active Partners in the Christian Community
• Christian Education in the World
• The Family Church

Each of these topics has been intended focus conversation on a current, topical question that affects Christian communities.

Our conferences are valuable experiences for everybody involved. It gives our presenters a chance to share their ideas and scholarship with a new community. Conference attendees learn about new ideas and take those ideas back to their home churches. Everybody gets to build new relationships, strengthen old ones, and leave feeling more connected to the Body of Christ.

Communities sometimes need good gathering spaces, and gathering spaces need heat during the winter. A drafty room or one without good heating will be uncomfortable. Sometimes, a quick repair can take care of that problem without much trouble at all. If yours has a fireplace in need of repair, get in touch with the Buffalo chimney repair pros.

Part of our mission focuses on improving materials and resources available for Christian educators and Sunday School teachers. We are working to develop curricula and other materials covering the following topics and more:

• Christian Education in the modern context
• Developing citizenship education to focus on incorporating Christian values in public life
• Furthering inter-cultural and inter-faith education to foster love and respect for all people
• Developing holistic education to help raise more well-rounded young people to lead our next generation
• Teaching religions in both a religious and secular context
• Teaching ethics and morals

We welcome contributions from educators of all backgrounds. If you have lesson materials, ideas, guidance, or other contributions, please contact us.

With all the youngsters trotting in and out of our space, we need a lot of floor cleaning. Little shoes track in a lot of dirt! A regular steam cleaning helps our carpets last longer. If you’re also in need of Buffalo carpet and rug cleaning, get in touch with Extreme Carpet and Tile Clean.

Over the last 15 to 20 years, the world has been rocked by repeated revelations of adults abusing their positions of power and trust to harm children, both within religious organizations and other contexts. We are committed to stamping out this scourge on our world. Children are some of the most precious and vulnerable among us, and Jesus Christ commanded us to care for the vulnerable.

As part of our commitment to this project, we are focused on the following strategies:

• Teaching healthy, safe boundaries. This can start as early as kindergarten with talking about bodily autonomy and respect for others. Children should know what is and is not appropriate contact between themselves and their friends, family, and other adults.
• Creating effective, efficient reporting mechanisms within religious communities. Each religious community should have a documented reporting procedure for allegations of abuse and multiple points of review and command. This will reduce the likelihood of problems being swept under the rug by a single administrator.
• Raising awareness of resources available to children and parents. Printed materials should be made available to parents at enrollment in any Christian education or Sunday School program, and informational meetings should be held throughout the school year. Parents should know who to talk to if a problem arises.
• Educating our communities about sexual abuse prevention. Each April is child abuse prevention month, and it is a perfect opportunity for communities to talk about this crucial issue, evaluate what they’re doing to protect their children, and develop new plans for continued improvement.

Working together and increasing transparency are essential to protecting our children and other vulnerable populations. Help us in our mission by connecting with ECCE leadership and learning more about how you can implement these important steps in your religious community.

We believe a solid foundation in Biblical values and Christian ethics is essential for forming the next generation of leaders. It is also the only way to ensure our young people are well formed and prepared for the challenges of the world that they will meet.

To do that, we focus on sharing the gospel with students, how to teach it effectively, and most importantly, why we teach it. We emphasis the message of overwhelming love given to us by Jesus Christ, and we teach students to share that love with others.

Whether education is taking place in the context of a student’s daily schoolwork or in special, religion-focused class sessions, we aim to help young people come to know the loving and living God, who is everywhere and always.

We invite you to join us in this crucial mission of forming young people for a life in Christ.