Don't be afraid of repetition. At
times the kids may not always like it, but there are many things the kids
don't like that are good for them.
The younger age kids love repetition.
They love to know that they know something. The older kids also like
to know that they know things, they are just bored more quickly with them.
Be creative. I often take a Bible story and just rewrite it as a
modern day skit or puppet skit. It allows me in a sense, to tell
the same story twice, and if you are creative enough, the kids don't even
realize it.
Reviewing is also a great way of repetition.
My kids know that at the end of the service, right before my little sermon,
I will pull out the candy and begin to quickly ask questions about the
Bible story, memory verse, skit and puppet skit we have done for the day.
I ask a question, and then give a small piece of candy to one of the kids
who answers it correctly. This not only reinforces what we have done,
but it also sets up the sermon that I give to the kids. Then to top
it all off, if we have time, we play a game and go over the things we have
learned again.
Peter says in II Peter 1:12-15 that he
continually put the people in remembrance of God's truths even though they
already knew them and were established in those truths, so that when he
would go on to be with the Lord, the people would have those truths firmly
and deeply rooted in their minds. In the same way, we in the Children's
Ministry need to continually put our kids in remembrance of Jesus and His
truths, even though they think they know it all and are established in
those truths, so that when they leave our Children's Church or Sunday School,
they will always have these truths firmly and deeply rooted in them, and
be able to stand strong in the faith of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Many people view games as simply nothing
more than a means by which we pass time or baby-sit the kids. But
games can become one of the more important parts of a Children's Church
or Sunday School class. They give you a chance to REVIEW all that
you have just taught in a fun and attentive way.
On our Games Page, we have a list of games
that we have found work well in a classroom setting. Some of the
games listed are simply carnival games found at the Fair. We make
two lines on the floor with tape, then calling one of the children up front,
we have them stand at the back line, and ask them a review question.
If the child answers the question correctly, they get to move to the closer
line and play the game. If the child answers the question incorrectly,
don't have them sit down, but tell them and the class the correct answer
and let them play from the far line. In this way, you can review
with them, telling them once again about the lesson.
If you find the kids not paying attention
to the game when they are not playing, simply add this rule:
If the person gets the answer incorrect, you will not give the answer or
ask the question again. Only someone who was listening and heard the question
the first time will get to come up and play the next turn. Make the
game exciting, like a TV Game Show, with lights and bells and costumes,
but remember that it is serious ... the kids
just don't have to know it.
I have experienced some of the best times
of worship in Children's Church, there is just something very special about
Children worshipping God. Many people I run into tell me that children
are just mimicking, that they really don't understand what they are doing,
and therefore don't truly worship God. I just know that when the
Saducees complained about the children worshipping him, Jesus said, "out
of the mouths of babes comes perfected praise" and that describes it exactly.
I love to start with fast fun songs, I
like to get the kids to move around. This accomplishes two things.
First, I think it is scriptural to worship God not only with song, but
with dance. Secondly, it gives the kids a chance to get all the antsyness
out of them. I also love to do songs where the kids have a chance
to yell. I know there are
some who won't approve, but I have found
that if you are embarrassed to shout the name of Jesus in church, you will
probably be too embarrassed to whisper the name of Jesus outside of church.
But if the kids are used to loudly proclaiming the gospel, and the name
of Jesus in church, it becomes a little easier to proclaim the gospel and
the name of Jesus outside of church.
After the fun songs, I then go into worship.
I have personally found that if I give the kids the chance to have
fun in worship, they are more apt and willing to enter into the more personal
and intimate worship later. These are the worship times I really
love. Kids are kids, but kids are also beings created by God for
worship, and if given the opportunity, they will surprise you.
One of the biggest mistakes in children's
ministry is to sermonize everything. We do a skit, then sermonize
it. We tell a story, then sermonize it. We have a puppet skit,
then sermonize it!!! By the end of the day, the kids are sermonized
out. The best thing to do is to move directly from one skit to another
without sermonizing, then bring it together for your sermon at the end.
Tell your kids you love them. If
they learn nothing else from your Children's Church or Sunday School, the
most important thing they can learn is that you love them and God loves
them. You represent God, which means if you love them, God must love
them too.
One of the best secrets of Children's Church
is the start late. This accomplishes two important tasks. First it gives
the kids a chance to talk with each other (one of the purposes for going
to church is fellowship. Hebrew 10:25) and second, it gives you a
chance to spend some personal time, and get to know your kids.
An option you may
consider, which is an effective way I have found to do the altar call is
to first ask the kids who are already saved, and have accepted Jesus to
be their personal Savior to raise their hands. When the unsaved kids
see how many others have accepted Jesus, they are less afraid to do it
themselves. Have them put their hands down, then ask for the kids
who would now like to ask Jesus into their hearts to raise their hands
and to come forward.
A fun way to introduce each skit or puppet
skit is with a theme Song. You can purchase c.d.'s with different
songs to play at the beginning and end of each segment, kind of like a
TV sitcom. You won't have to tell the kids what is next or when it
is over, they will here the song and know. This also makes your service
much more fluid, filling up the small empty spaces that usually occur during
the service in between segments.
Know your kids’ names. 3 John 14
says, "Greet the friends by name." One way of doing this if you have a
large group of kids is to take their pictures, and during the week memorize
who they are. When you remember someone's name you are saying that you
remember them, and that they are important to you.
Take two seconds and say something to all
of your kids individually, even if it is just, "Hello". Have everything
ready before the kids get there so they have your full attention, and after
the service when the adults are talking to each other, you talk to your
kids. You will find that the next week, they will be a little more
attentive to you, because they will know you really care about them.
One effective way of crowd control is the
quiet seat prize, but we have a different way of doing it. We have
every child write down their name on a piece of paper, then at the end
of the service we pick names out of a hat to come up and play a game.
If the child behaved, they get to play, if not, we pick another name.
In this way we are not accused of favorites.
Rewards are an important part of Christianity,
and should be of your children's church. The Bible often speaks of
God's rewards for us, not only down here on earth, but up in heaven.
I like to reward the kids for what good things they do. It gives
the kids a reason to be good and to learn, and it lets them know you care
about them enough to go out of your way to do something special for them.
**Many people worry this will cause the
children to do things just for the reward. If you see this happening,
simply take the rewards away for a couple of weeks, then start over again.
I call this the Adam, Moses, Jesus rule. God gave Adam a lot of freedoms,
but when Adam blew it, God came down hard with the law (Moses). Then
came the forgiving grace of Jesus, putting us back into fellowship with
God.
One thing all kids love is mail.
Most kids don't get much mail, so when they do it makes them feel special.
One of the best tools to show the kids how much you care about them is
to send something in the mail.
Birthday cards are a great way to tell
and show the kids you love them. We like to send a "Birthday Coupon"
with the birthday card. The kids bring the coupon back to church for their
birthday candy bar. It shows our kids that we care about them, and
it is a great evangelistic tool for visitors. I have had kids come back
with their birthday coupons three months later to get their candy bar,
begging their parents the entire three months to go
back to church to get it.
This is also good to do for Christmas.
We send out a "Christmas Coupon" that can be redeemed the next time they
are in church.
I am sure I will get some disagreement
on this one, but Let your kids be kids. One thing I have heard a
lot of in children's ministry is that we are preparing the kids for adult
service. Truth be told, I am not, I am preparing the kids for God.
I personally think God likes kids to be kids (his son was once a kid).
And when the Pharisees complained about how the kids worshipped, Jesus
said it was perfected praise. Kids are kids. Kids do not have
long attention spans. Kids fellowship by playing, (*Zechariah 8:5).
Kids love to laugh. Kids love to have fun. So many times we
as adults lose the joy and fun of worshipping and dancing and playing and
yes even yelling, which last I read was biblical (see the story of Jericho).
It is OK for the kids to play, just remind them that
there are certain ways of playing we cannot
do inside. I treat the church like my own home. My kids are
allowed to play in the living room, but they are not allowed to throw a
ball in the living room. Same goes with church. Choose certain playful
activities that the kids are allowed to do in church, and let them do it.
Let all things be done decently and in order, and let the kids be kids.
*Zechariah 8:5 "And the streets of the
city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof."
I had just started at a new church, and
one of the parents asked their six year old what they thought of me.
Her answer was, "I like him. He gets down on his knees and he talks
to me face to face."
Standing is a sign of authority.
Kneeling is a sign of humility. There are certainly times we need
to stand and talk to the kids, there are also times we need to, "get down
on their level." Jesus is the perfect example, he who is God came
down on our level and became a man. And when ministering to the kids,
the Bible tells us that he took them in his arms, which means he either
sat down to their level and held them, or he picked them up to his level.
You will be amazed at the effect of something
small like this has on the attitudes of your kids.
Something I like to do is have Bible cards.
I give the kids a card each week with five chapters in the Bible. When
they read each chapter, they have their parents sign the card, and I have
a reward for them the following Sunday (usually a pack of sugarless gum).
I like to decorate the Children's Church
to the point of gaudy, but have a little nativity set off in the corner
(I make the nativity set out of dolls and teddy bears and old puppets).
I then tell the kids that Jesus wasn't born in the bright gaudy lights
of the city, but in the quietness of a stable. Jesus still isn't found
in the bright gaudy lights of Christmas, but in the quietness of our hearts.
Don't just preach at the kids and bore
them. I don't ever read in the Bible where Jesus bored the multitudes,
He preached to them and made it interesting for them. The scriptures
tell us that Jesus often preached using parables, cute little stories that
explained an important lesson that he was trying to get across. When
we teach the kids using puppets, skits and stories, we are using the same
methods of preaching Jesus used. Puppets, skits and stories are "modern
day parables" that make it interesting and more understanding for the kids.
Mark 4:33 "And with many such parables
spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it."
Preach the gospel. Occasionally,
I run into children's ministries that just play games. They have
all fun, but little to no learning. I personally (and this is just
my opinion) don't think that does a lot of good. Don't get me wrong,
play is important, and play is actually one of the better ways for kids
to learn, but there are times to play, and times not to. I do plan
play periods during each service, and special events for the kids just
to play and fellowship with each other. But every service and all
of the service is a little too much.
We don't want service to be boring, but
we don't want service to be fruitless either. Give the kids a time
to play and fellowship, but give the kids the word of God as well.
The age of the kids should determine
the amount of play time. The younger the children, the more play
time. Also, if you attend a church that has marathon services, you
might want more play time. We want to minister to the kids, but they
will only retain so much. For a rule of thumb, if my church service
runs
two hours or more, I usually have
a 1 1/2 Children's Church, and 1/2 hour of play time.
Once again, I will probably get some dissenting
votes on this one, but this is simply a tip that might help. This
is certainly not a, "thus saith the Lord".
I do not decorate the walls of my Children's
Church. The only decorations I have are the props on the stage.
I do this for one reason, it gives the kids only one thing to look at,
me. Kids are easily distracted. Actually, so are adults.
When I am sitting in the adult service, and I begin to lose interest in
the sermon (I know none of you do that :o) I find myself easily distracted
by the banners and other things hanging on the walls or from the ceiling.
By taking away the cute posters and banners on my Children's Church walls,
I have taken away a distraction for the kids.
What we do, is have a bulletin board on
wheels. We pull it on stage before the service with any posters about
current events for the kids to read while they are sitting waiting for
the service to begin. But once it does begin, I like all eyes on
me.
I know many others who like the posters
and banners, but I have found having bare walls helps me keep better control
of my kids.
I have been told at countless seminars,
that we as teachers should never say, "No." Yet when I read the Bible,
I find that God says no an awful lot. God often teaches using negatives,
just read the prophets. Eight out of ten commandments have the words,
"shalt not" in them. Many of the great stories in the Old and New
Testaments have negative lessons, or positive lessons learned from negative
situations. The apostle Paul when wondering where he is was to go,
heard "no" a number of times from God before he was told where to go (Acts
16:6-10). I have found this true in my own life as well, we as human
beings are more sensitive to hearing the negative. Many athletes
will tell you that they learn more from a defeat, a negative, than a win.
Wins are funner and more positive, but loses are better learning tools,
tools to teach us to become winners. Do not throw out one of the
most powerful words in the English language. The first word a child
understands is the word "No." We say it constantly as parents to
our babies, because they do not understand reasoning. That one simple
word has huge meaning.
I like to use both negatives and positives
together. For example, I will tell the kids not to talk while I am
talking (negative), then I will explain why (positive). Be positive
with your kids, but it is OK to say, "No."
Occasionally we will have a contest to
bring visitors to children's church, Sunday School or a special event,
but we conduct our contest for those who bring visitors a little differently.
We don’t want the kids to think that bringing
only one friend is unimportant, God rejoices when just one person comes
to Christ. So, we tell the kids that for every new friend they bring,
they will have their name put into a bucket. Then we pick the winners
from the bucket. The more friends they bring, the better their chances
of winning, but even the child who brings only one visitor will have a
chance to win. This encourages those kids who know they only have
one or two friends they can invite. I have often heard kids say,
"I know I can't win, so why try."
**Secretly though, I do buy a couple
of extra prizes just in case some child really does do a good job of bringing
friends in and doesn’t win in the drawing. I pull them aside afterwards
and give them a special prize. They really get a kick out of that.
One
fun thing we do with the rules is have different puppets or characters
come out and go over the rules with their own words and personalities.
It gives you a fun way to reinforce something that is not always fun, but
important. I personally like to keep it down the three rules, but
will occasionally go with a fourth if it is called for.
A. |
The rules we use
in Children’s Church are:
|
|
1. |
Don’t talk while
the teacher is talking. |
2. |
Keep your hands
and feet to yourself. |
3. |
Participate. |
4. |
Stay in your seat. |
|
|
|
B. |
Leroy is a puppet
with a Southern accent. He comes out and does the rules in his own
Southern country style. His rules go something like this:
|
|
1. |
Don’t ya be-a talkin
whilest the teacher be-a talkin. |
2. |
Ya’ll be-a keepin
em hands N foots to your'n self. |
3. |
Ya’ll be-a doin
whats we be-a doin. |
|
|
|
C. |
Albert the BRAIN
comes out the next week and does the rules. He complains about the
improper use of English, and boasts that his are the correct and most understandably
simple rules. Albert is too smart for his own good. His rules
are as follows:
|
|
1. |
Please do not converse
during instructional periods. (“What could be more simple to understand
than that?” says Albert.) |
2. |
Please refrain from
improper use of appendages. |
3. |
Please enthusiastically
partake in activities. |
|
Here
are some of the complaints Albert has when he does the rules the week after
Leroy.
|
|
1. |
Don’t
ya be-a talkin whilest the teacher be-a talkin? What kind of speech
is this? First of all, there is no need for the auxiliary verb 'be'
here. Secondly, 'a' is a Scottish pre-verb. Are any of you
from Scotland? Thirdly, where is the 'g' sound at the end of talking?
Now, whilest the word whilest is a proper word, it is an archaic
obsolete usage society hasn't used since the 1600's !!! The teacher be-a?
Again with the auxiliary verb and Scottish pre-verb. Please people.
Talkin? I cannot comprehend the refusal to vocalize the "G". It is
"talking" not "talkin".
|
|
2. |
Ya’ll be-a keepin
em hands N foots to your'n self. Please, the plural subjective of
you is simply "you". Be a? Again with the Auxiliary verb and
Scottish pre-verb. Keepin? Enunciate people. How many
times to I have to tell you to please articulate correctly. Is that
too much to ask? The word 'em' is 3rd person plural personal, you
need the 2nd person plural possessive. Hello? Hands N foots?
Come on people, the plural of foot is feet, and I can't even begin to comment
on 'n'. Your'n self? I will have to admit, your'n self is proper
English, but only if you live in the 15th century !!! |
|
3. |
Ya’ll be-a doin
whats we be-a doin. Ya'll is a substandard expression. Be a
doin? Again with the auxiliary verb and Scottish pre-verb.
Whats? What, may I ask is a whats? This hurts my huge brain.
Obviously we'ins is colloquial, and as such, substandard.
be a doin? You said it again, a completely flawed construct. |
|
|
|
|
D. |
Freddy is a lovable
monster puppet who uses few words. His rules go like this:
|
|
1. |
Don't talk. |
2. |
Don’t touch. |
3. |
Join in. |
|
|
|
E. |
Dog is a dog.
He gives the rules through the eyes of a dog. A dog command is usually
one or two words. His rules are as follows:
|
|
1. |
No barking. (No talking.) |
2. |
Stay. (Tell the
boys and girls to stay. Its funny, they will.) |
3. |
Wag your tail.
(Have fun and participate. Dogs wag their tails when they are excited.) |
|
|
|
If you have any questions about Children's
Ministry, please feel free to email us at clunky@fishersofkids.com
and we will do our best to answer your questions.
Also, if you have any tips that you would
like to share, please send them to clunky@fishersofkids.com. |
. |