One of our focuses before putting anyone up in front of kids by themselves to teach or lead a segment is to make sure they understand the importance of what I like to call keepin it goin. Keepin It Goin is when youre on stage leading a segment and you continue to talk to kids and keep things rolling.

For example, picture someone on stage explaining a game to a couple kids and thats it. Theres no joking around. Theres no interacting with the audience. Theres no pumping kids up. Nothing. Theres just explaining the game and thats it. That is not very exciting or engaging for the kids. Obviously, this would happen because the person on stage does not feel comfortable or does not know how to engage kids in the segment.

Before we put anyone on stage, we want them to feel comfortable with what theyre doing. Here are a few things we do:

1. We make sure anyone on stage feels comfortable with what they are doing. In other words, they are prepared. As the leader or director, its our job to make sure that we are equipping our teachers with the necessary tools (lessons, props, etc.).

2. We make sure the person on stage is in his or her element. We dont want to place a boring person on stage teaching or leading a game. Why? Because they are boring. We so sometimes see some hidden potential and encourage someone to try something out. But even with that, there is plenty of support before, during, and after they tried the stage.

3. I just mentioned itsupport. We want to support those who are on stage. Its an art form to have to constantly engage kids (and volunteers). At our church, we just brought on board an excellent communicator and creative person (Jesse KretzuKid Studios Director) who will be working closely with our teaching team and helping us to expand. We have determined to provide the encouragement and support thats needed to make people feel confident on stage.

For every person who needs help with keepin it goin, there are people who are a little outrageous on stage and never get to the point or stay on topic. These people are usually do not feel confident in teaching serious stuff so they overcompensate by trying to make everything fun.

When youre on stage you need balance. We do our best to coach our stage teaching team to have balance. Dont be boring on stage, but dont be crazy and, as Jonathan Cliff mentioned, be a stage ninja.

Heres how we coach our stage ninjas

1. I like to make sure they understand what theyre teaching. A lot of the reason they overcompensate on the fun side is because they dont feel confident in teaching the serious stuff. They struggle with making the serious stuff fun and interesting. These people are creative with games and being funny, but we coach their teaching creativity.

2. We remind these types that were hear for the kids and not to boost our own egos. Well, we dont quite say it that way. However, thats the gist of it. These ninjas while on stage enjoy entertaining themselves and enjoy the attention. I dont necessarily blame them because it is fun to see the kids have fun because of what youre doing. But, its about them and not us!

3. Our ninjas need to feel confident that the material they have is entertaining without them going berserk and going off-track. This kind of ties into the first one. Point One focuses more on them, while this focuses more on us as the leader. We have to provide them great material. Admittedly, Ive taught some material that was lame and so I did some improvising.

What are your thoughts? Do you or have you had any ninjas? How do you stay away from awkward silences? How do you encourage your teachers to keep it goin?