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Making God’s Word Practical for Children

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Making God’s Word Practical for Children

Children’s workers share the great responsibility of helping to shape children spiritually. This task can prove challenging at times, but the reward of seeing children come to know God far outweighs the challenges we will face. So how can we, as children’s workers, be effective in helping children grow spiritually? Being that children are little sponges ready to absorb the world around them, we need to ensure that spiritual concepts are easy for them to absorb. How do we do this you may ask? In Deuteronomy 6:7-9 it tells us that we are to use practical everyday happenings to explain the Word of God to children.

A few years ago I worked as a teacher at a Christian daycare center. After perusing the curriculum I asked myself “How am I going to make this plain to my students?” I faced the challenge of teaching 18-24mth olds about the teachings of God. Being the creative person I am, I prayed and asked God to guide me in teaching His children in such a way that they would remember His word. One day during recess one of my students came to me and asked “Ms. Barboo (the name I was affectionately nicknamed), does God live in the clouds?”  This question inspired me to teach them about creation.  I took the children all around the campus and explained to them how God made everything they saw. In doing this, God became even more real to them. They wanted to know more about God and became inquisitive about other things He made.

Practical application of God’s Word will come easily to children’s workers once they understand the stages of cognitive development that children experience.  In 1920, a Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget identified four stages of cognitive development. He found that with each stage children’s thinking and logic were qualitatively different. The stages were labeled as:

Sensorimotor or Practical intelligence- birth to age 1 ½ or 2 yrs

Preoperational or Intuitive intelligence- 1 ½ yrs or 2yrs to 7 or 8 yrs

Concrete Operations or Concrete intellectual operations- age 7 or 8yrs to 11 or 12yrs

Formal operations or Abstract intellectual operations- beginning at age 11 or 12 yrs

Understanding each stage of the cognitive process is an important factor in developing Biblical lessons. When each stage is fully understood, practical application of God’s word will be easier to implement with each lesson. We will cover each stage of the cognitive development process in more detail as this series progress=

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ENGLISH

The most important person in your ministry is . . . you!

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 The most important person in your ministry is . . . you!

I  know, it sounds kind of self-centered doesn’t it? Certainly not the attitude a pastor should be taking! Here’s what I mean: as a leader in the church, if you don’t choose to take care ofyourself, you won’t be a leader in the church very long.

Ministry is difficult…very difficult. After all, the Bible says we (as believers) are in a spiritual battle (Ephesians 6:12), and who better to take out than the “leaders” in that battle?

With that in mind, the person you need to take care of first is yourself. And that requires being intentional. Doing it on purpose…with a clear plan.

There’s lots of ways to plan self-care – find one that works for you. For me, I’ve tried to keep it simple and base it on a little verse that you’ve probably heard of that talks about Jesus. It’s Luke 2:52 and it goes like this:

Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.

The best way I know to protect myself and keep from stagnating is to grow. I need to constantly be evaluating my own personal growth & health, and this little verse covers all the areas, including:

  • Mentally – am I growing in knowledge & wisdom? What’s my plan to do this? The single greatest way I’ve grown in this area is through reading. At first it was overwhelming – I tried to read everything all at once and ended up reading very little. Then, early on in my ministry, I committed to reading just 1 chapter a day. It’s amazing how many books you can read in a year (about 25 if each book averages 15 chapters). Reading keeps me up to date, thinking and challenged. I read on children’s ministry, leadership, business and, the last few years, technology (Fast Company & Wired magazine are great for this).
  • Physically – the older I get the more I realize the importance of my health. If I am not actively & regularly engaged in exercise, I can’t possibly be at my best in ministry, plain & simple. Nor will I be able to engage with my family as I ought to – they will more than likely get my scraps, when I am tired and rundown. I must have a plan and be willing to set aside time to exercise, to be careful what I eat, and to get the sleep I need. You are fooling yourself if you think you can ignore your body (or, as the Bible calls it, your “temple” – I Corinthians 6:19-20).
  • Spiritually – I love that the verse says that Jesus grew “in favor with God”. What an inspiration – and aspiration! Here’s what I’ve learned though – we ministry types can live and breathe “spirituality” so much that our own spiritual lives, our own faith walk, becomes part of our job. Don’t let that happen. Your spiritual growth should be fresh & new & invigorating every day. Don’t let writing that VBS lesson become your devotions for today. Don’t let prepping the talk for Kids Church become your time with God. Sure, any time in the Word is great, but make sure you are being intentional about YOUR time in the Word & in prayer. My ministry should naturally flow from my time spent with God, not vice-versa.
  • Relationally – our ministry should be all about relationships. Ministry happens best through relationships. We need to grow in our ability to build relationships as leaders. We also need to have healthy relationships in other areas. As men & women we should have deep and meaningful friendships with others outside of our ministries. As spouses & parents we need to have healthy relationships within our families (that’s a whole book, so I’ll just mention it here).

Growing personally and being healthy in all these areas must be a priority for any children’s ministry leader. It is so hard because of the demands of ministry. But here is what I would challenge you to do: create a plan to keep yourself healthy (what I’ve mentioned here are just a few ideas to get you started), commit to it in terms of your time, energy and resources (commit to at least 6 months), and see how things change. You might need to create some accountability if this has been an area of weakness for you.

I think it is pretty safe to say that, if you stick to your plan to take care of yourself, then those around you – from your family to your friends to your ministry colleagues – will benefit from your commitment.

Stay connected to KIDMINLeaders.com to read the rest of this series from Greg Baird.

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CHURCH LEADERS, ENGLISH

When Your Ministry Has a Fail

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When Your Ministry Has a Fail

by Justyn Smith

Justyn Smith talks about what he’s learned when you do everything like you always do and things still turn out “blah!”

Ever have one of those services when things weren’t clicking? You do everything that you normally do and things kind of turn out like blah?! That totally describes our night last night. We practiced and did run throughs like we normally do. We setup the stage and created an atmosphere that screams Kid Studios Live and yet at the end of the night we were like “What in the world just happened?” And, it wasn’t like a “God was so powerful…what just happened moment?” It was a “I hope that doesn’t happen again” moment.

The worship band was off a little, sound cues weren’t hit like they normally are, I totally bombed a part of the message that was important—forgot to even mention it. It was kind of odd…I did this cool huge visual interactive object lesson with the kids and then totally skipped right over the point and went to the next. Attendance was down. There’s more, but I’ll spare you. To top it all off all this happened the day after our youth ministry had one of their most powerful God-encounter nights they have ever experienced.

As you can imagine, I was feeling a little down. Last night I was thinking of all the “perfect” children’s ministries that have never experienced a night like we had. If you’re one of the ministries I’m thinking of—don’t tell me you’re not perfect. I enjoy thinking you are and it gives me hope!

God spoke to me and said a couple of things:

• Don’t place your identity in large attendance, place it in your large God!
• I’m totally not blaming anything on God, but I felt as though He said, “Do you still trust me?”
• I’m reminded that I’m still human, but God fills the gaps
• He whispered a verse I just spoke on a week ago, “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” –Philippians 1:6 (NLT)

He spoke to me personally about some other things that both challenged and encouraged me. I figure I should talk about some of the tough times we go through as a ministry so as to not give the impression we’re perfect—because we are not!! The cool thing is that for every #fail we encounter we probably have at least 20 wins. In the long run as long as our wins are greater than our failures and we continue to strive to honor God I think we’ll be okay.

Alright, now to plan this weekend and next week’s Kid Studios Live—they’re both going to be awesome!!

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Justyn Smith is married to an amazing wife and is a father to five children. He is the children’s pastor at South Hills Church in Corona, CA and has a passion to help other children’s pastors become great leaders in their local church and ministry. He consults, writes, and is a frequent conference speaker. Justyn is the host of Celera Kidmin (click http://www.celeragroup.org/network-coaching/kidmin.aspx for more info) and has recently been named one of “Children’s Ministry Magazine’s” Top 20 to Watch. Twitter: pastorjustyn Facebook: facebook.com/pastorjustyn
visit Justyn at justynsmith.com

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ENGLISH, KIDMIN

It is critical for you to think beyond your own job description.

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It is critical for you to think beyond your own job description.

 Critical_Thinking

It is very easy to get completely wrapped up in our own little world of children’s ministry. It’s a complex world. It’s a demanding world. It’s where we are comfortable and have the greatest sense of meaning.

But it is not the only thing happening in the church. And we are not the only leaders with a vision. In fact, our vision MUST be aligned with that of the senior leadership of the church (if it’s not, you need to get it aligned or find a new place to serve).

Here are a few thoughts that I’ve learned are important about thinking beyond your own job description:

  • Support your pastor. Not just when it’s convenient. Not just when you agree with him. Not because you want a raise. Simply support your pastor. This means you carry their vision and verbalize it positively. It means you defend them (appropriately) and disable negative talk. It means you actively seek ways of encouraging and engaging with them. It does NOT mean you can’t seek clarification or greater understanding or more support, etc. – you just need to do this in private and with appropriate respect for their position.
  • Engage your co-workers. Their are other people on staff who are just as passionate about their ministry as you are about yours! Never diminish what they do. Don’t seek to “out-do” or undermine them. Instead, view and approach them as partners. And keep doing that – even when they don’t reciprocate.
  • Network with peers. I just returned from CMX and as great as the speakers and exhibitors were, and as important as it was for KidMin360/KidMinJobs to have a presence there, the best part about it was interacting with peers. There were way too many great connections to mention here, but the point being that it’s so important to get out of our little bubble. It’s easier than ever via social media (most of the great leaders I connected with at CMX were “online” friends I “met” via Twitter, Facebook or their own blogs). So broaden your network, both locally (yes, call the church down the street, even if it’s not the same affiliation as yours!) and nationally (yes, that might mean you need to create a Twitter account, or create connections via Facebook or some other way. Here’s what you gain through networking: education and encouragement. And don’t discount the fact that it goes both ways – you have a tremendous opportunity to educate and encourage others who might just need exactly what YOU have to offer.
  • Learn from mentors. I have life mentors that go back to my days at my first church (Skyline, under John Maxwell). These include John (not personally any longer, but I’m the first in line when he publishes something), my former Executive Pastor Dan Reiland, and my former mentor Tim Elmore. I have learned TONS about leading effectively in Children’s Ministry from my friends Craig Jutila, Chris Yount-Jones & Dale Hudson(among others) who I consider peers, but also mentors. Don’t be afraid to say I Don’t Know or accept the fact that we all need to learn more. Identifying and learning from mentors is a great way to do this.

Thinking beyond your own job description should not be intimidating – in fact, it is empowering, enabling you to grow as a leader and, as a result, more effectively grow your ministry.KIDMINLeaders.com

 

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CHURCH LEADERS, ENGLISH

Children’s Ministry – Team Structure, Planning & Evaluation

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Children’s Ministry – Team Structure, Planning & Evaluation

by Keith Tusing

What does your team look like? What are the roles on your team? Do your team members know their specific responsibilities? Does your team know it when they score? Do you celebrate the wins?

I coach 9, 10 & 11 year old boys on a tackle football team. Go TEAM! I love working with these boys. One of the great things about football is that it takes every player on the field knowing and doing their job on every play to be successful. It’s the ultimate team experience. Too often boys and their parents think it’s all about the quarterback, running back and receiver positions. They think the “glamour positions” are what counts. People involved in Children’s Ministry can fall into the same mentality.

You know what I mean. The Large Group communicator is one of the “glamour positions along with the Large Group worship leader. We forget about the guy at the sound board until something goes wrong – it’s like being an offensive lineman – nobody knows your name until you miss a block and the QB goes down.

At the very first Parent Meeting with our football team I begin communicating the idea that our team cannot be successful unless every boy takes pride in his position and knows his responsibility on every play. We will do the same thing with our first Leaders Meeting of the fall with our CM team. Every team member needs to know their position, know their responsibilities and know what a win looks like. It’s funny to me how after the game concludes one of my little guys will come up to me and ask “Coach did we win?” Occasionally I catch myself thinking “Dude, weren’t you’re here?” Sometimes I think our CM leaders could have the same question they’re just afraid to ask.

So, have you clarified the “WIN” for your team members? Here’s an example for the Tech Guy (Offensive Lineman J):

*Arrives on time making sure the audio and video equipment are set up and ready to go by the designated starting time for the rehearsal.

*Executes a flawless service flow.

*Knows how to troubleshoot technical problems quickly and calmly.

*Works well with all team members involved with the our Large Group kid’s worship service.

At the end of the service this guy/girl knows if they won, they don’t have to ask.

The next step is the celebration of the WIN. One of the best moments of a close game is that final drive when the offense scores to win a game or the defense prevents the opponent from scoring preserving the win. My little guys have experienced both and the celebration is electric. Do your leaders ever have that same feeling? Do you celebrate with encouraging words and high-fives? Try it!

Take some time to write out the Positions you have on your team. Describe in detail the qualifications, the time commitment, the expectations and the WIN. Creatively plan some celebrations for both individuals and the entire team. Now take the field and move the ball!

What are the things you do to clarify the WIN? How do you celebrates WINS?

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Keith Tusing is a Family Ministries Pastor with 20+ years of experience serving churches in Texas and Arizona. His passion is to see Children’s and Family Ministries that encourage leaders to partner with parents in developing the next generation. He has been married to his amazing wife, Julie, for 30 years and is the father of six incredible kids.
visit Keith at cmbuzz.com

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CHURCH LEADERS, ENGLISH

Children’s Ministry – Team Structure, Planning & Evaluation

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Children’s Ministry – Team Structure, Planning & Evaluation

by Keith Tusing

What does your team look like? What are the roles on your team? Do your team members know their specific responsibilities? Does your team know it when they score? Do you celebrate the wins?

I coach 9, 10 & 11 year old boys on a tackle football team. Go TEAM! I love working with these boys. One of the great things about football is that it takes every player on the field knowing and doing their job on every play to be successful. It’s the ultimate team experience. Too often boys and their parents think it’s all about the quarterback, running back and receiver positions. They think the “glamour positions” are what counts. People involved in Children’s Ministry can fall into the same mentality.

You know what I mean. The Large Group communicator is one of the “glamour positions along with the Large Group worship leader. We forget about the guy at the sound board until something goes wrong – it’s like being an offensive lineman – nobody knows your name until you miss a block and the QB goes down.

At the very first Parent Meeting with our football team I begin communicating the idea that our team cannot be successful unless every boy takes pride in his position and knows his responsibility on every play. We will do the same thing with our first Leaders Meeting of the fall with our CM team. Every team member needs to know their position, know their responsibilities and know what a win looks like. It’s funny to me how after the game concludes one of my little guys will come up to me and ask “Coach did we win?” Occasionally I catch myself thinking “Dude, weren’t you’re here?” Sometimes I think our CM leaders could have the same question they’re just afraid to ask.

So, have you clarified the “WIN” for your team members? Here’s an example for the Tech Guy (Offensive Lineman J):

*Arrives on time making sure the audio and video equipment are set up and ready to go by the designated starting time for the rehearsal.

*Executes a flawless service flow.

*Knows how to troubleshoot technical problems quickly and calmly.

*Works well with all team members involved with the our Large Group kid’s worship service.

At the end of the service this guy/girl knows if they won, they don’t have to ask.

The next step is the celebration of the WIN. One of the best moments of a close game is that final drive when the offense scores to win a game or the defense prevents the opponent from scoring preserving the win. My little guys have experienced both and the celebration is electric. Do your leaders ever have that same feeling? Do you celebrate with encouraging words and high-fives? Try it!

Take some time to write out the Positions you have on your team. Describe in detail the qualifications, the time commitment, the expectations and the WIN. Creatively plan some celebrations for both individuals and the entire team. Now take the field and move the ball!

What are the things you do to clarify the WIN? How do you celebrates WINS?

Share this:

Keith Tusing is a Family Ministries Pastor with 20+ years of experience serving churches in Texas and Arizona. His passion is to see Children’s and Family Ministries that encourage leaders to partner with parents in developing the next generation. He has been married to his amazing wife, Julie, for 30 years and is the father of six incredible kids.
visit Keith at cmbuzz.com

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CHURCH LEADERS, ENGLISH

Why Are Kids Pastors So Lame?

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Why Are Kids Pastors So Lame?

by Sam Luce

I want to attempt to answer my own question, Why do most young people going into the ministry want to be youth pastors? But first a couple of your responses.

From jonathancliff.com He had lots of other great thoughts check out his whole post here.

Why most Children’s Pastors wanted to be youth pastors? Because it’s when we’re teenagers or college students that we really start trying to live out our Christian walk; and the first ‘church’ relationship we ever had was with our Youth pastor. Therefore, making the youth pastor role the coolest one we’ve ever known! On a side note… it could also be that children’s ministry leaves a bad memory for many…

Sarah Thompson had the following to say on her blog.

Did I see that excitement and passion in Sunday School? Nope! Did I see it at Youth Group? Absolutely! Youth Group is where the action happened. It’s where I saw God turn up.

Reasons why do most young people want to be youth pastors and not children’s pastors

1. Teens are more social and youth groups have become more small group socially connected in and out of church.
2. Teens are thinking more about the future and what they want to be is by in large decided more in High School than elementary school.
3. More churches value youth ministry and more time and energy are put into that age demographic
4. College’s and Seminaries have many ministry tracts focused on Teen ministry and very few focusing on ministry to kids.
5. Most kids have a negative or neutral children’s church experience.
6. Youth pastors are just to cool. They are our youth pastor is no exception up on culture, fashion and are typically great communicators.
7. Teens think to be a youth pastor you have to be a retired female teacher or ex-christian school male principle.

What can we do solve this problem.

1. Start off by doing what we can do.
2. Focus on the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of relationships with others.
3. Have small group leaders that take ownership beyond sunday morning.
4. Make every sunday powerful, exciting, different, and FUN.
5. Push the value of kids in every forum God give you.
6. Recognize the gifts and callings God has given kids in your ministry and help the parents develop those gifts at home and in the context of church.
7. Take fashion and culture advise from your local youth pastor. Just kidding sort of.

I would like to add that for me one way I know I am doing my job is when kids that grew up in my ministry that thrive in the youth ministry. I rejoice because I know I had a small part in seeing that kid become whoever God has for them. I truly believe that youth and children’s ministry are inseparable.

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Sam Luce has been the children’s pastor at Redeemer Church for over 13 years. A prolific blogger and popular children’s conference speaker, Sam has worked in children’s ministry for over 23 years and is also a contributing editor to K! magazine.
visit Sam at www.samluce.com

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CHURCH LEADERS, ENGLISH

Strength-Based Vs. Area-Based

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Strength-Based Vs. Area-Based

by Justyn Smith

So, I’ve been thinking and it all started with a phone call to Allyson Evans over at Lifechurch.tv…

I took the opportunity over our phone call to ask Allyson a bunch of questions. Since our church has plans to expand beyond our property, I had some good questions regarding multi-site. Not so much on the mechanics, instead on the structure. She presented to me what they do. What they do is amazing. She has two ways to structure a campus. She has a structure in place for “Strength-based” or “Area-based”.

Strength-based is dividing responsibilities based on a person’s strength. Seems pretty self-explanatory. This means instead of having an Elementary Director and an Early Childhood Director you would have something like a Programming Director over ALL ages and a Volunteer Director over ALL ages, etc. There could be various strength-based roles depending on your organizations setup.

The Area-based structure is pretty common. This is how we currently do it and I’m pretty sure it’s how the majority of everyone else sets up their structure.

I’m playing with idea of changing our structure, but am not too sure. Let me type out my thoughts:

1. I don’t want to change just because someone else is doing something a certain way.
2. I do want to change if it works for the best of our ministry, church and staff.
3. I like strength-based because you’re really tapping into people’s passions and more of what their good at.
4. I like strength-based because the team as a whole works more closely together. Everyone has to know what the other does.
5. I like area-based because there is a defined leader and I’m still unsure how that looks in a strength-based setting.
6. As we go forward I LOVE having both options on the table and allowing each campus to pick their structure. This gives more ownership and doesn’t deviate from the overall vision.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Obviously, there’s a lot of details I didn’t share, but I would still love your input or how you structure your ministry.

PJ

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Justyn Smith is married to an amazing wife and is a father to five children. He is the children’s pastor at South Hills Church in Corona, CA and has a passion to help other children’s pastors become great leaders in their local church and ministry. He consults, writes, and is a frequent conference speaker. Justyn is the host of Celera Kidmin (click http://www.celeragroup.org/network-coaching/kidmin.aspx for more info) and has recently been named one of “Children’s Ministry Magazine’s” Top 20 to Watch. Twitter: pastorjustyn Facebook: facebook.com/pastorjustyn
More from Justyn Smith or visit Justyn at justynsmith.com

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