Ministry127 | Children's Ministry

Greeting Visitors in the Nursery

Julie Hanna — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 11:07:34 +0000

Have you ever gone into a store and been ignored or treated like you were bothering the store clerk? I love shopping where the clerks take care of me, handle my purchase with care, and pleasantly greet me and thank me for shopping in their store. Your church nursery should have the same atmosphere. Greet visitors and let them know you are happy they are visiting your church.

I know that at Lancaster Baptist Church the nursery greeters are usually one of the first impressions a visitor has of our church. As Nursery Director, I take that very seriously and realize that it is a huge responsibility. I love our nursery children and the volunteers that serve each week. Showing God’s love is our mission in the nursery. Here are a few ways we try to make the atmosphere of our nurseries welcoming:

1. Train your volunteers to be happy.

2. Greet everyone with a smile.

3. Give visitors the information they need—where to go and what to do.

4. Always greet the children. (They love to be talked to.)

5. Ensure visitors that their child will be well taken care of while he is in your care.

6. Follow up on visitors.

Extreme Bible Drills

Stephen Benefield — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 21:10:37 +0000

Using games is a great way to help information stick with your students. That’s probably why so many Sunday school teachers, youth pastors, and other people who work with kids and teens use Bible drills. In addition to helping people to become more adept at finding passages in their Bibles, they can also generate some excitement in a particular class or gathering. Here in Cambodia, we use a variety of games and activities with all ages (even the adults) to keep people involved, learning, and smiling.

But one of the problems with games is that if they are overused, people will lose interest. If you have quit using Bible drills because they seem too old and stale, here are three fresh versions which may liven up your next class, youth meeting, or even family devotions.

1. Grab-the-Object Bible Drills

The basic idea: The first person to find the verse, identify the object in the verse, and grab the object from a table in front of the room wins the round.

The details: Find verses which have easily obtained objects in them. (For example: a cross, a stuffed animal sheep, a key, a candle, a Bible, bread, etc.) When you call out the verse to the class, instead of standing and reading the verse, they have to look for what object is mentioned in the verse, and then run up to the front of the class and grab the right object. The first person to grab the correct object wins that round and obtains a point for their team. In order to keep the students guessing, put many items out on the table which are not found in any of the verses.

2. Elimination Bible Drills

The basic idea: When a player wins a round, they get to eliminate a player of their choice from the other team, until one team is out of players.

The details: This version of Bible drills needs an equal number of players on each team. If your have a large class, it is best to only play with a few selected players so the game doesn’t go too long. We always have people who are new and don’t really want to play, but they enjoy cheering on their side or their team.

Ask each side for volunteers to represent their team. We usually use 4 players per team, and it takes about 5 minutes to play. If you have the space, it is fun to have the players from each team sit in the front and face the audience. If you don’t have the room for that, just leave them in their seats. Proceed to call out the Bible drills in the traditional way, but each time a player wins a verse, they get to select a player of the opposite team to eliminate from the game. This goes on until one team has lost all of their players.

This is a very dramatic and intense way of doing Bible drills, because the players who are known for being really quick know that if they lose just one round, they are likely to be eliminated. It is truly a “win-or-go-home” situation!

There is one variation of this game which allows for a potential comeback. When a team is down to their last player, that player has the option to either continue playing himself, or he may select a previously eliminated player from his team to replace him. This has helped the games to stay competitive longer and has cut down on the number of “massacres”!

3. Add-It-Up Bible Drills

The basic idea: Players have to look up a series of verses which are written on the board, add up the numbers found in the verses, and then write the total number on the whiteboard.

The details: First, find verses with numbers in them. Verses which have more than one number in them will not work. After you have found verses with only one number in each, then group the verses into groupings of 4 or 5 verses each. You must add up the numbers found in those 4 or 5 verses so that you will know the correct totals. All of this must be done ahead of time.

Write the verses on a white board or poster board. You can’t just call out the verses like normal Bible drills, or the players won’t be able to remember them. You also can’t write them all on one big board, because they need to remain hidden until each round begins. Use small, hand-held white boards or just write each list on a separate piece of poster board.

Have a white board at the front of the room with 2 or 3 markers ready for players to write their answers. When you are ready to go, simply flip around the poster board which has the list of verses for the first round and listen to the pages start shuffling! It will take them a couple of minutes, but suddenly someone will pop out of their seat, run up and write a number. If the number is right, they win the round. If it is not right, just say “no” and all the players will keep on playing.

You should have at least two markers so that one person doesn’t hold onto the marker while their friend is “rechecking” a verse for them. You will see people pair up a lot in this version of Bible drills. I let them do it, because it gives a chance for new people who can’t find the verses very fast to still participate by helping write down numbers for a friend. Another reason I don’t mind this is that having multiple people involved formulating an answer often leads to a wrong answer, and wrong answers add to the excitement of the game!

Quieting Troublemakers & Minimizing Distractions

Mike Ray — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 19:28:35 +0000

“Cast out the scorner and the simple will beware” (Proverbs 22:10). If you teach children, you will recognize these descriptions—disturber, troublemaker, A.D.D., special child, etc. How do you prevent these challenging kids from destroying the lesson?

Have a reserved seat for them as they enter the class.

Separate them in advance from other talkers.

Be prepared to teach. If the students senses insecurity, lack of lesson preparation, or lack of leadership in you, they will misbehave. The same thing often happens when a parent leaves his child with a babysitter. Many misbehave because they are not sure who is in charge.

Get the child to hold something with two hands. Your Bible or a visual aid will keep the child from disturbing another. He will think he is being a great help to you.

Sometimes the troublemaker may not be a child, but the devil visiting the service. Distractions may come from a screaming baby, a fire alarm, or a cell phone. I have seen people faint, have seizures, and suffer heart attacks during a church service. When this happens how do you regain the crowd?

Don’t draw attention to the problem. Unless the disturbance is in the very front, many people may not see it.

Have prayer. With eyes closed, much can be done.

Sing a song.

Be calm. Others will adopt your demeanor.

This article is an excerpt from the book, Basic Training for Sunday School Teachers by Mike Ray.

We Went to Wednesdays

Dr. Al Stone — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 06:04:47 +0000

Our children’s ministry was dying. We were averaging just over fifty children on Sunday morning in our city of 36,000 people. An average two riders were dropping off our bus ministry every year and soon would dwindle to nothing. I begged the Lord to help us change. My staff and I dug to find the source of our falling attendance. We had a great program, excited workers, and aggressive soul winning and visitation, but nothing seemed to help.

Other ministries were struggling also. Just fifteen years ago we saw over 600 attend our week long evangelistic campaign we call H.E.L.P. (Help Evangelize Lost People). Every year since we have seen a steady decline.

Then God gave the answer to our problem through a pastor friend. They had just concluded their Vacation Bible School and had a great turn out, much better than our church or any of the Ontario churches have seen recently. What was the difference? They moved their VBS to the evenings.

Our staff went to work talking to church members, bus families, and Sunday school children both current and former to see if an evening schedule would help. We found that a large percentage of our Sunday school children were at a different parents’ home every other week. They were staying up late on Saturday night watching television or playing video games then sleeping in Sunday morning. Some parents would take out their children all day Sunday. We discovered that social dilemmas were keeping many children out of church.

Then the Lord gave me this thought, “What if we went Wednesdays for our children’s programs?” Our church family is already here, we had a kids program available. The kids would be at the same home every week, they would be up, they would be fed, and their parents would be ready for the break.

After much prayer and planning we launched out into uncharted waters. We began Kids for Christ with a large group of dedicated volunteers. It requires a sacrifice of time—workers leave to pick up kids at 6 pm and won’t return from the drop-off until 9 pm. In the first month we heavily promoted the program by knocking on doors and passing out flyers, then we watched God bless.

In a year, our attendance more than doubled on Wednesday evenings. God has added to every department from kindergarten to adult. Children and young adults are saved nearly every week, and many parents of the bus children have started coming. Parents frequently stop our church vehicles in parking lots and ask if their kids can come to our program. Today we have to rent additional buses for pick-up and use two public school gymnasiums for our youth program. It took a lot of work, but it has electrified our church.

With God’s blessing on the Wednesday evening program, we changed our H.E.L.P. program to an evening program also. We have found that parents aren’t home during the day and babysitters are leery about bringing the children to a “religious” program. Many kids are already involved in city run programs during the day. Again we have seen more people reached through the evening program than our former day time program.

In a day when many churches are struggling just to maintain we are seeing growth across the board. Only what God has done through our Wednesday night programs can explain it. In a changing day, we need to hold our doctrine, but inspect our strategies for outreach and programs.

If you would like more of the details of how we organized, launched, and maintain the program, we would love to send you a complimentary booklet we have compiled. Just write to:

We Went to Wednesdays

Bible Baptist Church

320 Highbury Rd.

St. Thomas, ON N5P 0A5

Keeping the Children Safe

Julie Hanna — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:45:15 +0000

There are many ways to keep a child safe and secure in a church nursery, but I would like to focus on two major ways. The first is to know as much about each child as possible, and the second is to have the nurseries properly equipped with safety features. Even though these may seem like they are not important, every mother feels more secure about leaving her child in the nursery when she knows it’s safe, secure and that the workers care.

Every mommy and daddy thinks their child is special and it’s our job to make them know that we think so too. One way to do this is to know their name. It shows the parents that you took the time to know and remember their precious child. It is also important to know the parents and greet them. Another way to help the parents is to know the allergies their child has or anything else that would require extra attention (i.e. nut allergies, potty training etc.). We have a sheet where parents write down any special instructions regarding their child. They often write things like, has his favorite blanket in his bag, needs to have a bottle at a certain time, gets cranky when he is tired, has a pacifier in the diaper bag, and if he loves or hates the swing. All this information helps to know their child and helps us keep their child happy.

After making a point to get know the family, it’s important to have the nurseries well equipped and clean. Make sure everything is sanitized and wiped down. Be sure that battery operated items are working properly, and always have extra batteries on hand. Arrive 45 minutes before the start of each service to walk around and check each room for any problems.

Check to make sure each room is ready for the children to arrive. This includes removing broken toys and making sure that each room has the proper supplies. Make sure the children will be properly taken care of and the nursery workers have the proper supplies to do their job.

You may want to consider using a pager system if you do not do so already. With a pager system you are able to give parents a pager so that if you need to get a hold of them for any reason during the service their pager will vibrate and they will know to come to the nursery.

If the parents feel comfortable leaving their child with you, they will be able to enjoy the service and hear what God has for them. When the nursery workers are cheerful, the parents will feel comfortable, and if the parents are comfortable, the children will be comfortable.

Big Words for Little People

Billy Willis — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:32:04 +0000

Can a child understand the Gospel and not know the exact meaning of everlasting life or the word saved? Jesus said that unless adults become as little children, they cannot be saved, so the obvious answer is yes.

The Gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins and rising again on the third day. Children sometimes struggle with the meaning of specific words. Some children may use phrases like, “Jesus is inside of me,” or “He is in there” while pointing at their heart. As adults, we cannot expect a child to use all the verbiage or grammar we use to explain salvation. There are some folks that expect a child to know every doctrine of the Bible before they can be allowed to know Christ as their Saviour. In Romans 10:13 the Bible says, “ For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord…” If we were expected to understand every word in the Bible then none of us would be saved.

An adult can easily understand the meaning of many words in the Bible and may also expect a child to automatically understand. Children, howeve, normally think in pictures. Many times when leading a child to Christ it is wise to use an object or picture to explain a word. The word saved may not make a lot of sense to a small child but illustrating it through a picture may help them understand a very important Bible word. They may not exactly understand the meaning of everlasting life, but using a picture may help them understand that we are saved forever.

There are children that the Holy Spirit of God is convicting about salvation and we need to make sure as adults that we are not standing in the way of a child knowing Jesus as his Saviour. We need to make sure we are not expecting them to know the exact terminology, but we also need to make sure they are ready to be saved. A children’s worker or parent never wants to give a child a false hope. Remember questions stimulate and probe the heart and mind. Ask the child questions about what they have learned in class or at home through personal or family devotions. You might be surprised how a little child answers. Sometimes they answer in a way that convicts us.

Dealing with children is not something we should fear but favor. The Lord Jesus during His earthly ministry many times referred to the faith of a child or used a child as an illustration. Children can and will show great faith in the Lord. When those big words come along and a child looks at you like you are from planet Mars, take time to explain to them what that word means. It may take a small illustration, prop or a picture for them to understand. God is ready to save every child that desires to put his faith in Him, but make sure that we are not expecting the BIG words to come from little people before we allow them to trust Christ as their Saviour. I am glad God kept salvation simple for us to understand and I am sure you are glad too.

Teaching from a Relationship

Billy Willis — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:26:07 +0000

The race is on to prepare that perfect illustration, illusion or brand new game to go along with the lesson. You pull the curriculum book from the big Ziploc bag, open it up and realize that it is now late on Saturday night and the lesson calls for pipe cleaners which you do not have. The first thought is to run to Walmart and pick up some pipe cleaners for the lesson then get back and study. We have all had times when we failed to plan. The problem is not just that we failed to plan or planned poorly; the problem is that our relationship with the children in our class should not start or end within the walls of the classroom that we teach in. We need to get it in our hearts and minds that building a relationship with each child’s family is just as important as the lesson time itself.

The good thing is, even if you have been a “Saturday Warrior” in preparing your lesson at the last minute another Sunday is coming. Start your classroom preparation on Sunday afternoon by calling the absentees from your class or the family that visited for the first time to see if they had any questions. On Monday, maybe you could place a postcard in the mail reminding each person in your class how excited you are about class this Sunday. Doing these extra preparations will excite you about preparing your games, craft and lesson extra well.

Every one of us has a child in our class that we wish would just sit still for 5 seconds of the lesson. By the time class is over you're winded and all of your workers have this blank stare on their faces like they just saw the Boogie Man. This child has sugar running through his veins. This is a common occurrence at our church and I am sure that we are not the only ones. The first question to ask yourself is, “Has my relationship ended at the walls of the classroom?” Have you or one of your workers been into the home of that child. In most cases the answer is, “No”. You may be surprised at what would happen if you set an appointment with the parents and gave that family and that child the time that they desperately need. The Sunday after the visit the child will not just see you as a teacher or as a hindrance to their disobedience or fun; they will see you as someone who came and spent time with them. Children think differently than we do. Children think in time.

There are many stories that I could share about the transformation that we have seen in children just by a simple visit. We have seen disobedient children become more obedient. We have seen unwilling children become willing. We have seen God work miraculously through a simple visit to the child’s home. We as teachers need to get out of the mindset that the classroom time is the only time we need to have face to face time with a child and his family.

The next time that child seems distant, disobedient or disorderly. Ask yourself, “Where has my relationship ended?”

Supporting Families through the Sunday School

Tim Christoson — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:03:55 +0000

As the children of Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land, Moses exhorted them: “Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 31:12).

Gathering together to hear from God’s Word is for every member of the family! A biblically sound and well-organized Sunday school will strengthen each member of the home, not only in his relationship with the Lord, but also in his relationships with others.

Paul described the local church as a place where young men and women would learn from more experienced men and women about their roles in the church and home (Titus 2:3–8). Paul and Peter each challenged gifted teachers to invest in the lives of their fellow members of the body (Romans 12:6–7, 1 Peter 4:10).

Sunday school teachers and family members make a great team when they apply the following principles:

1. The principle of the lesson aim

Effective teachers know what they want their students to learn. While mom or dad attends a class where they might learn biblical principles for marriage or parenting, son or daughter may be in a class where they are instructed to honor father and mother or to be kind to brother or sister!

2. The principle of a godly example

Parents know the burden of providing the right example for their children. Involvement in the Sunday school provides their children with additional examples of faithfulness in the lives of dedicated teachers (1 Timothy 4:12).

3. The principle of creative learning

Experienced teachers deliver Bible truths in creative ways that children are able to carry with them. Often, a Sunday school teacher is able to drive home a lesson with just the right song, visual aid, or object lesson.

4. The principle of shared labor

Godly parents work diligently to bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Wise parents seize the opportunity for like-minded mentors to enter into their labors, encouraging their children along this path (John 4:38, 1 Corinthians 3:6–10).

5. The principle of a reinforced message

Christian moms and dads pray that their children will embrace a message something like this: the Bible is true, Jesus Christ is the one way to Heaven, and living according to God’s Word is a treasured way of life. How valuable to have a godly teacher reinforce that message in the Sunday school classroom (Philippians 1:27, 2 Timothy 2:2)!

The Sunday school is a friend to the family endeavoring to live out God’s Word. Sunday school teachers can support each member of the home through encouraging words, intercessory prayer, personal visitation, and diligent lesson preparation.