Entries Tagged 'Children's Ministry' ↓

I just walked out to plug in our old diesel church bus for its weekly mission trip around our town. Big Blue is beautiful but starting to show her age. This church has been running a bus ministry longer than I’ve been alive. We all know that longevity is not the test of a ministry’s value, so it’s good to re-think the pros and cons every so often.

Positives of Church Bus Ministry

• Kids come to our programs that otherwise would not. Bottom line, more children are coming to hear the gospel. About 30% of our Wednesday night kids come from the bus ministry.
• Our church is visible in neighborhoods where we have no members. Like many churches, most of our people come from the stable long-term neighborhoods of our city. The apartments and trailer parks, with their more transient populations, house almost none of our church members.
• It keeps our people outreach minded. Our volunteers get to know un-churched kids up close through this outreach ministry. We are constantly seeing new faces that remind us of the many children who are not active in church.
• It doesn’t cost much since we already own the bus and use volunteer maintenance.
• It opens new ways for people to serve. The bus ministry volunteers are pure gold.

Negatives of Church Bus Ministry

• Reaching parents is a problem. Very few churches, ours included, have really figured out how to get the families of our bus kids involved in our church.
• Bus discipline is a constant struggle. There are some frantic moments for the bus monitors; it takes special people to keep 25 excited kids safely in their seats.
• We reinforce poor parenting habits. We preach parental responsibility, but contradict it by picking up these kids while their parents stay home.
• The kids from the bus route are often our most disruptive.
• We see very few conversions. Bus kids are often very open to the Gospel, but we don’t see much long-term fruit. This may be because they move away or because the home environment counteracts what we teach.
• There are safety risks. Any child waiting for the bus after dark makes me nervous.

So what about you? Does your church run a bus ministry? Are the pros and cons I listed here a fair assessment?

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In many churches, Bible memorization is an essential part of their Sunday school or children’s ministry. Most Sunday school curriculum options have some element of Bible memory. Programs like AWANA are built upon a high value for scripture memory.

But memorization is not a universal value in Christian Education. I am in a master’s level course titled Biblical Worldview and Educational Practice at the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, KY. We’ve been discussing philosophies of education and how they have impacted local church ministry. The goal is to arrive at a more biblical approach to Christian education rather than just copying the latest educational trends.

As you might guess, traditionalism (more specifically Perennialism and Essentialism) highly valued teaching methods like drills and rote memory. Their approach was to promote the learners’ will power and train their mental capacity. In other words, traditional education approached schooling like physical training or even boot camp.

But a movement called Progressivism came on strong in the early 1900’s. Its advocates were strongly opposed to any passive learning by memorization of information. High value was placed on problem solving and maximum student involvement.

Historically, churches have been moving away from rote memory. Some of this has been good. Any veteran Sunday school teacher will tell you the value of active learning. But sometimes I think we’ve gone too far.

The Bible speaks very positively about scripture memory and meditation. If you’re not convinced, just read Psalm 119 or Jesus’ temptation in Matthew 4. Knowing the Bible from memory is a great benefit for everyone.

Too often we confuse child focused teaching with low expectation teaching. It’s one thing to accommodate the developmental realities of childhood. But it becomes a problem when use “kids will be kids” as an excuse not to challenge children in Sunday school.

Our ministry has experimented with several ways of doing Bible memory. In Sunday school, our curriculum encouraged the children to learn one verse each week. In Children’s church I have a set of 10 verses we reinforce every week through drills and games. These verses rotate over time. We’ve also taught the children extended passages of scripture like Psalm 23, The 10 Commandments, The Lord’s Prayer, and Psalm 1. Our Wednesday night club program has children learn a 21 verse Gospel outline over the school year.

What do you think? Leave me a comment below to join the conversation. How much Bible memory do you expect from children in your ministry?

photo credit: culture.culte

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photo credit: kanspice2000

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Kids love Easter egg hunting, but does that mean we should have one at church? This is an issue our pastoral staff has been working through over the past several years. My first year at the church, I carried forward their existing program called Easter EGGstravaganza.

It was a Saturday morning Easter egg hunt that doubled as a massive outreach effort. We did the works – door prizes, crafts, resurrection eggs, and more tubs of stuffed plastic eggs than I care to remember. The event took weeks of planning and a full roster of volunteers to make it happen. We mailed postcards to 500 households with children. The publicity budget for the event was close to the VBS level.

Turnout was great and everyone had a wonderful time. There was only one problem – the event did not meet its goals. No prospects from that group visited our church for Easter. None of the children were enrolled in our Wednesday nightclub program. None of the follow up efforts showed any promise. Six months later all I could show was a mailing list for future ministry events.

That was the end for EGGstravaganza. In fact, we haven’t had any Easter egg hunt since then. For me, it wasn’t a theological decision as much as a programming choice. Our resources are better directed toward events that advance the church’s disciple making mission.

What do you think about Easter egg hunts at church?

Do you see it as a helpful outreach tool? Are you concerned about detracting from the real meaning of Easter? Leave a comment below and join the conversation.

My Other Articles About Easter

• What Should I Teach On Easter?
• Children’s Easter Crafts Resource Page
• Bible Verses About Easter
• When Is Easter Sunday 2008?

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credit: ++

In a few minutes, I’ll head out for some afternoon evangelistic visits. Today, I’ll be making the rounds in a nearby trailer park. Our ministry serves several lower income children from that neighborhood. These kids often come on the bus, and their parents almost never come with them.

I don’t get out there very often, four times each year. Ministering to these families has been one of the best and worst aspects of my job. I consider it a great privilege to share Jesus with these kids. Their lives are often upside down. So much about their situation is working against them – poverty, unstable housing, family dysfunction and a dangerous neighborhood.

But it is a hard ministry. Our church has been serving this particular part of town for twenty years. Not much changes. Too often families move in-and-out in a matter of months. It is very rare that we see any spiritual growth. When they come to church, many of these children lack basic self-control and create behavioral problems. When they reach the teen years they stop coming, and often turn their backs on all we’ve tried to teach them.

Sometimes, it just seems like a lost cause.

Today, God is reminding me that my own story is not so different. Looking back, I had plenty of negative influences in my life as well. There were churches that tried to reach out to me, but with no effect. When the time came, I followed hard after the world and was far from God in every way.

But God’s love is an active thing. He came into my spiritual slums and was not discouraged by my cold responses. He sent Christians into my life to love me even when I looked unlovable. At the end of the day, Jesus didn’t give up. He didn’t write me off as a lost cause.

“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)

I take that as a promise. Jesus is not just about seeking – he came to finish the job. He wasn’t just looking for lost sheep, he found them. The good shepherd is not giving up.

Today, I am praying with hope. I believe that God can and will make a difference in the lives of those children. I’m asking God to use me to find some lost lambs this afternoon.

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The next few weeks will be the toughest in your ministry year. Long winters bring discouragement and dull the passion of even the most devoted. Let me share a few ways I am preparing my heart to make it through discouragement in the ministry this winter. Feel free to comment and add to the list.

Focus on the long term vision.
Short term setbacks can really kill my morale. I get discouraged when my teaching falls flat or when I lose a busy volunteer. Ask yourself, “What am I trying to accomplish in the lives of these children 20 years from now?” Stay faithful to the vision and do the little things well. Then trust God to work things out in the long term.

Be thankful for past success.
Take the time to step back and see how much has been accomplished this year. Write down five ways that God has touched lives through your children’s ministry. Give thanks to God and trust him to continue his work next year.

Pray.
Nothing energized me for ministry like getting close to God. Very few real gains have ever come without prayer. Fight discouragement by seeking direct support from your Heavenly Father.

Remember that kids matter to Jesus.
When God was calling me to work in children’s ministry I was amazed to discover all the Bible verses that spell out God’s love for children. Always remember that his passion to reach the little ones will always exceed your own. All you have to do is get in line with his purpose.

Encourage others.
One of the best ways to get over discouragement is to become an encouragement to someone else. Look a Sunday school teacher in the eyes and say, “Your work matters to God and is making a difference.” Do this every week.

Spend more time with hurting children.
Sometimes I forget the pain that many of these children are facing in their own lives. Take time to connect with a child who is suffering from a rocky home life.

Visit unchurched families.
Few things energize me for ministry like getting into the “rough” homes of some of our kids. Remember, only the Gospel can break the cycles of sin that destroy so many families.

Love the unlovable.
Identify the child that causes you the most stress, the one that you may have written off as a trouble maker. Then make it your personal project to love that child and become the presence of Christ in their lives. If you succeed, you will never forget it.

What about you? What are some ways you rediscover your passion for children’s ministry?

May God bless you as you serve his church and his children.

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