How do you teach your children in your ministry about missions? It seems that with the current “drop-out” rate of youth in the church, it is now more important than ever to cultivate a love for the gospel with our children. I try to discuss a significant missionary every now and then when discussion allows, but must confess that right now I am not intentionally teaching about missions work.
I know that there are quality missions curriculums available. Truth be told, I have found that simply reading a biography of a missionary is best for me as I will have more information to disperse at various times than if I were to “go by the book.” What do you think? How have you, if you have at all, been intentionally teaching about missions? What works best for you? Who do you highlight?
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Terry,
How have you, if you have at all, been intentionally teaching about missions? What works best for you? Who do you highlight?
We intentionally teach our kids about missions by still doing RAs, GAs, and Mission Friends (for preschoolers) on Wednesday nights. We also do AWANA on Sunday nights. Wednesday nights work for us because I have an RA, Ga, and MF director who are very committed and do a great job at enlisting their workers and helpers.
In addition to teaching the kids about missions, we do a lot of same sex bonding. Our RAs have father/son campouts twice a year that are very well attended. Plus, they go see a NASCAR race as well. The GAs have Mother/Daughter tea banquets and both attempt to teach their respective genders how young Christian men and women should behave.
It’s also beneficial to get as many real life missionaries in to speak to them as possible.
Charlie,
I am not familiar with RAs, GAs, or Mission Friends. What type of programs are they?
Thanks!
I’ve been thinking about this a lot this summer. For those of us who are not going to do the traditional Baptist classes, especially urban church plants, we need to rethink building missions (especially international missions) into the lifeblood of our families.
I’m thinking about developing a program that runs like a Library Hour done at the local public libraries but instead have the focus be missions: a 10 minute missions video clip, read a book aloud to the kids, sometimes have missionaries tell stories, use beach-ball type globes to play games and pray for the world. Intended audience would be preschool-aged kids and their stay-at-home parents.
Anyone seen this done? Any other ideas?
Terry,
I’ve also found good biographies to be most inspiring and instructive, and suspect many if not most kids would, too (my daughter has). Interestingly, missions has been our children’s ministry focus over the summer months; we’ve had teaching from our children’s pastor as well as a few missionary/conversion testimonies.
Kristin, those programs have been around in Baptist churches for a long time, though they may be seen more rarely these days. Royal Ambassadors and Girls in Action are missions education organizations.
Hello eveyone. I have a GREAT program that gets kids really excited about missions. It’s free and can involve the whole congregation or just children’s church. It does not require any budget funds and has had a profound effect on not only the children in a congregation, but the adults as well. The name of the program is Change 4 Children. Check it out on our web site. http://www.childreneverywhere.org or write me at holly@childreneverywhere.org.
Directing our children hearts towards God is what we are all trying to do, let’s share ideas.
For the children,
holly
We do a missions project in our childrens church once a quarter. Usually, we alternate between “small” projects, those that can be done on one Sunday, and “big” projects, which take longer. A typical small project would be making cards to send to missionaries we have already learned about.
One of my favorite projects was when a Christian group in Sudan was taking up blankest to give to the war refugees, each of our kids used fabric markers and a flannel square to make a patch for a quilt that we sent. Another time we went through samartianspurse.org to adopt an orphan in East Europe for Christmas. We had the name and photo of our eight year old, along with a list of items we could send – toothbrush, crayons, socks – each kid signed up for one, and everyone contributed a couple of dollars to go toward buying a coat.
These are all small things that the kids can do, but they serve as both an encouragement to the missionaries, as well as making kids aware of missions by getting them actively involved.
correcton: the website was littlesamaritan.org, not samaritanspurse.org, although that one is pretty good too
Do you know of any missionary biographies/testimonies that you have used to read to your kids? Ones that the kids really loved?
I’m also particularly interested in missionary resources- if anyone knows any aimed at young children (picture books or rhyming books.) YWAM puts out some chapter books aimed at (I think) upper elementary/middle school kids. They also put out at least a few aimed at the younger children, but I haven’t used them with my kids. Besides that, I don’t know any really good missionary stuff for kids.
The Trailblazer series by Dave and Neta Jackson is pretty good for kids age 8-12. They’re fictional stories about kids that interact with real missionaries. For example, Amy Carmichael’s story was told from the point of view of the son of a British official in India.
A good website is worldteam.org. Click on resources and you can print off their Great Commission Kids newsletter. It’s printed quarterly, and has both missionary stories and activities.
Here are a few missionary biographies I’ve either read and liked or know of and think would be good: “Through Gates of Splendor” by Elisabeth Elliot; “Jim Elliot: He is No Fool” by Irene Howat; two books by John Piper, “The Hidden Smile of God” (with its section on the life of David Brainerd) and “Filling up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing the Gospel to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton”; “On His Majesty’s Service: Helen Roseveare” by Irene Howat; “Gladys Alward, the Little Woman” by Gladys Alward and “The Small Woman” by Alan Burgess. Some of these books can be paraphrased for younger children. There is also a good animated video series called Torchlighters featuring the stories of Jim Elliot, Gladys Alward, and others that we have enjoyed (http://tinyurl.com/mdfd66) A comprehensive list of missionary histories/biographies would be just the thing, I think!
I am the Missions/Multicultural Ministries Coordinator in our church and teach our children about a different aspect of missions work on the 1st SUnday of every month. I’ve used a lot of different ideas–some for other people, some directly from God, some from emails. Here are a couple of ideas:
1. M&M Praying. I got this idea from Kids World Network of Prayer. I use a cloth world map (you can buy it at Wal-Mart, Joanne’s Fabric, etc.). It just so happens that M&Ms colors and the country colors on the map are the same! Is that God or what???! Anyway, I have all the kids gather around the map on the floor, then give them 3-5 M&Ms AFTER I explain what we’re going to do. They’re told to match their candies to any countries on the map and to remember where they place their candies b/c they’re going to pray for those countries. Sometimes, we pray for specific needs relating to children, families, missionaries, persecution, spreading the Gospel, etc. They are give the specific need to pray for. We pray aloud together. After prayer, they get to eat the candies. Kids love this activity!
2. I bring in a world globe and talk about a certain country and missions topic for a couple of minutes. Then all the kids gather around and we place our hands on the globe and pray together.
3. I bought a bouncy ball at Wal-Mart and wrote a variety of things on it: We’re happy you came today!; Smiley faces (we call our Sunday school SMILE–Sunday Morning Interactive Learning Experience); Pastor So-and-so’s orphanage in Country; AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe; etc., then draw shapes around each topic. The kids stand in a circle and toss the ball back and forth. Whenever I say stop, we pray for whatever need is under the child’s right hand. If it’s a SMILE, we praise the Lord; if it’s a need, we pray for the need together; etc.
I’ve been doing things with our kids for 3-4 years so it’s hard to recall all I’ve done. I’ve repeated the activities that went over the best, of course! I use a lot of world maps, pictures from National Geographic (every missions director should subscribe to this!!!), I search the web, I pray for ideas. I’ve used candy and objects I’ve purchased from missionaries as prizes when kids can recall what we talked about a month ago. Many times they’ll bring up things we talked about 6 months ago. And I thought they were daydreaming! Talking about missions and praying for missionaries, other countries, etc., works. Several kids in our church have already felt the call to be missionaries when they grow up. I really push the concept that they are already missionaries; they just have to go out and act like one–invite their friends, family, neighbors to SMILE; offer to pray for people’s needs, tell someone about Jesus, etc.
I know this is lengthy, but maybe it will help someone.
Kimberly,
Thanks for sharing these ideas – some really great tips!
Something I have done with 2 to 5 year olds is purchase very cheap knapsacks. Each child is given one and together as a group we pack the knapsack with things that missionaries need, such as: water bottles, small tubes of toothpaste, fishy crackers, clothing, dishes (Dollar store) and of course, a Bible. I purchased a small Bible for under $2.00 from our local Christian bookstore.
I homeschool and use Sonlight Curriculum which includes lots of wonderful missionary biographies. My kids have loved all the biographies written by Geoff and Janet Benge as well as the Rani series by Ron Snell.
In our church I run a children’s reading program in conjunction with the church library directly before our annual mission conference. I pick a theme each year: one year we did Time Travel and they had to read stories about missionaries from the time of the apostles through the centuries to the 21st century. They get prizes for their achievements and this helps keep them motivated and reading.
We have done a few of the Torchlighter series movies on missionaries in our beginning of a missions emphasis. The kids really enjoy them but they can get a little scary for kids. The kids really loved the one about Eric Liddell. We are going to invite a few current missionaries in this summer and also put pictures up of current in the field and past missionaries that are well known. We are also going to do the Rice Bowls campaign which you can learn more about at ricebowls.com, I believe.
all these ideas are great! I am so excited!
Don’t forget the Johnstone’s books for children! There are 2 volumes. They have a story about children from all over the world – unreached mainly – and have specific prayer points you can then pray over for children in that country. I found one on Amazon in the used section: http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Change-World-Learning/dp/0310205654