EmailChallenge – Problem – Headache - whatever you call them, we all have struggles in children’s ministry.
I Need Your Help
I’m writing a special report (maybe book) and need some help shaping its contents. My plan is to address the major problems that we’ve all experienced in children’s ministry and then offer practical help. I have some ideas in mind, but I realize my #1 challenge might be different than yours.
So, I want to hear from you. Just leave a comment below and let me know what ministry roadblocks you’ve encountered. Thanks in advance for your help!
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My biggest challenge as a teacher is finding meaningful material that builds on a foundation of biblical themes instead of skipping all over at random. My kindergarteners need context to understand the stories, and many curriculums don’t teach any context. Secondly, we also lack any sort of leadership beyond the practical aspects. We have a person that orders material, recruits teachers, and purchases supplies, but we have no meetings, no training, etc. I literally don’t know who I report to from a standpoint of knowing my place as a teacher in the larger context of how we do children’s ministry (if anyone has articulated this at all), and I don’t know who to run my ideas by. Thirdly, I was taught (throughout my childhood and at a Christian college) to view the Bible as one big story, but many, many Christians have not. If I am not the one preparing the lesson, I never know quite what another teacher will say, and I’ve heard plenty of well-intentioned wrong information make its way into Bible stories. Sometimes the facts of the story aren’t right, sometimes they read things into the story that just don’t seem to be there, and sometimes they avoid uncomfortable details because they don’t know how to make things age-appropriate (our curriculum contributes to this–we are scheduled to teach on the resurrection, but I believe it’s missing information about Jesus’ death, and the story of Cain and Abel conveniently leaves out their sacrifices and Cain murdering Abel!). Fourthly, many people have low expectations of the children, whether it be their behavior, their comprehension, their interest, or their ability to memorize verses. Thankfully, I have a co-teacher who shares some of these frustrations and is willing to let me try anything! My experience teaching has been much better because of her.
Dear Tony,
I appreciate your website a great deal. Thank you! I especially appreciate the guidance given to children ministry leaders. This is an area of ministry all by itself! I am so blessed by what you are doing.
I come from a church in Singapore and we have a congregation of 120-200. We have about 40-50 children in our ministry ranging from 3-12 years-old. We run 2 classes on Sunday, one for the 3-6 years-old and one for the 7-12 years-old. The challenge we face in our ministry is how to train the volunteers. We are blessed to recruit teachers who are committed and teach on a once-a-month basis so I have a team of 8 teachers. The rest of the team is made up of Assistant Teachers (AT) who need not prepare lessons but show up on the day to help with logistical set-up and classroom management. The assistants for the older class do facilitate a group during discussion time with the aid of discussion questions, an answer sheet and some practical examples. It is my desire to grow the ATs spiritually as well as in their roles as ATs. These ATs are usually young in the Lord, people we have roped in to serve because it is our belief that service to the Lord begins even when you are young. Being in service is one of the best ways for one to grow because one is involved in things of God. Also, being in a ministry connects them to a group who share a similar interest in working with children and a common purpose. Young christians need to know they have a purpose in Christ, in the church and that they can contribute. The challenge now remains -how to find time to train this pool of people. They are committed to serve once a month and that’s already a great commitment. Some do not see the need for further training or they simply can’t make the time for it because of work and family commitments (many of our volunteers are also singles who are building careers and mums with young children). We all know that even as we prepare bible lessons and figure out how to deliver them, we have to first digest these lessons and apply them. As teachers, we grow and learn while we are teaching: the same bible is taught to the 2 yr-old as it is to an 80 yr-old person. The very lesson we are preparing can be used by God to minister to us. So I want to grow the ATs into teachers, for their own sakes as well as for the ministry. How can I help to see this happen?
By the way, we purchase our curriculum for the younger class (3-6 year-olds) from Danielle’s Place (www.daniellesplace.com). Subscription is really cheap , USD 20 + I think, for a group membership for a year and all materials are available online so our teachers access the website from home. Makes it easier for substitute teachers to retrieve materials at the last minute too. Lessons are simple, usually presented through drama, story telling using simple props and home made puppets. Lots of craft, songs and games suited for really young ones.
To whom much is given, much is required. As children ministers we have been blessed with so much to have someathing to give. Being in children’s ministry allows you to see just how blessed we are. It would be an ideal situation to have the people, space, supplies and cooperation in dream world for minstry but the reality of it is is that “it is what it is”. I minister at an extremely small church; old, small building, fixed income members, no electronics, a Wal Mart speaker system and on and on. But the fact of the minisstry is kids come, broken kids. On to the biggest issues I face in ministry are ADHD children, learning disabled children, and children who are split between parents on weekends. Being the only youth minister, trying to meet the challenges of the ADHD kids while sharing Jesus with those who know the purpose, having materials for the learning disabled and continuing your series with the kids who only get to come two Sundays out of a month…..I stand on the Word of God that says He will never put more on us than we are able to bear and depend on increased faith to meet the needs.
well, i’ve only got twenty years of living experience under my belt and now our children’s ministry leaders at our church are stepping down. I have been picked to take over! I have volunteers every night.. but they stand in the back of the room while two or maybe three of us on a good night handle all of the 30+ kids we have come on wed. nights. It’s frustating to me. I am probably a good 15 yrs. younger than my volunteers.. how i do i ask them to actually help when they come instead of sitting in the back and talking? And make it sound respectful but still let them know that i am serious? I need help and they are there.. just not doing anything. :(
I would ditto most of the above but right now I would say my biggest frustration would be lack of commitment by many (not all) teachers. You can certainly tell who is simply giving and hour on Sundays or Wednesdays and very little else. I am trying to lead by example, giving them tools that are easy but effective, offering encouragement and ideas, etc. But if the commitment is not there – hmmm? I would love to say I have people waiting in the wings to help out but that is not the case so sometimes a caring person for Sunday mornings is better than an empty seat?
Yes, and yes to all of the above! The most aggravating problem I have is parents taking their children out of my class to play sports at school. (I do the wednesday night kids class). There is either a practice or a game. And of course, there is baseball, basket ball, football, judo, karate, and on and on. One week I have a room full, and the next week, only a few kids. I have asked the parents to please let me know ahead of time if they are not going to be there, but seldom do I get that respect. I plan a lesson and include a game with teams, and then there are not enough kids to do it. I was brought up with Bible basics–put God first, have no other gods before me, forsake not the assembling of yourselve together, we are members of the body and need each other, etc. All these doctines are just basics to me, and yet, these days it seems like the things of the world are more important than worshiping God and learning His word and fellowship with our brothers. Are sports important for fun and excercise? Sure they are, but when they come before God, something is wrong with our priorities. I don’t believe this is legalistic, just putting the Almighty God number 1. We are not to love anything more than Him. We are to crucify our flesh and not conform to the patterns of the world. Take a stand about practice and games being on Wednesday (or whatever night your service is on) and, although it is hard, pull your child out if they refuse to change nights. Hard? Sure it is. But when you put this up against Daniel and the 3 Hebrew boys, uhhhh–get it? How can you teach these stories and talk about standing up for the Lord and you can’t even give up a game? Take up your cross and follow me is still in the Bible. We are such a spoiled generation that we whine about the most pathetic things and there really are people giving their lives for the Gospel in other parts of the world today. Shame on us! Yes, you are right about leadership. Watchman on the wall–Blow the Trumpet–Warn the people.
Although volunteer recruiting can be a big challenge, our #1 challenge is getting parents to be spiritually engaged with their childen (Dt. 6). We have made several adjustments in our Sunday ministries, but many parents are only marginally involved in the spiritual development of their children. We have adopted a “family” approach this year. It will take a number of years to change the culture of our church. Thanks.
Our church might be small in numbers but we have approx 17 children attending on a weekly basis. Our main struggle is that there is nowhere for the kids to meet & have Sunday School within the building we are using :( Many of these children are bored, running around making a noise. I am going to put together an activity pack each week that includes puzzles, coloring in etc, where the children will have to bring their bible to look up their answers. At the end of the night if they complete everything in their activity pack, they can choose a prize from the reward box. Does anyon else have any ideas on amusing children during a sermon? Gone are the days where the parents provide anything :(
I share the views raised so far. In our ss, we also have the issue of limited volunteers bcos of that I find it very difficult to miss out on a sunday, since my work is demanding, it really takes a toll. I never get to listen to the sermon at church and we the teachers miss a lot. The difficult thing about it is that, no one seem to care to create a system to enable us ss teachers fill in on what we miss at church. I fill that in by using the kids lessons as my sermon but I would love to hear others. One other challenge I face comes from parents. Even some of those who are christians seem to think ss is just for convenience ( to allow them have a children-free church service ) and they chose when their children come to ss. Oh boy, they don’t seem to realise that these kids are souls just like them hence the inconsistency in ss attendance. It really is a bother.
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