More than one person has said, “Our students and children are the future of the church.” That statement is true, but it’s also insufficient. Children and students are part of the church now, and we’ll lose them if we don’t minister well to them today. Here are eleven ways to strengthen your children’s ministry:
- Enlist your best workers for this ministry. Don’t allow just anyone to work with children; find your absolute best, even if it means pulling them out of adult classes.
- Train the workers well. Willingness to serve does not automatically equal ability to serve. Enlist your best, and then continually train them. Help them know how to lead children in 2015. The strategies aren’t the same as in the 1980s….
- Establish clear security protocols. The bottom line: nobody who hasn’t passed a background check should be working with minors, and wandering through your church’s children’s ministry area without clearance should be almost impossible. Take all steps necessary to protect your children.
- Upgrade your facilities for children. Provide sufficient space for them. Make sure every door has a window for security purposes. Purchase furniture that’s appropriate for children. Paint the walls bright colors. Get rid of the clutter. Make your children’s areas a place to which children want to come.
- Don’t lower the bar when teaching children. Find the best material, and teach it well. Assume your children want to learn about God. They’re probably more open to it than many of your adults are.
- Capitalize on media resources. Our children have grown up with video, computers, and the Internet. To not use strong Christian media-based resources is to miss an opportunity to teach our children well.
- Develop a church membership and beginning discipleship class for children. When children choose to follow Christ, the biblical demands on their lives aren’t different than adults. Help them get started well as new believers.
- Hang out with the children. If you’re a church staff member, your church’s children need to see you and know you apart from “big church” and the pulpit. Walk through their areas every Sunday. Talk to them. Get to know their names. Listen to their stories. Love them.
- Kneel when talking to children. Respect and love them enough to lower yourself to their eye level when speaking to them. Something’s just different when they see us face-to-face.
- If you’re a preacher, remember the children in the audience. Use illustrations that appeal to children. Call them to attention occasionally by saying something like, “Boys and girls, let me tell you a story” or “Kids, let me explain this word to you.” If your children are listening, it’s more likely your adults will be, too.
- Establish prayer partners with children. Imagine what might happen if assigned people in your church prayed weekly for every child in your ministry. Connect the generations by establishing an intentional plan to do so.
What would you add to this list?
Be sure to check out Dr. Lawless’ daily blog posts at www.chucklawless.com. Chuck Lawless currently serves as Professor of Evangelism and Missions and Dean of Graduate Studies at Southeastern Seminary. You can connect with Dr. Lawless on both Twitter and Facebook.
Posted on November 5, 2015
Dr. Chuck Lawless is a leading expert in spiritual consultation, discipleship and mentoring. As a former pastor, he understands the challenges ministry presents and works with Church Answers to provide advice and counsel for church leaders.
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45 Comments
Encourage and support volunteers working with children. Pray with the volunteers and let them know what an important ministry they are working in. Children are our future, there is no more important ministry!
Thanks, Debbie. Encouraging volunteers is critical.
what about a children’s worship service once a week? Would this work? Also as a Pastor in a SBC how would one go about convincing a church stuck in the early 1980’s?
Good questions, John. I’d refer you to other posts on this site about revitalizing churches.
Don’t forget about the children with special needs, i.e. autism, intellectually disabled. Many families aren’t able to attend church because there is no place for their children with special needs and no resources, i.e. volunteers who happen to be behavior therapist or who have experience working with kids with special needs.
Good point, Jessica. Thanks.
We need to pay VERY close attention to the curriculum used to teach children. Honestly, the majority of children’s curriculums are abysmal and, in an attempt to make the Bible accessible to children, end up teaching messages other than what the passages they cite are actually about. Often the curriculums will teach true things, but do so by reading their own child-friendly messages into the bible passages. The result is that children learn to read the Bible badly.
Teaching children to read the Bible faithfully and submit to its message is incredibly important. So, we need to be vigilant in teaching children to read and understand the message of Scripture faithfully.
Thanks for the thoughts, Michael.
Music represents the heart and soul of church worship. Our society and culture is way behind in music as a core element to education. Churches should be the standard bearers in this area. Music Ministers and Worship Directors should be dedicated and willing to establish strong Children’s Music Ministries in their churches in conjuction with any youth ministries already in place. If this is left optional in any Church culture, the long term effects will be deeply felt. For every adult music ministry oppurtunity present, there should be a corresponding oppurtunity for the younger generation. The most vibrant churches have this ideal at the core of their mission.
Thanks, Anthony, for this perspective.
1st and foremost teach your teachers to pray. Teach them to pray before preparing their lesson. Teach them to pray before class begins. Teach them to pray with their children before the lesson begins. Teach them to pray with their children during class. Teach them to pray at the end of each class. And, more – teach them to teach their students to pray for without prayer there is no salvation.
Not to be argumentative – your 11 points are well received; but, I believe God’s program involves teaching from the Bible. Of course, the preparedness of teachers should be of primary concern. If teachers are to be an instrument of writing God’s law upon their students’ minds for the Spirit to inscribe upon their hearts, the teacher must possess an accurate understanding of divine truth. Children will see through experimental connections with the truth of the gospel. Love in the heart is made true when it is accompanied by light in the mind. Teachers need to know the Bible and all of its primary doctrines. Nevertheless, it will be by the power of the Holy Spirit that God’s Word will have an impact on the children’s lives.
Also, it is critically important that teachers be timely and consistent. Instability, especially for young children, is cruel. Teachers must demonstrate familial ties. Family is an extremely important biblical principle. Family members take care of one another. Physical families are a building block that can be nurtured and protected through inference when students are exposed to the same teacher week after week. According to a child development theory known as the “Attachment Theory” child-parent relationships are foundational for the children’s later, social, emotional, and school functioning. Inconsistency is linked to insecurity. The key principle of attachment theory is that dependence leads to independence. As the child gains confidence in his teacher’s availability he becomes more teachable.
You are right – the next generation is in our care – may God grant us the grace to serve them well.
I agree that the Bible must be primary, Steve. Thanks.
If you want to strengthen your church’s children’s ministry, you can’t *always* have the best people in that ministry, esp in a small church. If they are always in it, they may burn out… particularly *because* they’ve been pulled out of adult Sunday school classes where they are fed and nourished. That’s what simultaneously happened to both me and a co-teacher who is overloaded with her normal teaching job. Even when we were (and still are) scrambling to find a teacher for the youngest SS class, my husband-pastor had to pull me out of teaching the kids because he knew I desperately needed to have interaction with adults. (I homeschool our young only child, so I need adult interaction on Sundays.) By taking care of the teacher, you indirectly take care of the children. Same goes for the shepherd and the flock, by the way.
Thanks, R, for your thoughts.
Let them have their special day in a month to serve in the main church in order to gain courage. Encouraging them to have and read their Bibles
Blessings, Kabugo.
I would also add make sure workers are there and on time. Don’t let this slide, this has be a priority. We can often be too generous with our workers because it so hard to staff nurseries but when the workers are not there or on time it really makes parents feel uneasy and can be bad first impression to new families. Don’t put kids together of the wrong age group. There is a big difference between 1 year olds and 3 year olds. When a 1 year and 3 year old are fighting for toys it’s real easy for the smaller ones to get picked on even with adult supervision. Have pastoral leadership – they don’t need to micromanage but lack of oversight leads to lack of healthy accountability and sometime pastors can help recruit or emphasize the importance of children’s ministry that can speak more powerfully than just the desperate pleas of children’s workers .
One of the values I learned when I worked at LifeWay was “Create True Heroes.” We worked hard to lift up pastors, equip Sunday School teachers, and celebrate stories we heard of churches making a difference. Now that I’ve left LifeWay and am serving a church, I’ve tried to apply those principles here. I do my best to celebrate our volunteers, and to remind my education team that each of us needs to be the “biggest fan” of the age group that follows ours. In other words, our preschool minister is the children’s ministry’s biggest fan; the children’s minister is the student ministry’s biggest fan, and the student minister is the adult ministry’s biggest fan. And the adult education minister? I’m the biggest fan of the preschool, because that’s where it all starts. We will never get a second chance to make a first impression with a young family.
Good thoughts, James. Thanks.
I would also add make sure workers are there and on time. Don’t let this slide, this has be priority. We can often be too generous with our workers because it so hard to staff nurseries but when the workers are not there or on time it really makes parents feel uneasy and can be bad first impression to new families. Have don’t put kids together of the wrong age group. There is a big difference between 1 year olds and 3 year olds. When a 1 year and 3 year old are fighting for toys it’s real easy for the smaller ones to get picked on even with adult supervision. Have pastoral leadership – they don’t need to micromanage but lack oversight leads to lack of healthy accountability and sometime pastors can help recruit or emphasize the importance of children’s ministry that can speak more powerfully than just the desperate pleas of children’s workers .
Thanks, John.
I would add:
Send the real clergy (I mean the most senior minister) in periodically to teach the children’s class. I grew up in a church and was there almost every Sunday. When visiting my grandmother, I would go with her. I never once saw a minister go in a children’s class even to visit or even attempt to address the children in a sermon. After a while as a kid, I thought the minister either did not know how to teach the faith, did not care about the children, or did not have the guts to tell the adults that he would be in the children’s class on one Sunday. However, most ministers acted like politicians shaking hands at the door after church. Kids know how politicians act and once they realize that the clergy are very similar to politicians and seem to not have any concern for them, they lose their respect for clergy, church management who controls the minister, and the adults who keep the minister teaching their class and likely don’t regain it.
Look, I had Jewish friends growing up attending temples where people who knew Hebrew taught it as well as Sunday school. However, the rabbi and/or cantor taught people individually before their bar mitzvah. I heard about that and was jealous that they were able to get one-on-one time with real clergy.
Good thoughts, Mark. Thanks!
greetings to you in the name of jesus,good jobs in the lord jesus
I would add that the children should be taken outside the classroom once in a while. Sitting on the grass and using natural resources to teach would make learning interesting.
it is important but in the times when the place is not good for every one some times when the child has health problems but its really nice and I support it thanks for the mininstry
Great.