Effective Children's Ministry

Archive for February, 2010

Glasses, water and shredded paper can teach a musical lesson. 

Ken Sapp over at CreativeYouthMinistries has blogged about how to help the kids can make a Do-It-Yourself xylophone and even play tunes. 

Taking it one step further, Ken suggests substituting the water in one glass with shredded paper, and a spiritual lesson can be illustrated – living in harmony, being a blessing to others and the need for God in our lives.

Full details, and tons more great ideas, are over at  Ken’s blog:

Creative Youth Ministries

We supply the cakes and slices of pizza for you to download – sorry, they are printable but not eatable!

It’s easy to make

Print and cut out the goodies and laminate them or cover them with clear plastic. We recommend such protection because the kids love playing this game and months from now you will still have it looking as good as new.

Now make 2 round circles (“plates”) out of card, big enough to hold the pizza on one and cakes on the other.  Laminate these also. This provides a durable surface on which to attach the food items with Blu-Tac, Poster Putty or some other removable adhesive. You could also use shop-bought paper plates; some are very suitable because they have a laminated coating.

Mount the pizza onto one plate and the cakes onto the other. Then attach the loaded plates vertically to a board, so the children can enjoy seeing the progress of the game.

It’s fun to play

The team which answers the first Bible question chooses to “eat” the pizza or the cakes!  Each time a question is answered correctly ONE piece is removed from their plate.
The first team to clear their plate is the winner.

Although this is a very simple quiz it is ideal when time is short, e.g. when doing class-to-class visits in a school.  It is attractive, and appeals to kids of all ages.

To download the PDF, RIGHT-CLICK on the link below and save it to your computer hard drive.

The Pizza and Cake Review Game can be downloaded here.

We have already highlighted the great list of resources at Dad in the Middle, the blog of children’s minister Wayne Stocks.

Now he has uploaded his Monthly review for January and it’s a real bumper bundle!  To give you  the flavour of what Wayne has gathered this month in his “Children’s Ministry Blog Patrol” here is his table of contents:

• Practical Teaching Tips and Advice
• General Ministry Issues
• Leaders and Leadership
• Orange Week
• Volunteers
• Kids & Theology
• Kids & Christ
• Cultural Trends
• Resources (Music, Conferences, Internet Sites, Books, Games)
• Curriculum and Object Lessons
• Family Ministry
• Parenting and Marriage Issues
• Just For Fun

For those of us with limited time he has even highlighted the “must-reads”. 

It’s well organized and clear, so you can find your way to the items that most interest you. Enjoy the feast of good things!

We now have a Twitter page, so if you would like to be updated of new posts here at the blog, and maybe some news about kids’ ministry generally, you can follow us there.

Catherine and I have always tried to improve our communication skills. One way to open ourselves up to learn more about this topic is to see how professional communicators think and work.

Nora Reed, in a blog post for professional logo designers, asks the question:

Is your logo design capable of making your customers SMILE? 
Simple
Memorable
Inviting
Limited in references
Exciting

What better goal could we have with the kids (or indeed teens or adults) we teach?

• Simple: one or at the most two teaching points clearly explained and repeated in different ways
• Memorable: using illustrations that make the link from what they know to what we hope they will learn; having physical activities and worksheets that reinforce the main teaching point of the lesson;  using music to sing the truths into their memories and hearts; modelling in our own lives the truths we want them to remember
• Inviting: a warm, caring, environment with fun, that draws them back week after week; where discipline is fair and every child has a chance to enjoy the class or meeting without hindrance; where they are known and welcomed by name.
• Limited in references: for the advertiser that meant not copying or echoing too many other products. That could confuse the customer and sully the uniqueness of the branding.
  For us it could simply mean what it says – not bamboozling our kids by referring to too many Bible references in one lesson. It’s okay to paraphrase now and again, in language the children understand. Of course, we always make it plain that the Bible is our source. As points 1 and 2 say, we want to be simple and memorable.
• Exciting: no need to spell out that one. If we are excited and enthusiastic, that will communicate to the kids. If we are fresh, varied and even unpredictable in our programme, that will excite them too.

There are many ways to make our children SMILE.  This is just  my first reaction to seeing  Nora’s tip for good communication. What would you like to add to the list?