Effective Children's Ministry

Archive for June, 2010

A great source of tried and tested ideas is the ChildrensMinistry.com online magazine.  You can sign up for their email newsletter and get loads of helpful and relevant information.

This week they flagged up a group  game for 6-12 year olds. Octopus is fun to play, especially as when a child is “out” he is also “in”.

Here’s how it works:

What to do: Create two home bases on either end of a large play area. Choose someone to be the Octopus. Have all the other children start on one home base. Once kids leave home base, they have to get to the other base before getting tagged by the Octopus. When kids are tagged, they join hands with the Octopus. The Octopus works together to catch other kids.

Once an Octopus has six people, it breaks in two. Play until all children have been tagged.

For this and other great ideas, visit ChildrensMinistry.com

Have you discovered a helpful site with resources and ideas for children’s ministry. Why not let us know by adding a comment below?

Catherine and I have always felt that there is incalculable benefit in listening to kids and hearing about their interests, worries and joys. So it was with great interest that I read an excellent article by Wayne Stocks (aka Dad in the Middle). He  asks the question : “Does Quality Time Always Have to Be Spiritual Time?”

In his article for Ministry-to-Children.com, Wayne writes about the value of talking and listening to kids, whether or not you speak of the gospel.

• What sort of things do kids like to talk about?
• Is ordinary, “non-spiritual”  conversation of spiritual value?
• Should we always try to weave in the gospel?

In an account of a recent real-life experience, Wayne answers these questions in a practical way. If you would like to see how relationships can be built and opportunities to bring healing into young lives can be grasped, you can read Wayne’s article here.

Thanks to Iconshock.com for the great images, used with permission throughout this game.

Some of the most popular items that are downloaded from our site at the free PowerPoint review games.

Maybe it is being on our allotment garden and seeing all the wee insects and creepy crawlies that inspired this summery game.

It works in the same manner as the Burger Bar PowerPoint review game. There are two presentation files to download. Once these are saved into the same folder on your computer, you can hop between one and the other using the special ladybug button. One is the “playing board” with the insects hidden beneath the numbered cards. The other is the score board where the bugs are checked off the list.

The teams have to answer your questions to earn the right to choose a number and reveal the tiny bug below. The aim of the game is to collect one each of the 5 creatures . Easier said than done!

Don’t be put off by what appears at first to be a complex PowerPoint. Once you have opened up the file and had a “play” yourself, you will see how easy it is and how much fun it will be for your children.

If you are not used to downloading files over the internet the following steps may be helpful:

1) Make a new folder somewhere on your computer where you will be able to easily find it again. Name it, for example, “Bug_Hunt”.

2) RIGHT-click on one of the links below and when prompted, SAVE it to the folder you have just made.

3) Do the same with the other PowerPoint (.ppt)  file. Remember: You MUST have BOTH these files in the same folder for the game to work properly.

4) To view the game, open up first the file (Bug_Collecting_part1.ppt). Full instructions are on slides 3 and 4. OR, you could open the Word document and read the instructions there.

As always, if you have any problems, feel free to contact us -
contact[at]effectivechildrensministry[dot]org

Download 1.  Main Game board PowerPoint

Download 2.  Score chart PowerPoint

Remember!  You must download both the above files to be able to fully enjoy the game.

Download Instructions (Word document)

One sure way to help kids memorize bible verses is to say them out loud. An article on the Psychology Today website confirms what we have probably known all along!

They looked at people’s memory for items like a list of words. They found that if people studied the list by reading half of the words silently and the other half by saying the words out loud, that he words spoken aloud were remembered much better than those that were read silently.

There are lots of games and strategies to make out-loud repetitive learning fun. Speaking out the Word of God is a proven help to remembering.

Kathy Vincent (aka Scripture Lady) has some great ideas from making out-loud learning fun for kids.  Here is a great one. Check it out and see if you would like to use it this week with your class or club

CRAZY STAND UPs  Bible memorization from Scripture Lady

It is two months since I last ran our web address through Wordle.net. [Click the image for an enlarged version.]

Though it is really only a little bit of fun, it is always intriguing to see what themes emerge.  The larger the lettering, the more often the word is used. I have a feeling that Wordle simply look at the home page, so this image will reflect words used in the last 10 posts only.

We have come a long way since our first Wordle highlighted pizza and cake! If you would like to browse our site by a similar method, have a look at our tags, in the side bar to the right. Unlike the Wordle image, these are clickable and reflect the whole site, not only recent posts.