Effective Children's Ministry

Archive for the ‘Quick Tips’ Category

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

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?

We once had a few kids round to our flat. Our living room was a tight fit with 8 childrens and two of us adults. But we had great fun with an Olympic games afternoon. We played:
“Discus” – who could flick their tiddly-wink the furthest?
“Bowls” – we used marbles
“Shot putt” – throwing bean bag into a bucket
“Relays” – were “run” by scuttling across the carpet on bottoms!
“Javelin” – baby buds are safe and can be thrown a remarkable distance!

We added our own games like fuzzy darts and “connect four”.

After the games we had an indoor picnic, followed by singing and a Bible lesson with plenty of visuals. Finally a quiz review game.

It was a very pleasant and memorable afternoon and evening that built strong relationships with the children.