Effective Children's Ministry

Posts Tagged ‘Teaching’

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!

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?

Would you like to have the pick of the kids’ ministry – from all over the web – in one place…everyweek?

If the answer is yes, then you will love the weekly roundup at Ministry-to-Children.com.

With news, comment and practical help sources from the many excellent children’s ministry sites online, there is bound to be something to inspire and help you.

Onca again, here is that link to the This Week in Children’s Ministry for 1/20/2010

• Can the Bible be trusted?
• What reason is there to believe that the Bible is inspired by God?
• Has anything the Bible predicted ever come true?
• What does it say about the world today and the future?
• What difference has this Book made to people in real-life situations today?

 These questions are answered in the first part of our PowerPoint presentation The Bible, God and Us.
Eventually this entire presentation series will be available for free download. But for today we have ready the first of two parts about the Bible. We hope that the second part will follow in a few days.

The Bible: Part 1 covers three reasons why we know that the Bible is inspired by God.

• The unity of the authors
• The accuracy of its historical record, its scientific statements and its translation
• The prophecies that have been and are being fulfilled.

Free powerPoint Presentation

Ready for download are:
50 PowerPoint slides (in two batches). These are clear, colourful and attractive slides in PowerPoint Show format. This is a self-running program which will open when you click the file on your computer, and run even if you do not have PowerPoint installed.

Presenter’s notes with clearly marked cues so you will know when to advance the presentation. You will need to print these out before hand, as the PowerPoint show will fill your screen.

Extra notes about:

• Archaeology and the Bible
• Messianic prophecies fulfilled
• Prophecy And Probability

There is enough material in today’s downloads to take several sessions with your kids or youth. But there’s no need to confine it to them! Many adults have benefitted from this series, both for their own information and also as a help in telling others why they believe what they do.

Now to the downloads.

Right-Click on the link and download to your computer. We have broken the slides for Bible Part 1 into two downloads to make it easier for you to successfully capture the whole lot.

If you have any problesm whatsoever in downloading or opening these files, please get in touch with us and we’ll help you all we can.  Just hit the Contact tab on the top menu for our info.

Bible Part 1A PowerPoint slides

Bible Part 1B PowerPoint slides

Presenter’s notes (Printable PDF)

**UPDATE** Part 2 of this section is now available . CLICK HERE.

How do we tell Bible stories without giving kids the false impression that the stories are as imaginary as other stories they are familiar with? How do we convey to them that the men and women in the Bible are not imaginary super-heroes?

Catherine and I have always taken time to state clearly that we believe the Bible story we are about to tell really did happen.  We also took time in our curriculum/schedule to teach the reason why we know the Bible is true; why we can be sure that it is God’s message to us and not just the thoughts of men. This need not be tedious or dry and it can be done as a “spot” in the class/meeting over a number of weeks.

Here are a few more thoughts.
1. We should always preface the lesson by saying “We know this really happened, because it is in the Bible and the Bible is true” (unless you are teaching a parable and then you can say, “This is a story that Jesus told .”

2. We should use our imagination in recounting a Bible story, to dramatize it and make it relevant to the lives of our children. But we need to preface the “imagined” details with something like: “We can well imagine that ……” or, “We can’t be sure what happened then, but I expect……”.

3. When telling a fictional story we should always say that it is “pretend” or “made-up” or “imagined”. There is no harm in telling such a story to illustrate a Bible truth. But after we have finished, we must be sure to add something like: “Well, that story about X and Y was a pretend one, but there is something in it that is absolutely true!” And then re-emphasise the biblical theme that the story illustrated.

4. We need to make it clear that miracles are not magic, nor are they illusions like entertainers can do. They are the power of God at work – real answers to real problems in real lives.

5. We can use elements of our own personal story, or that of a helper, or someone else the kids know, to illustrate the lesson. Doing that anchors the truth to real-life and shows that what “worked” for the Bible people “works” for us. It shows that we have trusted in the Bible as God’s message and guide for us and proved it to be true.

7. Point out the flaws in the character and actions of the people in the Bible lesson. That is proof that this book is inspired by the God who sees all, and not a make-believe story about super-heroes.

8. If we have a Bible prominently displayed, and if we handle it carefully and reverently, the kids will pick up that this is a very special book, not like any ordinary story book.

9. If we continually live out in our own lives the truths that we are teaching, that adds credibility to what we are teaching from the Bible.

In all these varied ways we will build up an attitude in our children of reverence and trust in God’s Word.

I was prompted to post on this subject because of a forum thread over at Ministry-to-Children.com

It also gave us the impetus to upload some PowerPoint material on this very subject. So watch out for it coming in the next day or two!

Thanks to  julosstock for the image.