What is the driving force of your kids ministry on Sunday mornings, Wednesday nights, and any time you meet the kids that attend your church?
On Sundays, my wife and I serve in our church’s kids ministry. Every month, all large group hosts from every service at my church gather together with our kids pastor, and we plan the next month of kids ministry large group. While we do spend time reading through scripts and brainstorming fun activities, we always cast a vision that communicating the gospel is our ultimate goal every single Sunday. While it might be easy to teach a moral or a behavior modification, we need to always be pointing these kids to the source of life-transformation, Jesus Christ.
Here are three tips to help always use the gospel in every area of your kids ministry:
- Evaluate your ministry. As early as this Wednesday or Sunday, ask yourself, “How are we doing?” Take a look at all aspects of your programming (small groups, large groups, kid’s church, etc), and truly evaluate how clearly the gospel is presented. If you find the gospel is not clearly presented, make a goal to have a plan of action to improve by the next time you meet with your kids.
- Cast vision with your volunteers. Like my kids pastor does with our large group volunteer team, meet with your leaders and clearly cast the vision for your kids ministry to focus on the gospel. Show your volunteers ways how to incorporate the gospel into every activity, game, and teaching time. For some of your volunteers, it might be the first time they have shared the gospel, so encourage them and equip them to clearly communicate the gospel with kids. This “meeting” could look like a lunch, or could simply be a short meeting before your normally scheduled time.
- Find resources to help. You are not alone! There are tons of great resources out there to help share the gospel with kids. If your curriculum is missing the gospel in favor of teaching them a good moral, find a curriculum that clearly points kids to Jesus. One easy resource we recommend is “The Gospel: God’s Plan for Me.” We love how clearly it presents the gospel on a kids level. (In fact, this is exactly how I phrase the gospel when I’m teaching the kids in large group at my church.)
If you are lucky, you have the kids in your ministry maybe an hour or two each week. If that’s the case, at most, you will have only 52 hours (or less!) of their attention for an entire year. How much of that time will you spend sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ this year?
