Kids Ministry

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Encouragement, Encouraging, Kids Ministry

Dust Storms, Pandemics, and Kids Ministry

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Growing up on the South Plains of West Texas, I always knew that March and April would bring high winds and lots of dust in the air. My mother still lives in my hometown and claims the dust storms clear the air—that once the gritty dirt settles, the air is fresh and clean.

Pandemics, I’m beginning to sense, are like dust storms in some ways. When you’re in the middle of them, you can’t see past the end of your nose. However, once the dust settles, kids ministry may be fresh with a sense of newness. Nonetheless, we’re still in the midst of the COVID-19 storm, so what can we do now to prepare for the clear skies that are sure to follow?

  1. Focus on your relationship with God. Now is definitely not the time to slack off reading and studying God’s Word, as well as spending time with God in prayer. Once the storm passes, we’ll need to be prepared for what’s next in kids ministry. Neglecting personal discipleship now will hinder our future ability to be in tune with God’s will.
  2. Take care of your physical and mental health. When you purchase a pre-owned vehicle in West Texas, look under the hood. If you see a lot of dust, you know that the car may not have been maintained properly. If we don’t take care of ourselves now, we may discover we have neither the strength nor energy to lead a vibrant kids ministry.
  3. Stay in contact with families. Families are hurting and grieving loss. They need ministry, now. If we wait until the dust settles to ramp up individual and corporate communication with families, we may send the unintended message that we care about them only when they show up in-person.
  4. Redefine ministry success. We may not want to admit this, but we often measure success by the number of kids in attendance. A post-pandemic kids ministry may appear smaller; however, that doesn’t mean God is not using you still to reach, teach, and minister to kids and their families.
  5. Clean up your ministry calendar. Perhaps for the first time in your ministry, you have the opportunity to start over. The pressure to keep a program alive will be lessened in a post-COVID world. Focus on what is important and build your ministry calendar from there. 

Anytime I think about moving back to the home of my youth, I quickly remember the taste and smell of blowing sand between my teeth and in my nostrils. I also think about the fresh air and beautiful sunsets made possible by the dust. There is no doubt that the current pandemic and the suffering it is causing is serious and painful. However, let’s not dwell on and complain about the storm. Instead, let’s look forward to a kids ministry that is fresh and focused.

_________________________

Landry Holmes is the Manager of Lifeway Kids Ongoing Bible Studies and Network Partnerships, Nashville, TN, and is a graduate of Howard Payne University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The author of It’s Worth It: Uncovering How One Week Can Transform Your Church and a general editor of the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary for Kids, Landry is a church leader, writer, workshop facilitator, and publisher. He teaches kids at his church in Middle Tennessee, where his wife Janetta is the Preschool Minister. They enjoy spending time with their two adult sons and their wives, and spoiling their five grandchildren.

Encouragement, Encouraging, Family, Kids Ministry

Who Does God Want to Be for You?

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By Sarah Humphrey

The lives of children are complexly simple. They are also beautifully honest.

The presence of children in our lives nurtures a part of our hearts that we’ve often left behind somewhere. They always seem to ask just the right questions to make adults think twice, gather themselves, or sometimes even get frustrated. It’s as if God gave us children, not only because they are a delight from Him, but also because they are the truth-telling witness we often need.

I’ve had countless experiences where my kids have ministered to me when I was supposed to be ministering to them! I bet you have, too. Children are full of thoughts, they take the Bible literally and believe it, and their black and white thinking is often a beautiful source of faith, conviction, and grace.  As adults and caregivers, we can get so overwhelmed by the details that we forget the beauty of the Gospel is in the presence of these little ones. They often point us back to our own need for our Father, and they give us grace to rest in Him again.

The world is a different place now than it was when we were children.  Though kids are facing some similar needs, they are also facing many new challenges.  That can feel both overwhelming and also all-encompassing.  One of my favorite questions when I struggle is: “Who does God want to be for me right now?” I’ve started to ask my kids the same question when we work through different struggles, fears, and cycles of defeat.

When we aren’t able to do things ourselves, we become desperate for a God who can save us. And when we reach that point, we re-learn our faith. We get to ask Jesus: “Who do You want to be for me in this place? How do You want to show Yourself to me? Where I am insufficient, where are You all-sufficient?” This is the God of the Bible; He is Jesus. He is the King of Kings, the All-Powerful One, and the Maker of Heaven and Earth.  It’s these times that we remember that He is God, and He wants to provide for us.

Take 30 minutes and spend time making an opposites list with your kids.  Ask them to write down anywhere from 1-5 struggles they might be having currently.  After they have named where they lack, go to the Bible and find the Name of God or the Bible verse that fulfills their need.  Have them write it down or make an art piece about it, and hang it up somewhere they can see it often.  God is good, and His delight is in providing for His children.

Sarah is a wife and homeschool mom to three kids while also working as an artist, author, and voice actor.  Her writing and doodling can be found in her devotional, “40 Days to a Joyful Motherhood” and her voice in several commercials, children’s books, and audiobooks. She loves encouraging women and kids to embrace self-care, utilize their gifts, and become leaders in the community around them. 

Christmas, Crafts, Encouragement, Encouraging, Family Ministry, Fun, Kids Ministry, Ministry, Preschool, Small Groups, Special Needs, Sunday School, Teacher Appreciation, Teaching Kids, Uncategorized, Volunteers
Devotional, Encouraging, Family, Kids Ministry, Leadership, Parent Helps, Parenting

9 Tips for Family Devotions

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Family Devotions are a time of worship. They look different for each family. One family’s devotion time may look different than another family’s devotion time. The family’s schedule, number of children, and age of children are some of the factors impacting what the family devotion looks like. Typically, a family devotion time includes, reading a Bible story from the Bible, singing songs, and praying, Use the nine tips below for beginning and maintaining a regular family devotion time:

  1. Intentionally Schedule Devotions. Make this time a priority by writing it on your calendar. While looking at the calendar, select a time that works best for your family, such as at breakfast, in the evening, or during the day.
  2. Be Realistic. Keep in mind the ages and developmental stages of your children. Devotions with young preschoolers will look very different than families with school-age children. Family devotions can range from a few minutes up to 15 minutes.
  3. Plan your time together. Consider using your child’s activity pages from church as a starting point. Select a Bible story to read and review. Choose a Bible verse to learn together as a family. Write down worship songs your family can sing together.
  4. Be Flexible. Family devotions will not always go according to plan. The important point to remember is that your family is spending time with God.
  5. Give Yourself Grace. If you miss the family devotion one day, give yourself grace. Start back fresh the next day to help establish the routine.
  6. Be Creative. If a family member isn’t able to be present due to travel or schedule, use technology to include him/her in the family devotion time. Technology can also be used to include grandparents and other out of town family and friends from time to time.
  7. Keep Devotions Fresh. Include variety in your family devotions. After reading the Bible story, incorporate activities such as making a Bible marker or playing a game to review the Bible verse.
  8. Focus on the Bible. The Bible is central to the family devotion. Use a Bible translation your child can understand. Allow him to hold the Bible, and to help find and read the Bible passage.
  9. Reinforce Lessons During Daily Activities. As opportunities arise throughout the day, remind your child of what you have been talking about and learned during family devotions.

Helpful resources to use in Family Devotions:

Read to Me Bible:  Use the prepared Bible stories to read to your preschooler.

The Big Picture Interactive Bible:  Use the downloadable free app to scan the illustration to watch and hear the Bible story come to life visually and audibly.

Bible Skills for Kids and Levels of Biblical Learning:  Resources to help parents understand age-appropriate biblical skills and concepts.

Lifeway Kids Curriculum App:  This free app includes games, puzzles, and content to help reinforce kids’ Sunday School lessons at home.

In Deuteronomy 6:4-7, the Bible shares that parents are to teach their children about God. They are the primary spiritual leaders of their family. Parents have the most significant influence on a child’s life and development. When parents make family devotions a priority, children learn to love the Lord their God with their heart, their soul, and their strength. What other ways can we as kids ministry leaders support and equip parents?

Delanee Williams serves as a Ministry Specialist with Lifeway Kids. She is a graduate of Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Delanee has served in kids ministry for over twenty years and is passionate about developing, equipping and encouraging leaders.

Encouraging, Kids Ministry, Leadership, Sunday School

Can’t We All Just Get Along? Navigating Teacher-Child Conflicts

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Teach preschoolers or elementary kids long enough, and you’ll discover that not all children think you hung the moon. In fact, you may have difficulty even liking an individual child. Not liking a child doesn’t mean you don’t love him or her. However, if you find yourself hoping that a certain child is on vacation every Sunday of the year, then maybe you have a problem with liking that particular kid.

Fortunately God loves the child you are in conflict with, and God loves you. Because of that love, God sent His Son Jesus to rescue both you and the child who seems bent on making your life miserable. Most the time that kid doesn’t intend to be your nemesis. The child’s actions that lead to conflict are seldom, if ever, premeditated.

Through the years, I have taught workshops on classroom management, discipline, and positive guidance. There are definitely some techniques that equip us as teachers to navigate teacher-child conflicts. However, what do you do when none of those techniques work? When the conflict seems to be ongoing, week after week? I offer five suggestions:

  • Make your goal teaching kids the Bible, not being liked by every child.
  • Remember that conflict with a child is the direct result of a sinful, fallen world.
  • Pray for the child’s heart, not for self-preservation.
  • Practice biblical classroom management, even when nothing seems to be working.
  • Focus on the child’s strengths and positive traits.

Above all, remember that Jesus loves you even when your own actions are at odds with God’s Word. Extend to challenging kids the same grace that God offers you through Christ Jesus.

Landry Holmes is the Manager of Lifeway Kids Ministry Publishing, Nashville, TN. A graduate of Howard Payne University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Landry served on church staffs before coming to Lifeway. He is a church leader, writer, workshop facilitator, and publisher.  Landry  also teaches children at his church in Middle Tennessee. He and his wife Janetta are the grandparents of two adorable grand-babies.

Encouraging, Kids Ministry, Leadership

Why Relationships are Important

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I’ve been involved in some type of ministry to children for over 25 years. I’ve seen many kids grow from infants to now having children of their own. One of the more challenging adventures in children’s ministry, but the most rewarding, is building relationships with the kids you minister to. If you are lucky enough to stay in a ministry environment for any length of time, you get the added benefit of building those relationships on a deeper level.

Relationship can be defined as the connection between two or more objects, ideas, or people. The root idea of relationship comes through connection. The key to building those relationships lies in making valuable connections with the kids you minister to. These relationships are important as you get to know kids and build their trust. Once they trust you, they will better hear and listen to your teaching and ministry goals.

Here are a baker’s dozen tips in building those lasting relationships.

  1. Respect: Respect is a necessity for any type of relationship you form to be successful. Showing respect to kids is a valuable tool in building a relationship of trust and security, something that all kids need to feel while at church. That respect will also grow both ways as girls and boys begin to show you the same respect you show them.
  2. Experiences: As someone in ministry you get to create the experiences that boys and girls have while at church. Those experiences, and your participation in them, will be a great tool in making connections with kids.
  3. Learning: Be an active learner of the kids you minister. Find out their likes and dislikes. Know what they read, watch on TV, and play on their game consoles. Be a learner.
  4. Active: Kids ministry is active. Anytime you can, within reason, participate actively in games and other adventures kids are involved in.
  5. Truthful: This should go without saying, but you need to always be truthful with kids. Kids know when we are not being truthful and may begin to doubt and thus hamper the relationship building that is taking place.
  6. Imaginative: Kids have wonderful imaginations and, as a leader in their ministry, affirm ideas that they come up with. Try new things no matter how silly they might sometimes seem. Playing along with imaginative play will go a long way in building those relationships.
  7. Observant: Be observant of a kids demeanor and attitude. Has something changed? Can you pinpoint what it is? Talk about it with kids. As you are observant kids will appreciate the time you spend taking notice of them.
  8. Nice: Again, this should be fairly obvious but you should always be nice. Sometimes we like to joke around with kids and in a way may inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings. This ties back in with respect from earlier and as we talk with and share with boys and girls we should always do it in a nice respectful manner.
  9. Sticky: Being sticky simply means that relationships are a tight knit bond. If you are a sticky friend, you will not leave someone in need without a helping hand. Sticky friends have great relationships.
  10. Helpful: Be helpful. If you see someone in the hall struggling to carry things, jump right in there and help them out. If you see someone down in the dumps, jump right in there and chat with them. Being helpful is a subtle way of telling someone that they are important to you and will certainly build that relationship bond.
  11. Individualistic: You surely know that each person is an individual and has her own specific needs and desires. Treat each kid you connect with as an individual and don’t compare them to other friends, siblings, or adults you know.
  12. Polite: Just another catchy way of saying respect! Politeness shows a respect of others and is another strong way to build relationships.
  13. Supportive: Supports are used to make sure a structure doesn’t fall over. As a supportive friend you help a child maintain his ability to stand tall and not fall over. Support a child’s dreams and aspirations and be known as someone who will keep them firm and solid.

Work to build those relationships with boys and girls and watch as they begin to share with you in many new and exciting ways. As an example of Christ to the girls and boys you lead building strong relationships will serve them well.

Tim Pollard teaches 3rd graders at Tulip Grove Baptist Church. He’s passionate about helping kids dig deep into Scripture, which he pursues through his daily work as leader of the Explore the Bible: Kids team. Tim lives with his wife and daughters in Mount Juliet, TN.

Encouraging, Kids Ministry, What We're Reading

These Three Things: The Eternal Importance of Faith, Hope, and Love

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Welcome guest blogger,2012headshotcolor Amy Parker!

“But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13 HCSB).

From those seven words, the book How Big Is Love? was born.

But later, as I read that verse in context: “Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love,” something struck me. Who knows how many times I had read those words before? But this time, I was urged to dig deeper.

“These three remain.” What exactly did that mean?

The NASB says, “Faith, hope, and love, abide these three.” The NLT translates, “Three things will last forever . . .” And I realized then—as a mom, as a children’s author—if these are the three things that “remain,” that “abide,” that “last forever,” shouldn’t these be the three things our children learn first and foremost? Even above colors or numbers or letters, these three things will be carried into eternity. These are not things simply to teach to their minds; these are things that we need to impart to their souls.

With that realization, my job as a mom and an author grew infinitely more important. And so I began.

With simple questions, asked by curious children and answered by loving parents, these three books give little ones a safe place to explore these three things that they’ll carry with them throughout eternity.

“Mama?” Little One whispered. “Where do you find faith? Is it far, far away?”

“Papa?” Little One asked. “How high does hope go?”

“Mama?” Little One asked through a yawn. “How big is love?”

I am not a perfect parent. (Oh me. SO not.) I am so very not a perfect author. But I do know that I got this right.

These three things: this is where we begin.

With these three things, we lay the foundation for everything else—our relationship with God, perseverance through this crazy world, and how to treat everyone we’ll encounter along the way. Everything in this world and the wonderful world that awaits comes down to these three things.

Faith. Hope. Love.

These three things remain . . . abide . . . last forever.

Let’s start there.

Amy Parker has written more than twenty books for children, teens, and adults including My Christmas List, the best-selling A Night Night Prayer, and two Christian Retailing’s Best award winners. Amy and her husband have two children.

Encouraging, Leadership, Parent Helps, Spiritual Disciplines

4 Ways to Encourage Kids to Spend Time with God

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Welcome guest blogger, Dixie Walker!

Hide-and-seek is a familiar childhood game. The point is for one person to search out every possible spot of the given area in order to find the concealed person. Children have so much fun playing this game! The anticipation of finding the one hidden is what makes the game so enjoyable.

When it comes to seeking God, we don’t always think about discovering the wonderful surprises He has in store for us when we open His Word or pray to Him. This ongoing conversation with the Lord is vital to growing stronger in relationship with Him. And this is something important for children to know as they, too, are growing in their faith.

Consider these 4 ways to encourage kids to spend time with God and pass them on to parents!

  1. Fuel it! Pour the Word of God into the lives of your kids. Read it, listen to it, sing it, and talk about it. Make sure each child has a Bible and choose an age-appropriate devotional or reading plan to guide the way into the great adventure of knowing God. (Check out Lifeway’s devotionals More, Adventure, and Bible Express here.)
  2. Share it! Nothing motivates someone to pray more than hearing how God has answered the prayers of others. Your answered prayers will become a positive reinforcement for your child to pursue answers to life events. Your child will learn that seeking the Lord’s will is a natural, enjoyable aspect of the Christian life. A great Bible promise for children to learn is: “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).
  3. Model it! Demonstrate consistent prayer and Bible study in your own life. Keep ongoing prayer concerns/requests in your conversations. Your relationship-building with God will become evident in the eyes of your kids, and in time they’ll want to follow your lead in it.
  4. Journal it! Encourage your child to write down any questions and answers she is currently seeking from the Lord during her quiet times. Assure her that her prayer journal is a private matter between herself and God. Writing down God’s answers to prayer will encourage her to continue building a close relationship with Him.

Seize moments to teach children to seek the Lord. He wants to be found and delights in relationship with all who know Him!

Dixie Walker has been in childhood ministry with families and teachers for the past 20 years. She and her family currently reside in middle Tennessee.

Looking for more? Connect with ParentLife online at facebook.com/parentlife. Order at lifeway.com/parentlife.

Encouragement, Encouraging, Kids Ministry, kids101, Leadership, Podcasts, Resources

Greatest Wins in Children’s Ministry

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Leadership can often times be challenging and discouraging. Any seasoned leader will tell you that having community with other leaders is vital. It’s critical for a number of reasons, but often times, that community is where is an encouraging word that can lift up your spirit as you seek to follow God’s direction to lead the ministries He has entrusted to you. On today’s podcast, we sit down with 3 children’s ministry leaders and ask them one question: What is your greatest single win so far in your ministry? We believe their answers will surprise you. Our hope is that what God is doing in the lives of these leaders will be a catalytic moment in your own ministry & leadership. Today’s guests include Heidi Hensley, Chad Overton, and Chad Owens.

 

 

 

Crafts, Encouraging, Kids Ministry

Mother’s Day Craft

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klista-150x150Mother’s Day is just a few short weeks away and teachers everywhere are scrambling to find the perfect craft for their classroom kids to make. But, unfortunately, too many of these teachers will be spending hours upon hours doing all the prep work for these perfect “handmade” gifts themselves.

Moms everywhere would tell you: “STOP THE MADNESS!” We’d much prefer to have something truly made by our kids. Give us the simple hand-drawn pictures; messy, but painstakingly, painted masterpieces; or even just a page of questions that capture the thoughts of our kids about life with mom.

To help make your life easier, here are links for a couple of easy-to-do treasures your kids will be proud to give their moms.  A great book about mom (or even grandma!) that kids can make.

And how cute (and easy!) are these “pinecone flowers?” 

And for fun, we’ve included a quick and easy page for you to copy and record those precious, funny, and sometimes too revealing answers kids share! All About Mom

Thank you for all you’re doing to make some tired moms feel very special!

Klista Storts serves as an Editorial Ministry Specialist for Lifeway Kids. She has served as Director of Preschool Ministries at churches in Oklahoma and Tennessee. Klista has a passion for equipping leaders to share the love of Christ and lay foundations for conversion in the lives of kids.

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