I'm kicking off this series today with the letter A...
Some of the letters of the alphabet were really hard to narrow down so I picked two words for a few letters!
Attendance: Getting kids to our ministries can be one of the most rewarding or one of the most frustrating part of the ministry. There are so many important things to remember about getting kids to your ministries is that they can't drive! Unless you have a bus ministry kids are brought to church by their parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. Unfortunately this means that your attendance can fluctuate up and down at a bizarre rate. For example, I can have 70 kids one Wednesday night and 45 the next week. Here's what's important to remember: Yes, numbers are important. I look at it this way every child that comes through my door is a child that I get to tell about Jesus. However, it's also important to remember that numbers aren't everything. How do we keep that at our forefront: We remember that every child is uniquely special. I truly believe that if I only had one child show up for a service that I should still do everything that I can to make that morning incredible for that child. Because they are important and they are loved.
AWANA: This is such a huge topic that I could spend 10 posts talking about it and still not get everything covered. I will say this, AWANA is certainly not for every church or every child. However, it is a fabulous program that has been wildly successful at my church and for my kids. AWANA is focused on memorizing scripture and having fun! I am reminded all the time how important it is for kids to have God's word hidden in their heart. There will be times in their life when they are in trouble, and my greatest prayer is that during that time they will remember something that they learned in our ministry that will get them through whatever they are going through. If you are looking for a program for your Wednesday night ministry then I would seriously check out this program. It's split up into three times: hand books, council or story time, and game time (every kids favorite!). Here's what I would encourage you with on AWANA: Don't be afraid to mix it up if you need to. No ministry is the same so every program won't work the same for every ministry. I recently made a few logistical changes to our program this year and it has worked out splendidly for our church. We use our AWANA program for our babies through 4th graders. We recently moved our 5th-6th graders over to Transit (our pre-teen ministry) and everyone over 7th grade participates in our youth ministry. Here is what I will tell you: Our kids LOVE AWANA!
I'll also be using this series to answer any of your questions about any of the topics that I'm covering. If you have a question leave it in the comments or e-mail me at kidsmincalling@gmail.com.
Tomorrow I'll be talking all about Butcher Paper and Bible's.
See you then!
No comments:
Post a Comment