28. February 2013 11:05
Most people in the Church won’t argue that having a strong and growing children’s ministry is important. If your Church isn’t growing, it’s dying! If your Church isn’t active in reaching the un-churched, it isn’t going to be around very long. One of the best ways to reach un-churched families is by reaching out to the children. If a child comes to a program at the Church and enjoys it, they will bug their parents to bring them back again. Hopefully the parents will come with them, and then your outreach to children has become a family outreach.
I am blessed to be a member of a rather small Church in a very rural area. Several years ago our youth group graduated out and went on to college. This left the Church with only a couple of kids left. Children’s ministry dropped off as there was not much need for it with the current Church membership. After some time of having no programs for children, we were blessed with a couple ladies in the Church that decided they would go out on a limb and start holding ‘Children’s Church’ for the couple kids we did have. Very quickly, we started seeing more kids and families coming to Church! Let’s face it; us parents are often tired from the many weekly activities. The sad truth is, sometimes the thought of coming to Church and spending the entire time trying to quietly keep our young children entertained during Church is not very appealing. Having a Children’s Church program for the kids to go to during the sermon made all the difference for us and we now have a large and growing Children’s program on Sunday mornings and other programs during the week!
The ladies that took it upon themselves to start our Children’s ministry are not teachers or preachers. They did not have past experience in children’s ministry, but they did have a passion for doing the Lord’s work. In Mark 10:14b, Jesus said “Let the little children come to Me. Don’t stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Jesus Christ made it very clear that the kingdom of God is not just for adults, but for the children also. We are all called to fulfill The Great Commission. We are all called to reach others and grown God’s Kingdom.
The best part about working with children is they don’t care (and often won’t even notice) if you mess up. You don’t have to be perfect, none of us are anyway. Kids like to have fun more then anything else. When things don’t go as planned, they think its funny. When you mess up, laugh about it, they will laugh with you and not think twice about it. Don’t try to come up with some eloquent sermon full of scripture references and deep thought. Keep it simple and have fun. Get down on their level and simply tell them about how great your God is!
Get out of your comfort zone this week. Volunteer in your Church’s children’s ministry, or start one. You don’t have to have extensive training in the theology, teaching, youth work, or anything else. You just have to be willing to do HIS work and trust HIM for the results!
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