Here’s a radical idea for those who minister to children … imagine what would it be like if we were to do less and make room for God to do more. Here is why I say that this is a radical idea. Back when I started in children’s ministry, a teaching evolved that instructed us to squeeze three hours of teaching content into a ninety minute service. The ideology of the day was to pack as much teaching, object lessons, skits, costumed characters, games, transparency stories, etc. into your allotted time. Consequently, we would have parents waiting at the back door to pick up their child and we still had five or six items left to do on our service schedule page. Altar time? Are you kidding me? It was usually just a quick wrap-it-up prayer to end the service. There was no time to allow the Holy Spirit to do His job. Jesus revealed in John 16 that one of the many assignments of the Holy Spirit is to personalize God’s Word and convince of the need for application. Sadly, children left the service with information but no transformation.
Here is what it would take …
1. The teacher is strategic in the content. In other words, make your limited content count.
2. The teacher is strategic in the amount of content. This might require turning one lesson into two lessons.
3. The teacher says less so that the Holy Spirit can say more. The Holy Spirit is in the talking business. Back away from the microphone and let Him talk. To many, this might be scary. Quiet in a children’s service? Remember that it was during the quiet time that young Samuel learned to recognize and obey God’s voice.
4. The teacher encourages the children at the end of their one-on-one time to share what they heard from the Holy Spirit.
Radical? You betcha’. Worth it? YES!!! Notice this … it is rewarding. In addition to the children being transformed instead of being just informed, you’ll discover two additional bonuses. First, when the parents come to pick up their child, they will see their child connecting to God. Second, it will turn the dreaded “Did you have fun today?” question into “What did Jesus tell you today?”. I love it, love it, love it!!!
What do you think about this idea? Let me hear from you … [email protected].
