Children's Ministry

I usually enjoy an opportunity to be with the kids but on this day I was near the end of my rope and they were too. Though I wish they'd been easier on me, I'm grateful for the reminder that these kids have complex lives, too.

Katy and her husband shared this blessing that they speak to their children nightly. Speaking this to children not only blesses them but it reminds them (and us!) of why we tell these stories.

This is my last post as a guide for the Sunday School network. This has been a great opportunity to articulate some of the things a church educator like me thinks about on a weekly basis. Being a guide on the Network has helped me examine the work that I do and think about it in relationship to the whole CRCNA.

It is easy for us to let our kids and teens think that we have it all together, with lists of things to do and with quick answers to complex questions but lives are much more complicated than that.

I came across this really interesting blog post called the “Bible in 66 Verses” on the Lutheran Forum. The author, Sarah Wilson, selected a verse from each book of the Bible that summarizes that book’s content.  How could you use this idea?

Leaders of Sunday School need to share and tell the good stories of what is happening when they gather. We can choose to tell the stories of frustration and failure or the stories of how God is powerfully moving.  We have an opportunity to set what becomes the prevailing narrative of Sunday School in our church.

85% of Christian kids never hear their parents talk about their faith.  God’s Big Story Cards are an easy way to engage in faith talk and Bible study. While these cards can be used to build relationships in the Sunday School classroom they also can be used to connect families to the story and connect to each other.

Every week in our morning worship service, the children in 3rd and 4th grade bring in the Bible and light a candle in the front of church. During Lent, a third child is added to the procession who carries in a cross, holding it up high as the congregation sings “Lift High the Cross”

If the purpose of the making an item in Sunday School is for the kids to keep the item long term, we are doing a bad job. Most of the stuff kids make and take home barely gets looked at. In fact, much of it barely gets home. So why do we bother?

Sometimes the 9th and 10th grade students are not ready to engage with the Heidelberg Catechism. This makes the Sunday School hour crawl by for everyone and the teacher feels like she hasn’t connected at all. Have you been there?

The reason we teach Sunday School is to teach kids who God is and to bring them into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. But how do we do that?