RELEVANT CHILDREN'S MINISTRY

Help Families Make Church Attendance a Priority

11:43 AM Dale Hudson

I'm sure you've noticed. Families are attending church less frequently. In most churches, the average family attends once or twice a month or even less.

You are not alone in this pattern. This is happening across the country.

As a kid growing up in church, we had an attendance chart in our Sunday school room. Each Sunday we were there, we got a star put on the attendance chart. The goal was to have perfect attendance. Most kids in the class would only miss perfect attendance by a star or two and many would have perfect attendance for the year.

If you had an attendance board today, there would probably be lots of missing stars.

There are lots of contributing factors for this. But I believe it all boils down to one thing.

Priorities.

Some thoughts about this.

If something is a priority for your family, you will make time for it.

Your calendar reveals your priorities.

Where you are on Sunday morning reveals your priorities.

The solution for misdirected priorities?

Help families make church attendance a priority.

How are you going to make this happen?

By making them feel guilty?

By teaching against playing sports on Sunday mornings?

By calling them out?

Not so sure this will work in a healthy manner.

Instead, how about encouraging them to take the long look. Where do they want their children to be spiritually in 5 years?

Instead, how about casting vision for the positive spiritual impact consistent church attendance can have?

Instead, how about calling them up instead of calling them out. In other words, replace guilt with the opportunity they have to help their kids' faith grow and flourish.

Another thought...if you are going to see this happen, then you have to influence parents. You must shift from seeing your ministry being all about kids to being all about kids and parents.

How can you influence parents? One key time you can influence parents is during milestone opportunities.

Here's an example. Parent and Child Dedication. What if you attached a class to the dedication that parents attended? In this class, you spent 15 minutes explaining the why and what of the dedication and then spent 30 minutes on helping them look down the road spiritually and setting their priorities based on that (you can get more information about this class and order it at this link).

I have found from experience that if you can help young parents catch this vision, it will help them have the right priorities when their kids get older and sports and other extra curricula activities on Sunday morning come calling.

You can also help families be more consistent in their church attendance by making church an irresistible environment for kids. Create experiences for kids that have them dragging their parents to church. Kids often have a lot of influence on their parents when it comes to church attendance.

Encourage your pastor to preach about priorities and church attendance on a regular basis. Help him see the impact it can have on families getting their priorities lined up with God's plan for families. Matthew 6:33 is a great place to start when it comes to family priorities.

Get families involved in serving. The most consistent attendees in your church are people who are serving. Serving is essential in helping families line up their priorities in the right order. Provide opportunities for families to serve together. Here's an example. Have parents and their children serve together as greeters.

Help parents seize the short window of opportunity. Help them see that they only have so many weeks to see their kids discipled before they are grown and on their own.

They only have a newborn for 52 weeks.

They only have a toddler for 104 weeks.

They only have a preschooler for 104 weeks.

They only have a school age child for 364 weeks.

They only have a teenager for 312 weeks.

Who knows...maybe we need to bring back the attendance board with stars on it.

Whatever it takes and however you do it, help families make church attendance a priority.

p.s. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this subject. You can share in the comment section below.

Why Your Kids' Lessons Must Be Interactive

12:25 PM Dale Hudson

Let's face the reality. Today's kids are not going to sit and listen to someone drone on and on and on. If you teach kids, you know this.

Kids are wired to move. They are wired to get involved. They are wired to play. They are wired to squirm. They are wired to interact.

But we often revert back to teaching methods that require kids to sit still and be quiet.

Why? Because it's easier. Because it takes less prep time. Because it's what we grew up with and are familiar with.

But can I let you in on a little secret? You may already know this because you've experienced it. I am often amazed how the kids that talked during the lesson, moved around during the lesson, and got distracted during the lesson, know all of the review questions that I ask. I'm thinking to myself, "I can't believe this kid actually got what I was teaching."

You see...you have two options...you can force kids to sit still and be quiet or you can align with how they are wired and use interactive lessons that will capture and retain the attention of today's kids.

A passive learning experience isn't going to get you the results you want. It's time to use content that requires active engagement.

The children's entertainment industry understands this. A growing number of companies are starting to create interactive TV. This enables kids to pick their own adventures and engage with how they consume and learn best. Kids are able to tap their screen and choose what happens next in the story.

Interactive TV is just starting to catch on but is expected to grow to a $39.8 billion dollar industry by 2032. Producers are creating episodes that let children choose what they want to see next at key points in the episode.

In the game Disney Channel Besties, kids can choose which friends from various Disney Channel shows they want to see, and then watch clips featuring those characters. And in Paramount’s interactive trailer for Sonic The Hedgehog 2, kids can choose their favorite character and make decisions for them.

Another example is the preschool series Mixmups that lets kids personalize how they watch the show, including lowering background noise, simplifying the visuals, and adding content to enhance comprehension.

DreamFlare is a San Francisco based streaming company that is using interactive content as well. Rob Bralver, creative director and co-founder said, "We're in a new frontier of entertainment where you're not just sitting and passively watching."

Successfully communicating with kids is done through interactivity...now and in the future. Today's kids are expecting to be able to interact with their content. That includes the content you are sharing with them at church.

It has been proven that interactive classrooms perform better on measures of student learning. One meta-analysis found that in STEM classrooms with “active learning,” broadly defined, student exam scores improved by about six percent. It has also been proven that the most effective teachers only lecture 20% of the teaching time. Take a look at the next lesson you are presenting. How much of it is lecture-based? You can immediately become more effective if you use more interaction in your lesson.

There are lots of ways you can make your lessons interactive. Here are a few ideas.

Pose a question, have students think individually, discuss with a partner, and share with the class.

Use interactive games.

Have kids act out the Bible story you are telling.

Movement - use "Four Corners" to make students move to different areas of the room based on their opinion.

Have kids repeat Bible verses, key words, and key points after you.

Break your lesson up - use short "chunking" methods, alternating brief instruction with quick 2-minute activities.

Use videos that interact with kids in real-time. The person in the video asks a question and then pauses to let the kids respond. The kids' show Blue's Clues was build on this premise. It is considered by experts to be one of the most effective shows ever produced to get kids involved and interacting.

Let kids read the verses you are teaching instead of you reading them.

Provide chalk or a soft toy; whoever has it must answer your next question, and they pass it on to the person of their choice.

Write questions or prompts onto all surfaces of a beach ball (or tape them on). When the next student catches the ball, he/she answers one of the questions where fingers are touching the ball.

While you are teaching, have the kids draw pictures of what you are saying.

Rock Paper Scissors break – kids pair off and play. Let the winners answer some review questions.

Balloon Bust - divide the kids into groups. Give each group a balloon with a discussion question inside the balloon. At your signal, have the groups pop their balloons and discuss the question inside.

Press Conference – Have a kid stand behind a table like a press conference. The other kids can ask him or her questions about the lesson that was taught.

The key to effective teaching is to see yourself as a facilitator rather than a lecturer. Check out this article I wrote about this.

If you're looking for curriculum that gets kids interacting throughout the lesson, then check out Connect12. It's one year's worth of curriculum. Curriculum that is grounded in teaching kids 12 Biblical truths in 12 months. You'll see a big element we've included in the curriculum is lots and lots of time for interaction. You can get more information at this link and see lesson samples, videos, etc.

Want to Reach Parents? Ask Them This One Simple Question

10:02 AM Dale Hudson

We know if we want to influence kids, then we have to influence their greatest influencer...their parents.

When you reach a child, you change a life. When you reach parents, you change an entire family.

Our passion should be to reach not only kids, but their parents as well.

Do you want to reach parents? Then I've got some good news for you. You can reach parents if you will be intentional about asking them one simple question.

Let me give you a real time example of the question you should ask.

Our children's ministry had a first-time guest family on Easter. They were an unchurched family. They decided to attend church on Easter, drove by our church and decided to try this "church thing" out. They came back this past Sunday and when the parents came to pick up their children, they approached me about their elementary kids and teenagers being baptized.

I shared with them that we have a class called Starting Point. It's a class that kids and their parents attend together. In this class, we explain what it means to become a follower of Jesus. Last night they came to the class together as a family. This is a crucial step. Don't have a salvation class just for kids. Make sure that parents attend with their children. No drop offs. This is because you want to share the Gospel with the parents as well.

I asked the parents one simple question.

I know you want to see your children accept Jesus and be baptized. That's great. Let me ask you as well. Have you accepted Jesus and been baptized yourselves?

This one simple question will open the door for you to reach the parents as well.

If you want to reach parents, then start using this approach. You will see God do amazing things.

At a church where I served as children's pastor, we saw over 430 children and dozens of parents accept Jesus and follow Him in baptism in one year. Every child and parent who got baptized that year had been through the Starting Point class together. You can get more information about the Starting Point class at this link.

If you look at Scripture, you will see parents who came to Jesus for one reason. They needed something from Jesus for their child. They needed their child to be healed. They needed their child to be brought back to life. They needed their child to be set free from demonic possession. Their first contact with Jesus was because of their children.

This can still happen today. Parents can be reached through their children. Parents can come in contact with Jesus through their children. Entire families and generations can be reached through children.

The family I met with...in a few weeks the entire family is going to be baptized together. All because of asking one simple question.

Start asking that question and you will be amazed at what God does in the lives of families.