resources for effective children's ministry

    I believe there are a couple of things that are central to children's ministry. First of all we must have a commitment to being effective. If we do things simply because "we have always done it that way" - whether it is accomplishing anything or not, we are in grave danger of being ineffective. Children's ministry matters too much to not be effective. When I was in high school I was a teacher's aide in the elementary school. I was also the Sunday School bus captain on one of my church's busses. Juan was a boy from my class at school who rode our Sunday School bus with his four brothers every week. We had a real ministry on our busses with Bible stories, songs, & verses. Every year we had children put their trust in Christ for salvation on our busses. The last Sunday of my senior year, on the way home from church Juan raised his hand and put his faith in Christ! The next day I went to a Christian camp to work for the summer before I went to college. Two weeks later I received a letter from my mom. In it she told me that Juan and one of his brothers were playing with their dad's gun, it was loaded and went off killing Juan. He was only 7. Children's ministry matters because these children matter - they are a treasure from God and we have no guarantee that the children in our ministry this week will be here in two weeks. We must be effective now. It matters too much not to be.

    Along with being committed to being effective, we also must know what it is we want to accomplish. It is so important to have a written vision statement that gives you a standard to measure all you do by. We must know what our vision or purpose is and then be committed to that in order to be effective in our ministry.

Lynda

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