resources for effective children's ministry

    Summer is a great time to reevaluate your curriculum and to provide training for your teachers to help them be ready to start with the new school year in the Fall.

    It is extremely important that we are effective in our children's ministry and to do that we need the tools that will help us teach God's Word and how it applies to our day-in-day-out living. There is however; a trend in Children's Ministry that I am very concerned about, and that is the move toward "over simplifying". By this I mean the idea that we are going to look for and use resources that allow us to need only a few teachers and then tell those teachers that they do not need to spend hardly any time in preparation - - - "it is so easy!" Don't get me wrong, I do believe that Children's Ministry should NOT be complicated and teaching resources should be "teacher friendly", but if we are going to be effective in Children's Ministry, we must have enough teachers and they do need to know what they are teaching. I understand that sometimes it can be difficult to recruit enough teachers, but the answer is not to compromise on the number or quality of teachers, rather to help our church members understand what a joy it is to serve and then to train, support and encourage them in their ministry. To be effective we must have consistent teachers as one of the foundations our ministry is built on. So, in looking for resources to utilize in your ministry, look for those that will aid you in being effective - not easy.

Lynda Freeman

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