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Wisdom for Children’s Ministry is a collection of blogs containing wisdom gained over many years in Christian ministry to children.
Here is a Children’s Ministry Training to lead children’s worship video giving tips and tricks to engage children in praise and worship. Give kids opportunity to learn power of worship.
Tips for Teaching Kids about Worship
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I attach to a link to a blog article detailing all the children who have won and done very well in the America’s Got Talent competition.
In my years leading children’s ministry I have found that developing the kids talents always paid off. I have made children’s music bands as soon as I could. I encourage parents to enroll their children in music lesson and let them perform their songs as soon as they are willing. The best puppet plays have been when kids do parts. (Usually it is helpful to have an adult behind the puppet stage to guide them.) If you write your own Christmas plays, recruit kids to co-write with you. You will be amazed at the good ideas that come out.
Click here for CHILDREN’S MINISTRY RESOURCES
Below is a quote from a Focus on the Family blog.
Strong-willed children have a genuine need to know why a task is worthy of their effort. Convince them, and you’ve won half the battle already. In large part, motivating a strong-willed child involves showing confidence in their intelligence, rather than insulting it. Even when they’ve slipped up, strong-willed children want freedom to choose how to remedy the situation in the way they think best.
In children’s ministry we deal with all types of personalities, and I have found over the years that the children labelled as “strong-willed” often were the ones with whom I could have the deepest most intelligent conversations about spiritual matters. These kids really think about what they have been taught. They don’t take things at face value. If it doesn’t make sense to them, they need to be persuaded from the Word so they understand things from God’s perspective.
Read the full article here. https://www.focusonthefamily.ca/content/what-sets-them-off-understanding-your-strong-willed-child
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Below is a link to a blog from Insight for Living Ministries about credibility. Here is a quote from the article:
“Jurors often have reason to doubt the testimony of a witness on the stand. Parents, likewise, have reason at times to doubt their children’s word (and vice versa). Citizens frequently doubt the promises of politicians, and the credibility of an employee’s word is questioned by the employer. Creditors can no longer believe a debtor’s verbal promise to pay, and many a mate has ample reason to doubt the word of his or her partner. This is a terrible dilemma! Precious few do what they say they will do without a reminder, a warning, or a threat. Unfortunately, this is true even among Christians.”
I remember when I was a young Christian and I came to understand the bible verse Psalm 15:4 “The righteous man swears to his own hurt, and does not change.”
This is MOST DEFINITELY a response that does not come naturally to children or adults and yet when you see this put into action it is a very powerful witness for the Lord. Let us not neglect this most fundamental character development.
https://www.insight.org/resources/daily-devotional/individual/a-bridge-called-credibility-part-one
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Below is a link to an article posted by Focus on the Family. As a Children’s Minister you might want to forward it on to the families in your church.
How I found this related to me in the Children’s Church setting, was in understanding my daughter. Although she was and is my greatest helper, because of the familiarity, she could try to “take charge”. Fortunately I recognized early on, that the reason she is like that is because she is a natural born leader. Understanding her personality helped me to avoid a lot of conflict.
https://www.focusonthefamily.ca/content/understanding-your-child-s-personality-and-yours-too
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God never wastes times of testing. The pain and struggles you face only SEEM futile.
— Charles R. Swindoll
Below is the link to the rest of the blog article from Insight for Living.
This life has times of suffering. No one is exempt, not even children. I myself lost my father to cancer when I was 9 years old. ONLY Jesus makes life make sense. Children who have a living relationship with Jesus always have hope. The strength of child hood, I believe, is that we really do seek to know Jesus, just for the sake of knowing him. As adults sometimes our pursuit of him gets more complicated especially when we have life and ministry responsibilities.
May we all seek to know Jesus more, just to know him.
https://www.insight.org/resources/daily-devotional/individual/the-turning-point-part-two
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Turning Points
As a parent and children’s minister I am always praying that God will get a strong hold of the children’s hearts. I pray that the Word of God will take strong root and that if any of them head down the wrong path, they will have a turning point back to God. In so many ways I have found God unresistable. His love and presence and the joy his words bring, keep me unsatisfied with the “pleasures” of this world’s system.
Here is the first half of a good article by Chuck Swindoll.
https://www.insight.org/resources/daily-devotional/individual/the-turning-point-part-one
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Attached is an article from Focus on the Family. I hope you will read it to the end. It is actually written for parents but I think there is some good advice in there for children’s ministry workers too. This is what I took away from the article.
https://www.focusonthefamily.ca/content/understanding-highly-sensitive-children
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Below is a link to a blog I found at Chuck Swindoll’s web site. When I look back over my life, I see how the struggles I experienced as a child actually made my spiritual life very strong, because I looked to the Lord for help. (My father died when I was 9 and I turned to Jesus and he eventually revealed the Heavenly Father to me.)
We never wish troubles on anyone, but when we see children struggling, encourage them to hold unto Jesus more than ever. What can seem to be a setback can actually be used by God to propel our faith forward, stronger than it would have without the struggle.
https://www.insightforliving.ca/read/articles
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Talk to any of today’s parents and most can testify that their kids, especially boys, have an had an experience of some sort with pornography while they were on-line. Parents have to be so very vigilent in today’s culture.
As Children’s Church Teachers we can never let up on the message that Jesus gave when he said the light of the body is the eye and if our eye be single then our whole body will be full of light. Kids will tell you how dirty they feel inside when they have viewed pornography. Praise God that if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us.
Remind the kids they can talk to Jesus about EVERYTHING and they should never let shame hold them back from coming to God to deal with these things. Tell them also to speak to their parents if this has become a problem for them.
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Create What You Love | 7 Habits of a Good Artist | Based on Blender Foundation Speech by Andrew Price (view full speech on youtube.com)
As people who are serving the Lord we have a strong sense that we are called to something unique and special for us. We are not called to do everything. It is clear in the scriptures that God has given out gifts and not all of us have the same gifts.
Andrew says, “You have intrinsic motivation when you are doing something that you love. ”
How this related to me in drawing the cartoons is that I have always loved teaching the word of God in children’s church because I know his word will never return void. It might take my life time to get this project done but I will never stop because it is what I LOVE to do.
Find out what you love and start doing it. Even if it takes you your whole life time to complete, take encouragement that you will always have something to wake up in the morning for.
Click here for Children’s Ministry Resources.
Feedback | 7 Habits of a Good Artist | Based on Blender Foundation speech given by Andrew Price (view video on youtube.com)
Andrew says, “You want true honest feedback.”
In my efforts to cartoon the bible, I found the kids I am reading the stories to, to give me the best true and honest feedback. I would ask them questions after the story and I could tell whether they were getting the point or if they were confused.
I have been really pleased with how many times they would correct me and see inconsistencies in the cartoons or the story. I would realize from their feedback that I needed to go and do some rewriting.
Feedback is pure gold. A humble heart is always looking to do better, especially when we are working for the Lord. Never take feedback as negative. Don’t be oversensitive about it.
Click here for Children’s Ministry Resources.