 Okay, good morning everyone and welcome to class on children's ministry. Hope you'll had a good first two hours of learning. What did you have the first two hours? Oh, you studied the book of relations. Okay. Okay, so welcome to class and also welcome to our e-learning students as well. Just glad that you're a part of our class. Before we begin, can one of you please lead us in prayer, please? Anyone? Kun, can you lead us in prayer? Yes, Pastor. All of you? Yes, Pastor. Have you been any farther? We just thank you for this morning. Thank you that we're going to learn more about you. And God, we thank you for your forebusters here. I'm afraid that you would just continue to lead her as she leads us and shares your word and insight with us, God. Thank you that we would not just hear your words, but that we would apply it in our lives and learn and, yeah. And Jesus, I'm afraid. Amen. Thank you, Kun. So last class on Monday, we were looking at the essential foundations for all church-based ministry to children. We looked at the real essentials in Christian ministry. I said there are four, but sorry, there's five essential foundations. We looked at the first one was children's ministry must be God-centered. The second one, we saw that children's ministry must be Bible-saturated. The third one we looked at was children's ministry must be gospel-given. And we stopped at the fourth point where we looked at children's ministry must minister to the whole family. Okay, so, you know, we know that parents are called by God and they're, you know, given this precious gift of children, they're blessed with children. It's God's gift to them, but they're also called by God to be the primary faith nurturers of their children. They are the ones who have to nurture them in their faith and their walk with God, train them in righteousness and holiness and Godly living. So even as, you know, children's church ministers, even as some of us who are in children's ministry, even as we minister to children, you know, it's also a responsibility to partner with parents in assisting them in fulfilling their call, just helping them, supporting them, working along with them in the areas of challenges that they face with their children, just also helping so that we can raise up, you know, children who love the Lord, who are walking in His ways and who are grounded in His truths. Okay, so it's important that we just not serve children, but also we need to know that children's ministry is also serving their parents as well. So how do we go about doing this? Any ideas, any thoughts you all have? How can we go about doing this? How can children's ministry, children's ministers, minister to the whole family? Of course, we saw how we can minister to children, to parents specifically. Any thoughts, any ideas? No thoughts? Sorry about that. Did you see how parents minister to their children's effect, children's effect? No, see, I was saying that, you know, as children's ministers, as children's church, the children's ministry, also must minister to the whole family. That's not just minister to children, but also it means serving, ministering, working alongside with the parents. So how can a children's ministry, and how can children's ministers, you know, also minister to parents as well? Oh, okay. I think one way to go about that is, have a program whereby you have both parents and children, just a program, it could be a day or two where you sit with them and you just talk to them on what their responsibilities are in ensuring that they follow up with whatever they're being taught. And then there could be also special programs for parents alone whereby, where parents are being reminded again of their responsibility to ensure that they are, they're preaching to the children, they're talking to them about the gospel and it's not just living into the children's ministers alone. And then the church itself has to ensure that they're rightly equipping parents because it's whatever the parents are being taught on an adult level. That's what they'll be able to take home. So they must be adequately equipped so that they can actually teach the word of God, teach the truth that the children need to know. So I think this way, I think that's a way children's ministry can also minister to the parents. That's my one thought. Thank you, Sey. So equipping the parents are also having sessions where combined sessions with the children and parents on issues that they are facing, challenges that they're facing, have sessions along with them, have separate sessions for parents where they are helped with the present challenges that teens or children of different age groups, age specific session related for parents how to minister to their children. Yes, we could do that as well. Kennedy says showing compassion and being interactive. Sri Kumar counseling parents. Kennedy again says formulating teaching material by a pastoral team. Helping and supporting them and encouraging them. Basically, he's asking how can you help support and encourage? What are some of the things that we could do? Avni says by being inclusive, keeping them well informed, protecting with them time to time, to be on one page regarding what the children are going through or learning in children's church. Okay, thank you. Yes, all good answers. So we need to basically let the parents know what the children are learning in children's church or in Sunday school. So basically like we have parent-teacher meeting in schools, you can have parent-teacher meeting of the year at the end of the year. You can have it for children for attending children's church. You can tell parents the topics, the programs you've planned and what is how they can contribute, what they should do, how they can journey along with us alongside and helping children. So they're aware of things. Also, what are the take-home activities? One thing that we do in our children's church is have a WhatsApp group for each class where the parent is after class and the WhatsApp group informed what the child is being taught that week. A just one or two-liner about what is being taught and what is the application, of course the general application that is mentioned there, like the children learned that they need to honour God in this area or they need to obey God in this area or they learned about faith, so how they can apply faith using the word of God, how they can apply faith in difficult situations. So whatever it is, just a liner and then also making sure the parents know that the children have a workbook where they have written or they have a notebook where they have written what they have learned, how it applies to them in their specific area and what they are going to do, because faith, if you teach a topic about how we can use, declare God's word, if you're teaching them about the word of God and teaching them how to declare the promises in God's word. So what are the challenges you're facing? What are the promises you're going to declare? The challenges each child can face is different from another child. So they will write their specific challenges and the promises and what they're going to say, how they are going to use that promise so the parents can know by just looking at the child's book and ask the parent to help. So the parent also is learning from the child and also by helping the child, the parent is also using that promise or learning that, hey, I can speak God's word over my challenges in case they're forgotten, they're facing a challenge, they are going through some difficulty, just can help both the parent and the child. So application is happening throughout the week. The parent is reminding the child how to apply to do it. So that is very important in our Christian lives because we hear so much but very little done in translating that word into action, applying it, so we're teaching children at a very young age and we're getting parents to follow up, be part of that learning process as well. Also learning, getting the parent to teach the child the memory verse, in turn the parent also learns scripture, the child is also learning and God's word is powerful, it just speaks Bible quiz, getting the parents involved in various activities where they're preparing their children as well. And also another thing that we can do is mentoring. When we have this whole concept of, we had this concept of mentoring in our children's church where in a class there are four children and there are two teachers, then each of them divides children, so each of them take two children, they pray for them during the week, they call them up during the week, just say, hey, how's life? What's going on in school at home? And also connect with their parents, ask the parents, is there any challenges, difficulties that the child is going through so that they can work along with them, help the child. So mentoring is also a beautiful way that you can help the parent and the child counseling, if they're going through any challenges, they're facing difficulties and other wonderful things. So you can keep all of these things in mind, even as you would like to implement that in your children's church or Sunday school or you can give these ideas to the children's church workers in your children's church. The last real essential that we need in children's ministry or the fifth essential foundation for all children's space ministry, the fifth one is that children's ministry is about serving kids. It's all about serving kids, it's all about working to help serve kids, it's putting their needs, their spiritual needs before our own, which means that I'm not saying that we are not looking for our own spiritual growth, that's very important. If our spiritual growth is we are not growing spiritually, if it's stagnant, we're not spiritually receiving anything and it's tail, then all that we're giving to children is something that is tail, it'll be boring, they're not listening, they will not listen to us and if we are stagnant in our relationship, we can't give anything that is useful, life changing, life transforming to the children because we ourselves are not receiving. So it's important for us to have a deep intimate relationship with God because out of that intimacy flows a powerful ministry, out of that intimacy we can basically give into children's life. So it's important but to put their needs before us in that sense what I'm saying is or their spiritual needs before us is sometimes we feel I had a busy week, I had a rough week, I had a difficult week, so I'll just call up and say I cannot come and take my class today, it's my turn this week or you can't say hey I'm going to these challenges I feel unworthy to teach or you know I'm spiritually feeling very drained I'm going to these challenges, these struggles yes we all go through it we all face these things but that does not give us an opportunity where we say hey I'm not going to go and teach even though it's my turn this Sunday or I've committed myself to teaching children's church what we need to do is we need to get before God, you know need before God or get into the presence of God and deal with our issues, deal with our challenges arts, God's grace and mercy we can't say this week was very tiring week I had a very busy week at office I didn't have time to prepare and hence I'm not going to teach or maybe it can be one-off thing but you know if you do it on a consistent regular basis the basis is going to be very difficult so what we're saying is we need to handle our lives and you know put our priorities right check ourselves, keep ourselves in constant fellowship and communion Holy Spirit growing intimately so that even as we've committed to ministering to children you know we put their needs their concerns you know put them also put ministering in children's church in our order of priority as stopped in getting setting aside time to prepare not saying oh they're children okay what is today's lesson oh it's about blind men I know the story I'll just go tell it to them that's not the attitude but you know it's important that you know we we commit to children's church you know you commit holy you know prepare yourselves prepare the lessons well for the moment also important as if you are Sunday school or children's church director or the pastor leading it ensure that you have committed people on your team pray and ask God to lead you to the right committed people also important that you plan the entire year you know what is the curriculum what are the topics you're going to teach what are the different activities that you're going to have the year which is catering to your vision that you have maybe vision for that specific year you have a broader vision but you've kind of broken it down for each year for this year what is part of the vision that you're trying to fulfill but God is leading you to so what are the activities that you can have what are the field trips evangelist trips that you are going to get your children to do just planning ahead of time helps also align yourselves all of these activities the curriculum everything that you're doing to the topics divide your Sundays like I remember you know dividing the Sundays like one week where we had worship and then we have games time on the first Sunday we had worship then we had a time where 40 communion and then classes then another week we just had you know and games just for children to relate with each other interact maybe something also that can bring about learning after the game and then they had class time sometimes you know we just had worship short time of worship we had something called a kingdom builders club which I'll explain in a bit and then you know get them to move into their classes so you know just different programs different activities that you bring in where children are excited to come to children's church they are also excited to learn be part and also all of these activities which is you know catering to the vision to the topics that you are teaching and you know getting them to grow in their faith in their work with God and also to you know flow in the gifts the spirit utilize the talents that God has given to them also use creative methods of teaching not just using the ancient method of just talking to them but you know get them to enact this kids use some props we look at that when we are studying how to write a lesson plan how to teach using creative methods but just like to show you we recently did this topic the word of God in children's church one you know was talking about what is the word what is the word of God so we had this PowerPoint I hope you are able to see it okay so just prepare this PowerPoint you know I'll just run through it very quickly so what is the Bible so it's just not text but just going down through the you know some of these slides I'm not going to show you everything but just couple of them you know it's not just text but also we you know have these pictures where we were talking about you know about young Samuel how he hears God's voice you know so we have all of these pictures so and then again we have some passages and then again you know about the story that we are telling them so if you don't have pictures that you can show them physically you can just get all of this on the internet and then create a PowerPoint slide and you know show it to the kids it just basically helps them to see and learn because you know children learn not just by hearing but also by seeing and by doing okay which we will learn more later in detail when we do about lesson plans so use creative methods to teach them there are many creative things you can even show them a video but be careful where you are taking the video from because many of the videos that are there are from cult groups you know so you need to the videos see that if the story is aligning itself to what is the narrative is the same as the narrative in the Bible also you know have organized activities and programs that will build them up in the Word of God in evangelism in their faith walk basically nurturing themselves nurturing children in the ways of God so you know we have a couple of programs like you know for example we were teaching them on the Holy Spirit and also one of the lessons was on the fruit of the spirit so we had a a potluck breakfast and all the children were asked to bring a snack or a breakfast dish that contains a fruit or a couple of fruits and then they had to connect it to the fruit of the spirit so for example if a child brings an apple pie you know the child is just basically shared two minutes of their class what snack they brought for breakfast and what is the food and how it connects with the fruit of the spirit so for example if a child gets an apple pie the child mentions I brought an apple pie because apple you know represents goodness and apple is just so good to eat it's good for health and same way you know the fruit of spirit goodness and God is perfectly good and he wants us also to be good so when we choose to do good things the right things in a way we are telling God that we love him and you know we can ask God and pray and ask him to help us to be good and to obey him at all times this is how the fruit of spirit called goodness grows in our lives so the Holy Spirit helps us to grow in the area of goodness so just a very creative way that you know you can get children to learn another way that you know we do activities is you know for example for Christmas when we have Christmas parties children shows Christmas party we just don't have a good time where children are singing and dancing and having some games and good eats and then you know getting gifts or exchanging gifts with each other we have an activity where we get children to learn something from that activity so one year we had them you know pick up a character from the sorry pick up a character from the genealogy of Jesus and you know enact the scene from in that character's life and they are not supposed to you know do everything is a mind they are not supposed to use any words just act it out and the rest of the children after they enact it you know the rest of the other children have to guess which character it is they are eating all of them are watching listening so they pick out these characters and children are then afterwards you know once one of them in the class has to narrate the incident how this character is connected to the genealogy of Jesus and what is that character's contribution in the Bible another time we had the names of God where children had to pick up a name of God where is it mentioned in the Bible and enact the scene where the name was mentioned first so they are learning the names of God they are learning the meaning of that name they are also learning where in the Bible it is mentioned and each class you know enacts it they use their own creativity and they do it so even once we had the fruit of the spirit you know where they had to use their violence to you know show forth the fruit of the spirit which ascribes to the fruit of the spirit so sing a song or paint or write a poem or story anything that would teach them or talks about the fruit of the spirit so very creative ways of activities and programs not just to entertain children children's churches not just all about fun entertainment of just coloring and video games and showing them videos and having games for them but it's teaching them deeper truths and how they can use all of these things through their talents just through food just through various activities just helping them in their learning process and another thing that we do is mentoring children which I mentioned each children's church minister divides themselves the children in their class plays for them speak to them after the church is over just gather some information how life is or maybe call them during the week play with them if they're having test exams also connect with their parents to know what challenges they're going through so that they can help their child so the parent knows this is my children's church teacher my child's children's church teacher and how if I have any problem they can call back they can relate with them or just need prayer support they can reach out for help and also it just helps in getting not just teaching the children but just engaging with them in a holistic way bringing about a holistic learning experience helping the child in a holistic way as well praying for them knowing their needs their behavioral issues and just helping them out another thing that we began is something called the kingdom builders club so just I started this kingdom builders club where we had children sign up for any one of these things singing art and craft healing and deliverance evangelism dancing choreography and memorizing and oratory so if they love singing they would join the kingdom builders club of singing if they were good at art and painting they would join that club if they wanted to know more about healing and deliverance praying for people for healing and deliverance children join that club evangelism how to share the faith dance and choreography those who are interested in dance and then memorizing and oratory those children who like to memorize scripture would like to speak or preach teach scripture so you know just building up building them up with a very young age to identify their skills and talents how to use it and the amazing thing is I just thought we put them here and you know teach them some skills one of your classmates Tarun was teaching children he was part of this kingdom builders club he was teaching the memorizing and oratory class for the kingdom builders did a wonderful job thank you Tarun again and it's not just to you know give them some way that they find out their talents and skills but in a very wonderful way God brought about the supernatural into this God was telling me through singing get the children to sing over people who they are ministering to and release supernatural words even as they sing over them sing the right song that God wants to sing healing deliverance and wholeness the same way with art and craft even as they're painting just ask God who is this painting for what is he trying to say through this painting the word of wisdom and knowledge of prophecy healing that he's bringing about then give it to that person and just minister to them healing and deliverance they went through that whole book the pastor's book on healing and deliverance which you would learn in your second year I think evangelism also they were trained dance and choreography just not to dance but how to release the supernatural even as they dance people watching it can just healing can be released deliverance wholeness and also memorizing and oratory skills how to speak the right word to whom how to preach and teach and the end of the year I think after the end of two years our children led worship worship service it was so powerful each of these teams came up their jobs and it was just wonderful our children were painting how beautifully powerfully they led worship you know painted and then declared the word that God had given for them who it was for the person came and collected the painting then we had our healing and deliverance children the end of the service come and stand up in front just pray for the adults who came up in front of prayer it was just a powerful thing so you can also like to take this up and do it in your Sunday schools or your children's church it's just powerful to help children just not identify their skills and talents but also how to release the supernatural through all of this is just so powerful this is how we could go about children's ministry about serving kids, ministering to them training them up, teaching them at a very young age so that when they leave children's church they would be like a bible college student that was our own initiative of writing all of these bible college courses for children's church curriculum our whole idea was that when children leave children's church and they go into adult church they would be able to minister able to understand the deeper and the greater things that God is teaching and preaching to them from the pulpit every Sunday so these are the five essentials of children's ministry anyone has any questions how would formulate a teaching program for multicultural Sunday school which is ethically unbalanced yes Kennedy so even if people are coming from different tribes and different race and cultures or even different social backgrounds the word of God really ministers to everyone in their specific cultures or just ministers to their spirit being we are all created body, soul and spirit it just beautifully translates, relates so we don't have to worry about that but of course you could use all of the programs to even help children to bring about their own cultural their own cultures, their own way of doing things in the programs in the activities so that other children can learn other children's cultures and just know that God loves everyone from every culture and how it's so beautiful that you have children from different backgrounds, different cultures just to know how we all beautifully can worship together and how it will be in heaven, heaven will be like this so it's just beautiful, yes just to learn just for children also learn from other cultures you never know children will make friends with children from other countries and God can use that burden that has to go to that country and be a missionary or an evangelist a pastor or a teacher it has happened in the past and when they go it will not just be a totally new culture because they have a friend who is part of that culture so I just watched a Christian movie where because of the family living in a war-torn country they moved to America and when they moved to America they started like an NGO for all of these people who were from war-torn countries especially basically from their own country people from other cultures and there was this American family who was very close to this family who would come from this war-torn country and finally their daughter went back to this war-torn country to be a missionary and to minister there so it's just so wonderful because at a very young age both these families who were from different race from different nations but good family friends because one had come from a war-torn country had seen totally a different side of life very painful life the child from America was abused but this child was able to these two children were able to relate because of their the backgrounds that they come from the difficult background they were able to relate and became very good friends and this child from America grew up and went back to this country where this family had come and a minister there so yes it can just be a wonderful thing but what of God curriculum all can relate to children from different cultural backgrounds can you know but you need to just be sensitive how the kind of language you're using the kind of examples that you're using as well does that help Kennedy? Yes, thank you God has such a place such a place of kids who come from different countries and they speak different languages have been brought up separately but thanks to them they come together becomes an issue to hear from you thank you thank you let's just make sure that children don't get into their own cliques their own groups so we have children from one nation who become a group they sit together they relate together they don't speak to others but it's good to get children to mix with others engage them in activities where they're learning from each other engaging with each other if they get into their own cliques then they can be a division they can be a racial division as well but just learn from word of God to love others how they can accept people from different nations their cultures learn from them it's wonderful it's beautiful any other questions anyone else has? no questions? okay if there are no questions then we will move on to the next lesson where we will be talking about the developmental needs of children we would look at the developmental needs of children in specific ages so age-related developmental needs but before we look at the specific age-related developmental needs of children we would also we just generally look at the basic developmental needs common to all children and you must be wondering why should we study the developmental needs of children because why do we need to study the developmental needs of children as children's church ministers or those who are in children's what is the importance of the developmental needs of children? why should we know it? why should we study it? any thoughts? hello anyone in class? any thoughts on this? why do we need to study the developmental needs of children in the context of church? just to help group them to know how familiar to teach them and also just for hygiene purposes yeah yeah okay it just helps us better to teach them also put them into specific age-related groups have activities specifically for them yes hygiene as well thank you Kennedy, Elisha so that we can meet the needs at each developmental stage yes very important thank you Elisha yes go ahead Taisha I was going to say similar in order to cater to them better to plan for them to cater to their needs I guess better basically echoing what the others have said thank you Taisha so it's basically to cater to their needs in their specific ages yes so all of these things are very important this developmental needs is important for us to know so that you know we'll be able to write out the lesson plan plan the topics for the curriculum for the children write a lesson plans specifically for that specific age group also organize activities you know programs that they can do which will help them according to and what will cater to their needs what will help them in their specific area of needs and challenges that they are facing okay so all of this can also help us as teachers to prepare our lessons to communicate rightly to teach rightly also when we are counseling and mentoring children it's important for us to know their developmental needs this gives us a wider perspective to know why they are behaving like this also having activities the right kind of activities that would engage them would be exciting for them and not kind of put them off or be boring you know so age related activities craft, whether it's craft games examples that you are using so it's important to know the developmental needs which will help us to minister to them better so we look at you know the developmental needs that is common to all children let me just put up that slide okay just give me a minute are you able to see it yes ma'am okay developmental needs that are common to all children the first one is the need for physical activity children need to exercise and children at all age groups need to exercise and develop their growing bodies through physical activities that is develop both their larger and smaller smaller muscles and motor skills basically the large motor skills concerns their development of their larger muscle movements that are responsible for running and jumping and throwing hopping and balancing on one foot so when you are having activities for children don't do something that you have to sit down and just watch or something that is a mental exercise like a mental quiz but have activities which you know gets them to you know to use their their large muscles movement of their large muscles which is running jumping throwing hopping balancing on one foot so those are the large motor skills the smaller motor skills are responsible for grasping things holding there is a pen, pencil, cutting doing craft activity so at Children's Church Sunday school time include games that would help the children exercise and develop and grow have them in growing through the physical activities of using both their large motor skills and also have some activities like drawing, colouring some craft, some activity that will help them to use their small motor skills which is basically cutting and sticking using the pen or pencil holding grasping that are smaller motor skills and children enjoy games, they enjoy craft they enjoy activity even older children will be surprised usually we think that teens like doing something with craft activity I thought that and specifically I thought boys will not enjoy it but I was quite surprised when we had a vacation by the school just to see how actively engaged teenagers where grade 8, 9, 10 in cutting and sticking and engaging in craft activity as well the first thing that is common to all the development to need is the need for physical activity so ensure that there is some kind of physical activity movement even a physical activity can mean when children are singing, can do action songs they can sing, they can stand up during worship time and that will help them use their large motor skills and also have activities that will help them use their small motor skills the second one is need for competence and achievement it's common for many children you know and also for the young teenagers who feel very self-conscious and they are unsure of their talents and abilities they need space they need opportunities where that will help them prove their competence what they are good at also to celebrate over their small achievements that they do whether it's a craft whether it's a game that they won together as a group or whether it's some a bible quiz they answered we need to create opportunities for them to explore a wide variety of experiences and interests to use their talents so have all of these great opportunities for them to explore a wide varieties of experiences and interests where they can use their talents you know they need these opportunities to demonstrate themselves to show themselves basically to know what they're good at the areas of their talent you know just celebrating a small win a small achievement that will help them build their self-esteem get them to value themselves look at themselves as important and also for others to appreciate this person is skill talented in this area give them opportunities in that area and also give them opportunities and help them to know that you can do well you can excel in this you are good at it and you can improvise on this talent in which they will really appreciate which they will really like and you know it's a place where they're also learning to know who they are in Christ build a good healthy self-image and also have a good healthy self-value knowing that God has given them talents and is going to use their talents and utilizing their talents you know and how they can use their talents also not just to boast about themselves but also how they can use their talents to help others so like when we had this Kingdom Builders Club you know we had children presenting their talents yes everybody was appreciating them and all of that so but also you know children are able to see that hey to this talent is not just for me to boast about it to present it or to just perform on stage but through this talent God is trying to release a supernatural so how can I use the gifts of the Spirit to release the supernatural to this talent so we're basically getting them to in a higher place in the world people are using that talents just to showcase it just to get appreciation to be clap that you know to be applauded you know to prove their self-worth teaching children that it's goes beyond what the world sees it goes beyond to using a talent to minister to people to bring a word of encouragement healing restoration deliverance and to release the supernatural and to minister to people by using the gifts of the Spirit so at APC we create opportunities opportunities for children to use their talents we provide them opportunities to explore their talents as well I mentioned about the Kingdom Builders Club we also had a time when we had you know during our general session where we had worship and announcements and collected the offering offering we had children who were part of the worship team children who played instruments who led worship you know children would do the declaration so they would come and lead the other children and doing the declaration we had different children on different Sundays pray for the offering some children would help in you know projecting the power points for worship some of them would help us in pack up packing up all the things so they would also learn a sound system what are the cables that are required for what you know pack up set up also when you know children used to pray for others and there's a need we would ask children to pray so children are just not learning to come to Children's Church to be minister too but they are also learning you know how to they can minister to other children give them the confidence you know help them in their competency and also know that they can achieve things they can do things for God and how God can use them mightily also you know we have skits where we get children to act Bible quiz we have something called a Bible match which we we had two times when I was overseeing Children's Church between the Bible boys and the Gospel girls we had different you know ways where they could answer Bible questions from the Bible so just having the Bible match at kids conference or you know VBS or Vacation Bible School we have talent competitions singing, painting, dancing poetry, writing you know just memorizing scripture whatever so we use all of these and organize these programs different programs so that children can use their talents they can know what their talents are and they can feel that they're competent enough to do it and they can achieve things and how enables them and helps them okay we'll stop here any questions anyone has we'll continue with the developmental needs that are common for all age groups next class but any questions anyone has no questions yes Asha says that it improves a character in their lifestyle as well yes okay if there's no questions we'll end class thank you everyone for joining class have a blessed day and have a blessed week the rest of the week thank you all God bless