Category Archives: Parents and Congregation

Reasons To Have Children’s Church

Posted on November 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

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Most churches now have children’s church during the Adult Worship Service on Sunday mornings. There are a lot of reasons churches do this. Some are good, but some are faulty. None of the reasons are totally wrong if you have the right reasons as your priorities. Here’s some wrong reasons and right reasons for having Children’s Church.

Wrong Reasons:

Parents want to enjoy the service. This may sound like a good reason, but the number one reason you should minister to children is to minister to children, not to minister to their parents.

Children disrupt the adult service. Children’s ministry should not be a glorified baby-sitting service to keep disruption out of the adult service. Again the first reason should be to minister to children.

We need something for the children to attract adults to the church. Although it’s true that a thriving children’s ministry attract adults, that should not be the main reason for having one. If adult ministry is the priority for having children’s ministry, children’s ministry is born out of selfishness.

We want to teach children about God so that when they are older, they will serve Him. At least this reason is focused on the children. What makes it faulty is that God wants children to serve Him as children, not just when they are older. Children are the leaders of tomorrow, but they are the church of today.

Right Reasons:

Children are a part of the body of Christ and should have a worship service that relate to them.

85% of all Christians are saved between the age of 4 and 14 years old. That means our resources and time are better spent reaching out to children.

Children need to be saved, sanctified, and serving in the church as children if we are to disciple them to be Christ followers.

So why does your church have a children’s church?

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Posted in Children's Church, Discipling Children, Encouragement For Children's Ministers, Leadership, Parents and Congregation

Prayer Sponsors For Children

Posted on August 25, 2010 | Leave a comment


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School has started or will be starting soon, and children are entering a spiritual war zone. They need prayer. That’s why having a prayer sponsor for each child in your ministry is essential. Here’s a few ideas on how to have prayer sponsors.

Advertise in the congregation. Let the members of the congregation know that they are committing not only to praying for a child every day, but to connecting with that child at least once a month. They should also send the child a birthday card and thinking of you postcards occasionally. Let the sponsors know they are committing to this for one year.

Launch the Program with a Special Day. You could have a special banquet where the prayer sponsors will sit with the children they’re praying for. Or you could have a special children’s anointing service and have each prayer sponsor pray for his or her child.

Give Information. Prayer sponsors should be given information about the child they are praying for including age, grade, school, parent’s names, address, email, and phone number.

Have a list of suggestions on what to pray for. You could put these suggestions on a bookmark they can place in their Bibles. Make the bookmarks out of card stock paper. Here’s a list you could use.

  • School
  • Family
  • Health
  • Activities
  • Relationship with God

An Opportunity to Give. You can also use this as a way to raise funds for children’s ministry. Give the sponsors enough offering envelopes for the year and suggest they give a certain amount of money to the children’s ministry once a month in the name of the child they are sponsoring. If there are any trips or special events that cost money, the money they give will go toward the child they’re sponsoring.

Invite prayer sponsors to children’s ministry events, and let them know what’s going on in children’s ministry in your church.

The prayer sponsor program can be one of the most effective programs in your children’s ministry. Prayer changes things.

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Posted in Fundraisers, Parents and Congregation, Prayer, School

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A Children’s Pastor Is A Mentor

Posted on April 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

Ephesians 4:12   Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.

Mentor: a trusted counselor or guide, a coach

Effective children’s pastors are mentors. Another word for mentor is guide or coach. They take time to equip children, workers, and parents under their care. But you can’t mentor everyone. Jesus had many followers but only 12 disciples. He spent most of His time pouring into 3 of those 12 – John, Peter, and James. We can teach and pastor a great number of children and workers. But we need to limit who we mentor or coach. We need to pray and ask God who we should pour ourselves into, who we should mentor.

Children:

A children’s pastor is an evangelist, shepherd, and teacher to all children in his or her ministry. But a children’s pastor should also choose a few who love the Lord and show spiritual growth to become a mentor to. This should be your ministry team. Teach these children to minister in your children’s service. Teach them to be prayer warriors and altar workers. Give them responsibilities for ministry. Pour yourself into them. Spend time with them. Have a time you meet with them regularly and train them. This link talks more about how to do that.

Workers:

Depending on how large your worker force is will determine how you go about this. If you have 20 or 30 workers or more under you, you’ll want a ministry team or no more than 10 that you mentor. That team will in turn mentor 5 to 10 people under them. If you have a small children’s ministry, you can mentor all of your workers. To mentor, you don’t only want to do teacher training. Mentoring involves developing relationships and having meetings where those you coach have a safe place to voice their concerns and contribute with ideas and planning.

Parents:

You may have the opportunity to mentor a few parents on how to parent and incorporate spirituality into their childrens’ lives. Have resources available, but again, the most important aspect of mentoring is developing a relationship with parents.

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Posted in Discipling Children, Encouragement For Children's Ministers, Leadership, Parents and Congregation

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Frustrations In Children’s Minsitry: Not So Well Meaning People

Posted on April 8, 2010 | 1 Comment

Sooner or later, every minister and every Christian comes across someone who comes against them with a vengeance. I’m not talking about a person who means well but just doesn’t understand. I’m talking about someone who means you harm. This is an attack from the enemy. Sometimes the person will use outright attacks. More often he or she will go behind the scene to attack your character and right to lead with gossip, innuendo, and outright lies. Unfortunately many times, this person will be or claim to be a Christian. Sometimes the attack will come from a friend. Whatever the case, it will happen, and when it does, it will devastate you. Here’s what to do when it does.

Recognise the spirit behind it. This is not a personal attack. It’s a spiritual attack. Don’t pray against the person being used. Pray against the spirit behind it.

Ephesians 6:12  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Understand it happens to everyone. Jesus was betrayed by Judas, his disciple and one of his best friends. When this happened, his other friends deserted him. He understands the pain. Give it to him.

Pray for the offender. This is essential to allow God to move on your behalf.

Matthew 5:44-45  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven…

Do not take offense. When you allow offense to take root in your heart, you’re giving a foothold to the devil. Let go of the offense, not for the offender’s sake, but for your sake. 

Ephesians 4:26-27  Be angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. 

Communicate with your senior pastor. It’s important when a situation like this happens that you let your senior pastor know what’s going on. It’s up to him how he wants to handle it, but he needs to know the information to decide what to do about it.

Let God defend you. 

2 Chronicles 20:15  This is what the LORD says: Do not be afraid! Don’t be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God’s. 

Isaiah 59:19  …When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.

Remember that God is on your side. Don’t defend yourself. Let God defend you.

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Posted in Encouragement For Children's Ministers, Frustrations In Children's Ministry Series, Leadership, Parents and Congregation

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Frustrations In Children’s Ministry: Well Meaning Parents

Posted on April 6, 2010 | 2 Comments

One of the biggest frustrations children’s pastors have is well meaning parents. Here’s some examples.

  • Parents who are hit and miss about the children’s attendance.
  • Parents who expect children’s pastors to be responsible for children’s spiritual growth.
  • Parents who put sports and other activities above church.
  • Parents who punish children by not allowing them to attend church events.
  • Parents who have constant complaints about how you run the children’s ministry.
  • Parents who allow children to stay up late, don’t feed them breakfast, and bring them to church hungry and tired.

It’s difficult to deal with parents like these, but there are some guidelines you need to remember. First, parents are the ones who are responsible to God for their children. You, as the children’s pastor, should never circumvent the parent’s authority or try to take the place of the parent. You are there to assist the parent. You can do this in the following ways.

Pray for parents. Parents have difficult jobs raising children in the world today. The best thing you can do is pray for them and to let them know you’re praying for them.

Recognize that even though parents make mistakes, even the worst parents love their children and want what’s best for them. Tell parents what they’re doing right or that you know what a difficult job they have.

Open House and Open Door. A great way to develop a team effort between parents and children’s pastors is an open door policy. Invite parents to visit children’s church and classes to observe whenever they want. Also have special open houses where parents are invited to be a part of children’s church. For safety reasons, remind parents they’re there to observe only, and always have an adult children’s worker present.

Communicate with parents. Let them know what’s happening in children’s ministry and successes you have with their children. One of the best ways to communicate with parents is to get to know them. Build a relationship with them.

Give parents resources to help them. Have resources available when parents ask for help with devotions or helping their children grow spiritually. But also have resources available for other needs. There are books, pamplets, and organizations that help parents with problems such as AHDD, learning disabilities, discipline problems, and other special needs. You could also have resources available for free health care, school supplies, housing, and other financial needs. One great resource is a fun day for kids on occasion that allows parents to take advantage of free babysitting.

Invite parents to help. This is a great way to get parents on board as a part of the team. They may not be teachers, but they might want to help as monitors, or as extra help at children’s ministry events. They might even have skills that will benefit you such as sewing, computer, secretarial, carpentry, photography, audio/technical, cooking, baking, etc. Make sure to have a screening policy in effect before doing this. Not all parents should work with children.

With a little effort, the parents in your children’s ministry will be on board and consider you a part of the team. When that happens, you’ll have the ability to help the parents see what they can do to help you minister to their children.

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Posted in Encouragement For Children's Ministers, Frustrations In Children's Ministry Series, Parents and Congregation

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