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Vacation Bible School, Kid’s Crusades, Carnivals, Sports Events, and Camps are some wonderful ways to minister to children. But there are lots of other ways to minister to children over the summer.

Here’s some tips for planning your summer program:

Pray, Pray, Pray! In case I didn’t get my point across, you need to pray before planning any events. The most effective ministries are not the ones you ask God to bless, but the ones God directs you to have. Be in His will, and He will bless your efforts.

Don’t overload the calendar. Many times, children’s pastors want so much to use the time available to plan as much for the children as possible. If you do this, parents will soon tire of the endless calendar of events and stop bringing the children. Remember, sometimes less is more.

Think outside the box. Just because you’ve always had Vacation Bible School, doesn’t mean you always have to have Vacation Bible School. You might want to have VBS, but do it in an entirely different way. Or you might want a different event altogether. Don’t always do the same thing. Plan out of the box. Look at what is no longer effective, and change it.

Remember not to be a one man show. Develop a team and release some of the responsibility to them. You can only do so much. A team can do so much more.

Here’s some links some blog posts to help you with your Summer Event Planning:

Summer Checklist for Children’s Ministry

Information on Kid’s Crusades and Children’s Revivals

Reasons to have a Kid’s Crusade Instead of a VBS

Block Parties

Park Ministry

Inexpensive Curriculum You Can Use for VBS

VBS Models

Joshua came to church camp every year. He loved church camp and always looked forward to the sports events. Last year, he won an award for the sports elective he chose. This year was different though. This year, Joshua was pulled in by the evangelist who preached at the services. One night, during service, God moved on Joshua’s heart. He was saved at the age of four, but that night, Joshua committed his life to serve God. God called him to be a full-time minister at the age of ten.

Nick didn’t like school. He struggled to do the work. Kids picked on him and teased him. He didn’t like coming home either. His mom and dad screamed at each other. They barely noticed he was there. Nick looked forward all year to church camp. There, he felt loved. His cabin leader always had a kind word for him. The evangelist preached about God’s love. He had fun swimming and doing other events. When he didn’t do as well as the other kids, nobody made fun of him. The camp youth director even said hi to him and knew his name. Camp was the place where Nick learned God loved him. To Nick, church camp was better than Christmas.

These stories come true every year at church camp. Church camp is one of the most effective tools to minister to children and youth. I want to challenge you to make the effort to send the children in your ministry to camp this year. If it’s too late for this year, make the decision now to do whatever it takes to make sure they can go next year. You’ll be glad you did.

If you worked in church camp, this year, please comment and share your testimonies of the wonderful things that happened at church camp.

Camp Applications: If you have church camp for your children, make sure the information and applications have been sent to parents.

Summer Teachers/Program: Summer is a time that wrecks havoc for Sunday School programs because of vacations and weekend trips. If you do something special for summer, make sure it’s in place and teachers are aware. If not, have a list of substitutes to teach when regular teachers are out of town. Remind regular teachers to give you a list of weeks they’ll be gone ASAP.

Vacation Bible School: Do you have your workers in place for VBS? Have you ordered all the materials you’ll need? Plan a meeting for workers to pass out materials and answer their questions.

Kid’s Crusades: Have you booked a date for your kid’s crusade with the children’s evangelist? Make sure you have talked to the evangelist about all the details of the crusade.

Plan Summer Children’s Church: During the summer, you’ll be busier than normal and will be tempted to skimp on Children’s Church planning. You can avoid this by planning the whole summer program ahead of time.

Check Your Supplies: May is a good time to check and organize the supplies you’ll need for the summer.

 While nothing can keep the summer from overwhelming even the most organized Children’s Pastor, the more you pre-plan for the weeks ahead, the better prepared you’ll be.

Family Game Night: Have a night for children and parents to get together at church and play board games.

Family Picnic: Have a picnic where children invite their families. Have special events or prizes just for mothers.

Mother/Daughter Tea Party: Instead of a mother/daughter banquet, how about a mother/daughter tea party. Have each mother and daughter bring their favorite tea cups and give out prizes for the prettiest, funniest, and most unusual. You could have a mother daughter look-a-like contest. You could also have a fashion show with old-fashioned clothes that were popular when the mothers were children or have mothers and daughters dress alike.

Gifts and Cards: Have children make gifts and homemade cards for their mothers during Sunday School or Children’s Church. Present the presents on Mother’s Day.

Mom’s Night Out: Give mom’s a night out by providing a fun night at the church where you’ll take care of their kids.

Special Mother’s Day Service: On Mother’s Day, have the children sing or do a drama in honor of their mothers.

Pictures: Have someone take photographs of mothers and their children on Mother’s Day.

Picture Contest: Collect pictures of moms when they were young and pictures of the children in your church. Have a contest for people to guess which children go with which mother. Give prizes for the winners.

Honor Mothers: Honor each mother who comes to church on Mother’s Day with a rose. Announce the oldest mother and the mother with the most children.

Children’s Message: In children’s church, preach a message on how children can honor their mothers.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Theme: One Nation Under God

Verse: Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord… Psalm 33:12

It’s important to teach children how to pray for their nation.

One way to do that is to have a series of messages leading up to the day teaching children to pray. A great resource for teaching children to pray is PRAY KIDS MAGAZINE. I highly recommend it. Here’s a link to an online sample of the magazine teaching children to pray for those in authority over them.

You could also have a special service that night for children to take the time to prayer. Have a list of the things you can have the children pray for. Go through the list with the children. Some things that should be on that list are these:

• President Obama
• Supreme Court
• Congress (List you senator and US representative)
• Governor
• State Officials
• Mayor
• City Officials
• Police
• Firefighters
• Teachers
• Hospital and emergency workers
• Pastors and church leaders
• Parents
• Peace of Israel (We are blessed when we pray for the peace of Israel.)
• Great Awakening in America

There are many ways children’s ministries can participate in the National Day of Prayer and resources available on the web.

Here’s a link to Revival Fire For Kids blog posts on prayer.

Children’s Ministry Blog has some helpful posts on prayer for children and will have a post on the National Day of Prayer for children as the date gets closers. Here’s the link.

Free Lord’s Prayer and National Day of Prayer coloring pictures are available here.

If you’re interested in a prayer program you can use with your kid’s clubs at church, click here.

Annie’s National Day of Prayer Page  for children has some great ideas on how to teach children to pray and how to incorporate the National Day of Prayer into your children’s ministry.

Here’s a great article called Children Can Pray with ideas to teach children how to pray.

National Children’s Prayer Conference is an organization encouraging children to pray for our nation.

National Day Of Prayer Official Site

Children are great prayer warriors in the Kingdom of God. They only need to be taught and released to pray. Watch this video clip of children praying.