Summer is always a hectic time for Children’s Ministry. Here’s a checklist to help the summer go smoother.
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: If you haven’t already done so, this 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.
Here are some reasons to have a Children’s Revival or Kid’s Crusade instead of VBS this year.
A children’s evangelist or revivalist is different from a children’s pastor. Just as senior pastors call on evangelists or revivalists to preach revival services, children’s pastors should also use revivalists. The calling of a revivalist or evangelist is different than the calling of a pastor. A pastor cares for the flock day in and day out. A revivalist (who many times has the calling of an evangelist, prophet, or apostle) prays for a word from the Lord to deliverer. Once a revivalist has that word, he or she will preach everywhere God leads. This is why, when you have a kid’s crusade, you should hire a revivalist or evangelist, not a children’s pastor from another church. This is the same for adult ministry, youth ministry, and children’s ministry.
Inviting new people energizes children’s ministry. Children’s pastors are some of the greatest preachers on Earth. But change brings excitement. If you give children something or someone different occasionally, it will energize their faith in God and bring new life into your children’s ministry.
You don’t have to get together props. One of the biggest expenses of VBS is the extra materials needed to go with the theme. Crafts, activities, Bible stories props, and music all have to be added as well as supplies to go with the VBS. Children’s revivalists have all the props needed to go with their theme.
You don’t have to decorate. Decorations for VBS take a great amount of time, energy, and expense for one week’s work. Revivalists bring decorations to go with their theme and set them up.
It takes less volunteers to run. Instead of teachers and helpers for every age group, activity directors, craft directors, and snack directors you need for VBS, all you need for a kid’s crusade is one adult or teen helper for every fifteen to twenty children. Because these helpers don’t have to prepare anything, only be available to monitor children, they are easier to recruit.
There’s very little preparation. No teacher or student booklets to pass out, no craft materials to get together, no props to get a hold of; these are some of the advantages of having a kid’s crusade. All you have to do is advertise, recruit a few people to monitor the children, and pray. The children’s revivalist does all the work. It couldn’t be easier.
It costs less. VBS is more expensive than a children’s revival or Kid’s Crusade. When you look at the cost of hiring a children’s revivalist, you might be skeptical. But consider the cost of VBS. The teaching materials for the average VBS costs around $500.00 dollars. The craft materials can be as much as another $200.00 or more. Add $100.00 for decorations, another $100.00 for prizes, and another $100.00 for miscellaneous expense. This doesn’t include snack, or advertising. It’s also a very conservative estimate totaling almost $1000.00. Many churches spend more than that. When you consider the additional cost of your time that could be spent visiting children, discipling children, training and recruiting volunteers, and preparing lessons for Children’s Church, you’ll see that most children’s revivalists are a bargain.
Children are more likely to come if there’s something different. The definition of insanity is doing things the same way and expecting different results. Do something different. Let children experience God in a new way by having a kid’s crusade. Let God out of your VBS box.
For information on how you can book Revival Fire For Kids for a kid’s crusade, click the CHILDREN’S REVIVALS AND CRUSADES tab at the top menu of this blog and download the EVENT HANDBOOK or contact revivalfire4kids@att.net.
Revival Fire For Kids is still booking spots for 2015 and 2016!
Summer is always a hectic time for Children’s Ministry. Here’s a checklist to help the summer go smoother.
