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2020-02-26 to 28 Pictures: Charleston, South Carolina

One of the few upsides of having to cancel our Spring Break trip last March at the onset of the pandemic is that we are "stuck" with a rather large voucher from one of those discount airlines. Last autumn, Tricia and I spent a weekend in Savannah, Georgia and had a...

A John 3:16 Craft for Kids

John 3:16 is one of the most well known and reassuring verses in the Bible. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.John 3:16 (NIV) The following is a little craft I threw...

2020-03-01 Pictures: Lyndsey’s College Signing Day

This afternoon Lyndsey made it official, signing her letter of intent to play college basketball for the Hiram College Terriers starting next year. While she made the decision and committed to Hiram before Christmas, she has been looking forward to this day since her...

2020-02-13 Pictures: Lyndsey’s 18th Birthday

I am little behind on posting photos. These are some of my favorites from a couple of weekends ago when we got a chance to celebrate Lyndsey's 18th birthday. It's hard to believe that my little girl is officially an adult. It was nice to have the family all back...

What is DOCTRINE?

Introduction I love working with kids, and I love teaching them hard concepts in ways they can understand. To that end, for years I have been working on a dictionary of theological terms for kids and teens. In sharing those definitions, there seemed no better place to...

If You Want It Done Right

In all likelihood, you know how the phrase ends: If you want it done right, DO IT YOURSELF! This is a bit of a mantra for me, and frankly, something that I struggle with daily both in leadership and in my Christian walk.  In theory, this is easy to accept. ...

What Does God Hate?

This is the little and humble post that started it all. I happened to be reading through my Bible, and this passage impacted me so much that I posted a little blurb about it on Facebook. That was July 28, 2008, and I've been writing and sharing ever since. (Maybe...

#6 – Where Everybody Knows Your Name (Tips for Large Group Teaching)

Welcome to a continuing series of tips on working with large groups of children. I hope that you will find these tips useful and be able to implement them in your dealings with large groups of kids. If you do, please leave a comment and let us know. For a complete list of posts in this series, please see the index page. So, without further introduction, here is today’s installment.

This was a line from the popular show Cheers in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.  It extols the comfort that comes from knowing that there is somewhere in this world where everyone knows who you are.  In the real world, that’s what our Children’s Ministries should be like!  There’s just something a lot more personal about calling a child by his/her name rather than just “you.”  Even in a large group setting, using a child’s name helps to build personal rapport.

Knowing every kid’s name is a lot easier in a small group setting where you only have 8-10 names to remember.  It’s a whole lot harder when you have 20 or 30 or 50 or more kids to try to remember all their names.

I use our check in list each week to keep track of who is and isn’t there.  I also make a conscious effort to study it every week to try to memorize the kids’ names.  I make notes about any distinctive characteristic a child might have, who is related to who, and anything else I can think of that will help me to remember their names.  I try to either great the kids every week as they get dropped off or be the one to wish them well and say goodbye as their parents pick them up.  This helps to further reinforce memorizing their names.  When all else fails, name tags are great!  I’m getting better and better every week at seeing a 1 inch by 4 four inch name tag from twenty feet away!

Return to the Tips for Large Group Teaching in Children’s Ministry index page.

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