From Insight for Living, this is a followup video to the “Teach Your Kids Bad Theology: A How-to Guide” video featured earlier on this blog:
| <a href=”http://waynestocks.com/2009/05/09/teach-your-kids-bad-theology-a-how-to-guide-tanglecom/”>Teach Your Kids Bad Theology: A How-to Guide</a> |
Background
I trust that many of you know who Phil Vischer is. He founded Veggietales in 1990 and built the company into a wildly successful venture. Phil left the company in 2003 (though he continues to voice characters in the movies). Phil wrote about the whole adventure in a series called What Happened to Big Idea? After a couple of other ventures, Phil started Jelly Fish labs and Jellytelly in 2008 as a revolutionary way to reach children with the gospel of Christ.
The Jellytelly website started as a subscription site, then went to a free format (which is when I found them) and now appears to be subscription based again with some free content. With puppet based characters like Buck Denver, Sunday School Lady, and many more combined with interviews with kids and The Fabulous Bentley Brothers (check out Old Testament…New Ideas (Jelly Telly’s Books of the Bible Series)), Jelly Telly offers internet based programming to teach kids about Christianity.
In 2009, Phil Vischer and Jelly Telly announced that they were joining forces with Focus on the Family and Tyndale House Publishing to produce a new 13 part series for kids called “What’s in the Bible” to walk kids through the Bible. An ambitious project to walk kids through the entire Bible, I was excited to get my hands on it when it was first announced. I was lucky enough to receive a preview copy of the first episodes – “In the Beginning” to review on this site.
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.
It is a well known refrain from a well know Children’s song:
Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
The song is the well known song “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” Along with “Jesus Loves Me” it is arguably the most well known children’s songs of all time. It also reflects a fundamental truth about the God that we serve – he loves children. That love is evident throughout the Bible including verses like Mark 10:13-16:
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.
When you’re flipping through television stations, do you stop at the Cartoon Channel to see what’s on? Do you frequently check out the best-seller listing of top children’s books to know what kids are reading? Do you subscribe to magazines aimed at kids? Do you watch commercials on Saturday morning to get a feel for toys are popular with kids today? Do you go out of your way to find kids’ movies? Do you walk up and down the aisles at toy stores to see what they’re playing with? As workers in Children’s Ministry, we must be acutely aware of the culture that the kids in our ministry are living in. We must understand it in order to converse with the kids on their level and in order to take steps to counteract any negative impacts that our culture may have on them. After all, the Bible tells us to be in the world but not of the world, and we should have the same goal for the kids we minister to. We must appreciate the subculture of kids in order to relate to them on their level.
Furthermore, it’s important to always keep your eyes and ears open. You never know where you might find a great story or an object lesson you can use on a Sunday morning. Jesus taught in parables that were relevant and understandable to those he was teaching. Where possible, we should try to do the same thing with the kids we minister to.
A word of warning though is appropriate here. The gospel and the Bible are timeless and are as good for teaching children today as they were a thousand years ago. I am not talking about “updating” the Bible or the gospel in order to make it relevant to kids. What I am suggesting is that in order to build relationships with kids that will enable us to speak the gospel and Word of God into their lives, we must understand and learn from the kid culture. In order to connect with kids, we must understand the world that they live in on a daily basis.
The latest Children’s Ministry Think Tank was published yesterday over at Ministry-to-Children.com. I contributed my thoughts to the question again this installment, and I must say, I am honored to be amongst the contributors this month which include Gina McClain, Sam Luce, Kenny Conley and Brenna Phillips. In fact, I am pretty sure that if someone did a “which one of these doesn’t belong” on this particular Think Tank, I would definitely be the answer!
The question for this installment was:
“How do you understand God’s calling to children’s ministry in your own life? How would you counsel a young person who is exploring this children’s ministry as a vocation? What do you make of Kids Pastors who move on to other positions in the church such as executive or senior pastor?”
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.
There are essentially three different types of learners – auditory, visual and kinesthetic. The different types of learners are defined principally based on how the best take in and process information. As teachers in Children’s Ministry, we must understand each of these types of learners, including their strengths and weaknesses, so that we can design our lessons to meet the needs of all three types of learners. Every lesson that we prepare should include elements that appeal to each of the different types.
Auditory learners represent about 30% of the population. Auditory learners learn best by listening to the spoken word. In many respects, these kids are a teacher’s dream in many respects. Stand in front of them and present your lesson and they will take it all in. It no surprise then that most traditional education techniques are geared towards auditory learners. These learners learn best by hearing either others or themselves. They tend to like talking and often talk to themselves. They also process information by asking questions and giving feedback on what they do and do not understand. They are more apt to remember names than faces. They tend to enjoy music, and often learn well by converting things to song. Bible verses might be easier for this type of learner to retain if they are put to song or if you have them repeat verses and information back to you. This type of learner may be easily distracted by sounds so you might not want to overload your lesson with background sound. The auditory learner should be engaged in conversations about spiritual things and provided plenty of opportunities to share their own stories and experiences. This may include interview them as part of the lesson or having them answer questions during the course of the lesson.
About 60% of people are visual learners. Visual learners learn best by what they see. They learn much more from written or video material than spoken material. They think in terms of pictures and benefit from seeing the facial expressions of their teachers. Pictures and videos and skits work best with these kids in terms of retention. They like books with pictures and illustrations. During an oral lesson, these kids may seem distracted and may daydream. They tend to remember faces rather than names. Ideas for helping them learn include having them draw a picture of what they have been taught and writing out questions and answers so that they can see them visually. The visual learner will react well to pictures, posters and lots of different colors in your classroom. If you are relating a Bible story such as the Mary and Joseph’s trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, point out the places on a map so the visual learner can “see the story.” Incorporate visual questions into your lesson like, “What do you think the expression on Mary’s face was when the angel Gabriel visited her?” Anything you can do to help visual learns process your lesson in terms of pictures will help them to retain the lesson.
Seeds family worship is one of my favorite resources for scripture memorization songs. There songs are great for kids and adults alike, and i find myself singing there songs whenever I come across one of the verses they’ve set to song in my Bible.We have featured Seeds Family Worship videos twice previously on Dad in the Middle:
In this latest installment, called “Young,” this talented group sets the words of 1 Timothy 4:12 to song:
