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It’s that time of year again – you may be evaluating your curriculum and determining whether you want to make a change. Let me suggest ways you SHOULD NOT choose what curriculum to use in your children’s ministry:

Use what you have always used.

Traditions might be great at Christmas time, but using a curriculum “because you’ve always used it” is a terrible reason – unless you can explain its scope and sequence and the strategy for why it was put in place. But if it is “just there” because Moses brought it down from Mt. Sinai, or some other long gone leader who is kickin’ back with Jesus by now… it is time to re-evaluate!

Let your teachers each pick their own.

Love your teachers, support your teachers, but DO NOT let them each pick what they want to teach in their classroom. This is a formula for educational disaster! Why? Your students may end up learning about Joseph and Jesus six times to Sunday and never even find out who Moses or Abraham are! You need a comprehensive strategy for what content you want covered throughout the entire range of your educational program, so you need a curriculum strategy that encompasses all your classes.

Look at tons of samples and pick 
based on what appeals to you.

This is a popular method – but it appeals to the eyes and the company with the slickest marketing budget wins, not necessarily the company with the best materials. Slickness is not the goal, biblical content that covers the most of the Bible, while addressing as many of your educational goals as possible are your goals. So leave the samples aside until you have determined what you are looking for.

Depend on curriculum promotions.

We all want  a good deal, but the best deal is a Disciple of Jesus Christ who makes it through the snares of this world without the high cost of sin! Don’t fall for promotions – be objective enough to know what you are looking for and hunt for it. If it’s on sale, or you can find a way to get it at discount, more power to ya. If not, and it’s the best – pay top dollar for it. It’s probably worth it.

Use what some other great church uses.

If such and such church or some well know CP uses it, it must be the best, right? The best for that church, sure – but that doesn’t always translate to your church. It could be a disaster in your church, or not worth the time and effort to modify. More important than WHAT curriculum another church uses is WHY they use that curriculum. That will better lead you to WHY you should choose your curriculum.

Lay a SOLID Foundation!

Don’t under estimate the importance of the curriculum you choose.  Everything else hinges from and is built upon the foundation laid by your teaching material. How high and how deep and how broad your educational ministry will be is greatly determined by curriculum. What you TEACH your children will ultimately determine the long-term impact of your ministry.

It won’t matter how many kids you reached, how many prayers they prayed, how many prizes you awarded, how much fun they had, or how happy the parents were – the measure of your ministry is what they learned and applied to their life in the years after they left you and that is greatly determined by the curriculum you choose.

…the measure of your ministry is what they learned and applied to their life in the years after they left you and that is greatly determined by the curriculum you choose…

So how do you choose a curriculum? (I thought you’d never ask!)

1. Determine what YOU would like to accomplish in your educational program – what are you trying to accomplish?
2. List your educational goals – put it in writing before you ever look at publisher’s samples!
3. List the weaknesses you see with the current material you are using.
4. Make a list of what you are looking for and would like to see in the future. This is important so that if the curriculum you choose doesn’t have it, you know what you will need to supplement.
5. THEN look at published materials to see if any match your criteria.
6. Choose the one that best fits what God showed you He is asking you to accomplish with the children He has brought to you. If none of them fit, you may need to write you own.

Too many churches START by looking at curriculum assuming they have the answers, letting the curriculum determine the goals of their ministry. It is your ministry, they are your children, entrusted to your care by God – the curriculum is to serve you. Take some ownership and let the curriculum serve you, not the other way around. Have the confidence in the Holy Spirit’s ability to show you what HE wants to accomplish through you and your team in your ministry. The curriculum becomes a tool in your hand toward that goal.

Next Time: Find out why we recommend DiscipleLand Core Bible Curriculum for Sunday School and how my previous ministry went through this process, what was on our list of goals, and how DiscipleLand fit the bill.

See: Curriculum Chaos to Order (Posted one month later)

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SEE ALSO: Kidology’s SPOTLIGHT on DiscipleLand (Full PDF Report by Karl)

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By Karl Bastian. Disclosure of Material Connection: I write curriculum for DiscipleLand and am a board member of DiscipleLand. Regardless, I only recommend resources that I believe are beneficial for those in children’s ministry. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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What are we supposed to be doing in children’s ministry? The bottom line is we’re in ministry to help mold kids so they live as Christ followers. And we’re painfully aware that, in the church, we have little time with the children to accomplish this. However, the full responsibility is not on us. As the church, we are here to help parents and be their partners in this effort.

For this partnership to work, both parents and the church must understand how their responsibilities complement each other. Our parents need to understand and apply a biblical worldview when raising their children. They have to model daily how to be a Christ follower if they expect their children to be Christ followers. The value of this cannot be underestimated. Then, as the church, we come alongside parents and reinforce what they are living out on a daily basis in the home.

Now let’s make a few assumptions. Let’s assume our children’s parents regularly attend church. Let’s also assume that these parents love their children. Finally let’s assume that these parents want their children to become adults who are Christ followers. If all these assumptions are true, then here are some ways in which children’s ministries can partner with parents.

1. Communicate. It is important to let parents know on a regular basis what is taught in the church. Here are some of the methods we’ve used: sending take-home papers; projecting children’s ministry teaching information on the screen during the main worship service; offering information on the website; teaching in conjunction with the adult curriculum to create family discussion. We know that none of these ways are 100 percent effective, but they provide help to the families who wish to use them.

2. Create family events. We started making children’s events family-oriented. We ask that a parent be present at every teaching or social event. For example, our fall festival is a family event that doesn’t require many volunteers, and it brings families together with other families in the church.

3. Discontinue the kids-only VBS. We have restructured our vacation Bible school to be a family VBS so parents are involved, too. In this type of structure, the parents are brought along in the teaching automatically. We don’t dismiss the adults for a separate lesson—they stay with their kids the entire time. This is a great opportunity for families to enjoy quality time and a shared hands-on experience together.

4. Dedicate parents. For years, we have held Baby Day. There are lots of “oohs” and “aahs” as beautiful babies and proud parents are introduced to the church family. Make no mistake, though—this is not a baby dedication but a parent dedication. While this is a great way for a parent to make a public, verbal commitment, we have increased the impact by requiring that parents attend a special class before participating in the actual ceremony. Parents learn why it’s important to dedicate themselves to godly parenting, and we provide parenting tools and resources. It’s invaluable to educate parents at this juncture about their responsibility to teach their child about matters of faith. If they can form a habit of spiritual education in their family, they have a much better chance of sticking with it in the latter years.

5. Build a Backyard Bible Club. The main goal of Backyard Bible Clubs is to help church members see the influence they can and should have outside the walls of the church building. Each club is held in a church family’s neighborhood and hosted by one or two families. The club is an outreach to the neighborhood, and it creates a way for families to work together to invite neighbors. This is a great opportunity for parents to model that faith is something to be shared on a daily basis.

6. Include parents. We offer a Bible 101 class for children who want to make a commitment to Christ. This is a four-week course, and it is mandatory for parents to participate the first and last week. The purpose of the class is to make sure the parents are informed about what their child will be learning. It’s also to instruct and encourage parents to be involved in their child’s experience of making a decision to follow Christ. The children are given a booklet to work on at home with their parents, and some questions require parents’ input. Hopefully, the parents will become an integral part of their child’s spiritual growth.

7. Organize family teaching. We allow and encourage families to teach together. We have several families who teach a Sunday school class as a family unit. This is yet another opportunity for the parents to be spiritual role models in service and attitude.

8. Mark spiritual growth. One area that we plan to develop is a way to applaud spiritual benchmarks of the children. I think this will be significant for the parents. If we are communicating what we expect the children to learn and then acknowledge these steps when they are accomplished, it will reinforce the importance of spiritual growth.

It is possible to only teach and never offer opportunities for parents to use what they have learned. It also is possible to offer opportunities, but never educate the parents on how to be spiritual leaders in their families. It would seem that our most effective efforts to bring family and church together are through teaching and coaching the parents and providing them with opportunities to use their knowledge in practical ways. These approaches go hand-in-hand.

Since there is limited time spent with the children in our ministry, we need to be effective partners in raising Christ followers. As children’s and family life ministers, we have a timely and exciting challenge before us. Let’s step up to the challenge!

—Becky Arthur is the  children’s minister at Harvester Christian Church in St. Charles, Missouri.

Adapted from Collaborate: Family + Church, by Michael Chanley + the Group of 34, © 2010 Ministers Label. Used by permission.

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Here’s a great FREE sample object lesson from our DiscipleTown curriculum that teaches kids to follow instructions.

Source: From DiscipleTown “How to Follow God’s Plan”

Letʼs Play!—Follow Instructions Game

Supplies: envelopes, two sheets of paper, one with each set of instructions printed on them.

Ask for two volunteers who are outgoing and willing to look a little silly for a prize. But mention that they must be good at reading and following directions. In this game, boys against girls works well, or you can pick one boy and one girl to start with, since you will need to pick replacements as they mess up.

When the contestants come up, give each an envelope with the following instructions inside. Explain that they are exactly the same instructions, only in a different order so that they canʼt just follow what the other is doing; also, it will be harder to tell who is winning until the end. (It is important that the first line be included in small print!)

PLAYER 1: Read these instructions all the way through; then do what they say.

1. Jump up and down ten times.

2. Run and touch the back wall, come back, and yell, “Iʼm back!”

3. Say the alphabet facing backwards.

4. Pat the leader on the head.

5. Go knock on a door.

6. Sing “Row, Row, Row your Boat” all the way through fast.

7. Turn around three times.

8. Sit on the ground and yell, “Iʼm so silly!”

9. Say “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” three times super-loud.

10. Do only number 4; then yell, “Iʼm all done!”

PLAYER 2: Read these instructions all the way through; then do what they say.

1. Turn around three times.

2. Sing “Row, Row, Row your Boat” all the way through fast.

3. Jump up and down ten times.

4. Run and touch the back wall, come back, and yell, “Iʼm back!”

5. Sit on the ground and yell, “Iʼm so silly!”

6. Pat the leader on the head.

7. Say the alphabet facing backwards.

8. Say “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” three times super-loud.

9. Go knock on a door.

10. Do only number 6; then yell, “Iʼm all done!”

Most kids will start out doing everything on the sheet and fail to notice the instruction “Read these instructions all the way through; and then do what they say” line. Therefore, you can let them go for a while—they may even finish—and then announce that nobody won because they did something wrong. Then choose another contestant. After a while you can start interrupting the game sooner. Eventually a kid will read it all first, do only the correct item, and win.

The Point

A lot of people have a Bible and are trying to follow it, but they are doing so in a haphazard way—so they end up making a lot of mistakes in life that could have been avoided if they had been reading the Bible carefully!

About

DiscipleTown is a downloadable children’s church curriculum for elementary-age kids. Developed by Karl Bastian, the Kidologist, and published by DiscipleLand, DiscipleTown uses a creative and adaptable town theme to teach practical “Disciple Skills” that every follower of Jesus Christ must develop in order to grow and live victoriously. The children’s church format compliments DiscipleLand and/or your other ministries to kids.

The following DiscipleTown units are currently available with more to come!

• How To Worship God

• How To Use My Bible

• How To Grow Spiritual Fruit

• How To Make Good Friends

• How To Follow God’s Plan

• How To Make Good Choices

• How To Be Faithful Workers

Rather than providing a rigid plan to follow, you can quickly and easily modify DiscipleTown to fit your ministry needs. There is more than enough material for a full length service, but you can also choose only the elements you’d like to use. By design, DiscipleTown is packed with ideas so you’ll never be left needing to supplement the lesson, but its flexibility allows you to add your own unique teaching elements.

© 2010, DiscipleLand. All rights reserved.

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The Barna Group has released a multi-part series on the economic crisis of the last year and how this impacts the church. These reports contain insightful and valuable information as you pray and plan for the year ahead. As a reminder, though research can serve as an indicator and prudent action is always advisable, we walk by faith. Read the rest of this entry »

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The latest DiscipleTown unit, How to Follow God’s Plan is now available on both DiscipleLand.com and Kidology.org. Read the rest of this entry »

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Once upon a time, Christian parents asked their children after church, “What did you learn about God?” Today, the question is often, “Did you have fun?” Not too long ago, wanting to fully equip children to serve Christ, churches offered extensive Bible training for all ages. Today, wanting to keep kids happy and to make recruiting easy, many churches offer high-energy, entertainment-based programs. Children rarely use their Bibles.

What’s needed is a comprehensive children’s discipleship system that helps equip kids to reach their peak potential as Jesus’ disciples, a children’s church curriculum that partners with teachers and parents to transform children into dynamic disciples of Jesus Christ. Kids need to learn to Know God intimately, love God passionately, and to serve God selflessly.

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We always enjoy getting feedback from our customers. This note that just came in made our day:

I had a discovery today! You have put the Dee-Cy-Paul stories on DiscipleZone.com there as a printable resource.  Very cool!  Thank you! Would you believe that I had 5 guys not too long ago huddled around my laptop reading a few of these stories from the disciplezone site?  It was moving to behold.  I always envisioned this piece to be done at home via online.  It never occurred to me that it could be used in class… these stories beautifully apply the lesson to a kid’s world.

A Big Heartfelt Thank You for continuing to fulfill the vision that God has given you.  We’ve only used the curriculum since September 2007 but I truly appreciate your company and I thank God for you.  All of our teachers are growing in their teaching gift and I know God has used your material to inspire them in their ministry to the children. It is a great feeling to know that our kids are being fed such nutritous food thanks to the DiscipleLand curriculum.  Keep up the good work.  God is doing far more than you may know.  Stay faithful.

Be encouraged, Your co-laborer,
Pastor Brian

For more information on how DiscipleZone.com can enrich your teaching experience see: Using the Internet to Connect with Kids via DiscipleZone.com

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Announcing DiscipleLand Rewards!

We appreciate each and every one of our DiscipleLand churches and we want to help you save money! We are launching new online reward program that will help you meet your children’s discipleship goals while earning Reward Points each time you purchase DiscipleLand products. You’ll be able to redeem Reward Points for discounts on subsequent orders. You’ll also earn Bonus Rewards when you order regularly! Start saving on all your curriculum needs!

Learn more about Reward Points >>

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Sir Isaac Newton (English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist. and theologian) was one of the most brilliant men who ever lived. He told a fellow scientist who wondered how Newton was able to accomplish so much, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Children, at every point in their development, stand on the shoulders of their former selves. Kids cannot write a meaningful essay until they are able to create a coherent paragraph; they cannot write a strong paragraph if they have not learned basic grammar and word meanings. Similarly, children cannot solve differential equations until they have mastered algebra; they do not understand algebra unless they first grasp arithmetic.

This principle is true in music, art, and other academic disciplines as well—but it is also valid in spiritual endeavors. If the foundation is weak, efforts to build will be fraught with problems. Jesus concludes His Sermon on the Mount with a graphic illustration of this same principle (Matthew 7:24-27).

Studies in cognitive psychology and language acquisition conclusively demonstrate that children are much more likely to retain new learning (transferring it from short-term to long-term memory) if a memory framework already exists. Sequential, cumulative, or incremental learning ensures that children will build a foundation that is essential to later growth. It also ensures that they will process new material in the way that their brains are set up to learn—thus adding to existing memory.

In a nutshell, that is why discipleship training must be sequential. Lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ are built incrementally. Effective discipleship interweaves three dimensions—knowledge + character + conduct. The Bible illumines a finite number of “must know” topics to understand, “must be” traits to exhibit, and “must do” activities to experience. When a child’s developmental process includes that knowledge, those traits, and those experiences, we can be reasonably assured that we have done our part to build a lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ.

Why do children need “sequenced” discipleship? Knowledge builds on knowledge. Character builds on character. Conduct builds on conduct. Kids who miss out on foundational aspects of their spiritual development spend much of their lives “wandering in the wilderness.” But children who receive a sequential Christian education enjoy the “land of milk and honey.” They withstand harsh winds and tossing waves (Ephesians 4:14-16). They remain firm, standing on the shoulders of spiritual giants who have gone before them (Hebrews 12:1-2).

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One of the features of DiscipleLand Bible Curriculum that we often get positive feedback on is the Bible Pictures that are an integral part of the material. In addition to the full color Bible pages DiscipleLand also offers coloring versions of much of the art.

Just this week we got the following e-mail from Karen in response to a download error she found on our site that we quickly fixed:

You guys are great. We really enjoy the material. I especially appreciate your use of pictures that look like real people to communicate the real message of the Bible rather than using cartoon characters.

I’m amazed at the speed with which you were able to get the correction online and your devotion to quality in your product. It reflects the character of Christ in how you handle your business.

May you know the Lord’s blessing as you minister to those of us who minister to these precious little ones.

Blessings,
Karen

The coloring sheets Karen referred to can be seen here. Or, you can download a full size PDF here: coloringpageexample

For more free downloads and sample you can visit the Free Downloads area of DiscipleLand.com

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