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New on DiscipleLand.com - PARENT RESOURCES!

God has given parents the primary responsibility of training their children. Help them learn discipleship techniques for their kids at home using the resources in this new area on DiscipleLand.com. The resources in this Parent Resources area provide ideas and tools to help parents learn discipleship techniques for their children at home.

Check out the helpful articles and tools available for parents!

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(Reprinted from Kidologist.com)

While the word “curriculum” may solicit yawns from many people, don’t underestimate the importance of curriculum on your ministry! The foundation of your educational ministry is your curriculum. Everything else hinges from and is built upon the foundation laid by your educational hour teaching material. How high and how deep and how broad your educational ministry will be is greatly determined by curriculum.

HOW DO YOU CHOOSE CURRICULUM?

THE WRONG WAY:

• Use what you have always used
• Let your teachers each pick their own
• Look at tons of samples and pickone based on what appeals to you
• Depend on curriculum promotions
• Use what some other great church uses

THE RIGHT WAY:

• Determine what YOU would like to accomplish in your Sunday School educational program.
• List your educational goals
• List weaknesses with current material.
• Make a list of what you are looking for.
• THEN look at published materials that match your criteria.

I remember when I started my previous ministry, our curriculum situation was a mess! Here was what we were facing:

• Every teacher used what they liked, over five published curriculums were in use, some taught without any published material.
• Repetition and Omission of Bible stories was not only likely, but expected.
• No idea what was accomplished in the years spent within the Children’s Ministry.
• Lots of good ministry going on, but no way to know what was going to happen, or to evaluate results.

So what did we do? I called for a planning meeting and asked our teachers to determine what we wanted for our children. (without looking at a single curriculum sample!) Here is the list of what these godly and experienced teachers determined we wanted:

• Gospel Oriented
• A comprehensive overview of the entire Bible
• Specific Goals and Objectives for Each Age
• Progressive, and not Repetitive
• Get children into the Word themselves
• Emphasis on Scripture memory
• High Quality Materials and Helpful Resources
• One year cycle (meaning teachers teach the same thing every year)
• Missions Focus
• Flexibility for teaching styles and holidays
• Tools to help parents engage in the process

THEN we hunted to see if any curriculum met ALL of these criteria.

Only one curriculum offered all the things above that our teachers wanted:

NOW IS THE TIME TO EVALUATE YOUR CURRICULUM. We used DiscipleLand long enough to see kids go entirely through the process and could see the results.

They have since added AMAZING on-line tools for kids and parents to further engage in the learning going on at church. You MUST check out DiscipleZone.com

FOR AN IN-DEPTH REPORT I WROTE ON DISCIPLELAND CHECK OUT THE KIDOLOGY SPOTLIGHT MINISTRY RESOURCE: DISCIPLELAND

If you haven’t done so already, NOW is the time to re-evaluate what you are using this fall in your educational ministry. Here is a quote we recently had posted in the forum discussion on DiscipleLand:

We ended up dividing our kids 6-9 and 10-12 and used DiscipleLand with the younger and it was amazing! The kids loved it, which is totally cool because it didn’t have any “high techy” stuff, but kept their undivided attention. I loved that during our review this past Wed the kids retained most everything! This is 2 thumbs up! Thank you Karl for introducing us to this. I would not hesitate to tell anyone to give this a try. They will be hooked.

For some VERY HELPFUL TOOLS for evaluating your ministry, be sure to see the evaluations available on the DiscipleLand Equipping Center. Every ministry ought to work through these tools WHETHER OR NOT they use DiscipleLand, or DiscipleLand will fit their ministry structure or needs.

Check out DiscipleLand, you’ll be glad you did! There is a reason more and more churches and switching to DiscipeLand!

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While there are many stories of Jesus speaking to the “multitudes” the vast majority of the Gospels are stories of his interactions with his disciples. A few men he chose to pour His life in to. In today’s ministry world, we are all about reaching the multitudes - and technology has enabled us to reach people we’ll never even meet via radio, television and this here Internet thingie. (How many who read this point will I ever meet in person?)

Mass teaching may have its place, as does mass evangelism. But Mass Discipleship is an oxymoron. You can’t disciple a crowd, you can only disciple individuals. Even Jesus, God Incarnate, didn’t even attempt to disciple a crowd, and yet in many (dare I say most?) churches today, Mass Discipleship is the plan in place. It’s no wonder we are failing.

May I ask a potentially painful question? Who are you discipling? Individually? Can you name the names of children you are discipling as a follower of Jesus Christ?

My wife and I wrote the Awesome Adventure, My New Life with Jesus, as a tool for discipling children one on one. It was used to disciple many children, as individuals, before DiscipeLand took it and made it what it is today. I still have yet to see a tool on the market designed for discipling kids one on one. I’ve seen salvation follow up booklets and Bible activity books and Bible quizzing books, but there doesn’t seem to be a huge market for tools to disciple children. It’s too bad. I’m not really trying to promote “my book,” I wish there were many others to link as well.

But I DO mean to promote the concept of discipleing kids one on one - no matter whether you find a helpful tool, or just open up God’s Word with them and intentionally guide them through the things they need to know to love and life for God.

I bet your ministry to the masses of kids is great…. but how is your ministry to a few individual kids? It was Jesus’ disciples who turned the world upside down, not the masses he taught on the hillside. It is the individual kids you pour your life into who will yield the best fruit in your ministry!

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