Children Matter!

Making Your Children's Ministry the Best Hour of Every Kid's Week

Link: Making Your Children's Ministry the Best

Promiseland is Willow Creek's highly successful children's ministry. Using examples from Promiseland and churches of all sizes around the country, this book provides step-by-step guidance and creative application exercises to help churches develop a thriving children's ministry—one that strives to be the best hour of every kid's week. Included are Scripture-based principles and practical resources for church staff members and volunteers who agree with the critical role children's ministry plays in a local church.

Making Your Children's Ministry the Best Hour of Every Kid's Week is based on twenty-eight years of experience at Willow Creek and explains four ministry foundations: Mission, Vision, Values, and Strategy.

Working with under 5s

Link: Working with under 5s.

Judith Wigley

Pretty much everything you need to know about ....

A brilliant book for all busy children's workers - newcomers and the more experienced.  It's jam-packed with very practical information in a highly accessible, easy-to-read format, plus photocopiable pages.  Part 1 helps adults step inside the world of the child and understand their spiritual and physical development.  Part 2 contains all the practical advice; planning and running programmes, using the Bible, prayer, worship and lots more.  There is also important information about child protection legislation. Judith Wigley has over 25 years experience working with under 5s.  She worked alongside her husband in three large parishes before becoming full-time Children's Advisor in Wakefield Diocese and has written a number of books. She is now Otley Deanery Children's and Youth Networker in Bradford Diocese

Friends with Jesus - evangelism resource

Link: Friends with Jesus.

A booklet specifically designed for children aged 5 and up who have heard the good news of Jesus and want to respond. The booklet clearly tells the story of Jesus' life and death, explains what it means to be friends with him, and helps readers to respond for themselves. Contains clear teaching on God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  A vital tool for leaders working with churched and unchurched children alike.

Creating a learning church

CREATING A LEARNING CHURCH
Improving teaching and learning in the local church
Margaret Cooling

Do we feel we learn things in church? Is hearing a sermon, joining in a shared activity, or reading the Bible a means by which we are taught? For many the gap between what is taught and what is learnt seems huge and we can only wonder at what falls down in between. In her new book Creating a Learning Church Margaret Cooling looks at the means through which we all, adults and children, can learn. She applies the insights to what we all learn through attending church and the associated groups and activities we belong to. A thorough appreciation of how we can best learn is revealed and applied to a wide range of contexts. This is shown in worked examples for sermons, youth work, Sunday school groups, children’s talks, drama, reflection, prayers, quiet days, Bible reading or Bible stories.

Where Are the Children?

Link: Where Are the Children?.

Evangelism beyond Sunday morning

It is a well-known fact that most youngsters who come to church are the children of the adult congregation and, depressingly, nearly half of our churches claim that they have no children at all. If we look beyond Sunday morning, however, we see a more optimistic picture.

There are children worshipping regularly at family services, and attending parent and toddler clubs, midweek activities and church schools. There are children who come to Mothering Sunday, Harvest Thanksgiving, Parade or Christingle services. There are children at school carol services, or guests at baptisms or weddings, and occasionally at funerals.

And there are the hidden children who use the church hall for sports or drama, who belong to uniformed organizations or visit a church as part of an RE lesson.

This book is about enabling those children to hear the Christian story. It aims to provide thought-provoking guidance to explore the wealth of opportunities for evangelism among children, and a training base for clergy and children’s workers. Drawing on many years' experience, Margaret Withers: 

• reviews the ways we can engage with young people and the obstacles that we unwittingly put in the way
• examines strategic planning and ways of managing change
• explores the rationale for evangelism among children
• provides advice on running specific clubs or activities

Click here to read a sample chapter

Where Two or Three...

Link: Church House Publishing

Where Two or Three... Help and advice for churches with few or no children.

This book has been written to help churches find a way of having a ministry among the local children, even if they have no children or very few at present.

Peppered with practical ideas and real-life examples, this book offers:

    * ideas for developing the children’s work that already exists;
    * ways of starting this work from the beginning;
    * suggestions for engaging with children in the community;
    * ideas for working with other churches.

As you read this book, you will gain ideas for working with tiny numbers and scant resources. You may even find that you have contact with more children than you thought!

An extract from Where Two or Three - Ten Golden Rules for churches with very few children - is available to download. Please click on the Downloads link below to view this.

Downloads

Living in a Fragile World

Link: Living in a Fragile World.

A spiritual exploration of conservation and citizenship using the methods of Godly Play

'Have you ever imagined how vast the universe is and how small you are, but that you are part of this great universe… and that the universe is also part of you?' The story of creation provides us with an ideal opportunity to do more than just admire the scenery. If we want to enjoy the beauty of nature, perhaps we first need to step back and grapple with some of the most important issues concerning the world we live in today.

This book invites children and adults alike to reflect on the fragility of the earth; to become more aware of the complexity of our interdependent lives and to consider how we might relate to each other in a more sustainable and relational way.

Living in a fragile world uses three-dimensional materials based on the methodology of Godly Play, an imaginative way of telling Bible stories, or presenting parables or lessons about Christian tradition following the Montessori principles of education. Week-by-week the sessions move from the wider planetary view, to the land, to the community, to the self. Each week as the story unfolds the group is invited to recapture the interconnectedness of all things and thereby something of the vision of God.

Active Learning Resources

Children's Ministry

Many children, including all young children and a large proportion of boys of all ages, need to move in order to learn. The connections in children’s brains that store and process information will develop most efficiently if they physically act out what they are learning through drama, dance, games or art and craft activities. Actually, scientific fact backs up what we can see from the Bible – when God has something important for his people (of any age) to remember, he often gives us something to do, for example, the festivals of the Old Testament, or the sharing of bread and wine.

Discover several helpful mini essays and suggested resources at the link above. If you have ideas for active learning you can also submit those.

Working with 8-10s

Scripture Union
A book for all busy children's workers - newcomers and the more experienced.  It's jam-packed with very practical information in a highly accessible, easy-to-read format, plus photocopiable pages.  Part 1 helps adults step inside the world of the child and understand their spiritual and physical development.  Part 2 contains all the practical advice; planning and running programmes, using the Bible, prayer, worship and lots more.  There is also important information about child protection legislation, and recruiting and training a team. Both Claire Saunders and Hilary Porritt are qualified primary school teachers and have been involved in church leadership.

Anyone Can Tell a Story (Bob Hartman's Guide to Storytelling)

Amazon.co.uk: Books
In this engaging and very personal book, Bob Hartman shares the wisdom he has acquired during his many years as a storyteller, working with everything from one-to-one sharing at bedtime to interactive storytelling for large groups. Bob first explains his philosophy about the power of stories to communicate truths and values, especially to children. He then gets down to the nitty-gritty of storytelling, concentrating mainly on how to retell stories from a variety of sources, and including ideas to help the reader spin their own tales to tell aloud. The book is full of useful tips on how to adapt storytelling to particular situations, using crowd control and audience participation to suit the size of the group and its setting. Bob also includes a wonderful selection of stories he has adapted especially for reading aloud.