KidMin Volunteers Archives - Page 7 of 13

Great Questions for Small Group Discussion

03/19/201403/19/2014 Kathie Phillips

This past Sunday, I sat in on one of our elementary small groups. For the next few weeks, I will be coaching one of our leaders on how to effectively lead her group by (1) best utilizing her time – she has 30 minutes, (2) redirecting behavior, and (3) facilitating discussion. I thought I’d share the highlights of how I encouraged her to facilitate discussion with her group. I really want to see this leader succeed but she told me, “I really want the children to succeed, too.”

One challenge of teaching elementary children is that there is a good chance that they’ve heard the Bible story that is being taught on any given Sunday. So how can you make it come alive in fresh, engaging ways? Since the context of our conversation was pertaining to small groups vs large group teaching time, the question became how can we help these children see and process the story in more meaningful, personal ways?

I gave this sweet leader some tips on how to do this. When it’s time to review or discuss the Bible story, ask:

Was there anything that surprised you in today’s story?
Did you learn anything new?
If you could ask God one question about today’s story, what would you ask?
What do you think is the most important thing you should remember about this story?
How does this story make you feel closer to God?
Is there anything you need to start/stop doing because of this story?
What did you feel as you read/heard/saw/acted out this Bible story?

These questions go beyond children giving the ‘right’ answers and help them really think about what the story means to them.

You can also find creative ways to ask those questions.

Put questions on a cube or spinner, have kids draw a number and those whose number matches the one the teacher calls gets to roll or spin.
Place 2 or 3 colors in a bag. Have kids draw a color and then their color will dictate what to do activity-wise.
Review/discuss and get the wiggles out by tossing around a beach ball with questions written or taped on them.

Kidmin Leaders: How do you coach your small group leaders to facilitate discussion?

Small Group Leaders: What questions do you ask to help children process and apply the Bible story to their lives?

{Guest Post}: Teaching Children From Hard Places (Part 2)

02/20/201402/20/2014 Kathie Phillips

Note from Kathie: Today’s guest post is from my friend Carla Adair Hendricks. I pray you’ll be blessed, inspired and challenged in the second of a two-part post. Read Part 1 here.

Lens #2: View our students from a perspective of hope and love.

A survey of the average school, neighborhood or community center could give a great picture of the state of our nation. We are a nation of brokenness – broken marriages, broken families, broken people.

Today, the image of family has changed much. Our churches are a great representation of this. Most churches are full of single-parent families, families directly impacted by substance abuse and domestic abuse, and families struggling with poverty.

Oftentimes children feel the greatest impact of this. Adoption and foster care are by-products of this brokenness, and each brings its own measure of trauma for a child. A child that has moved from foster home to foster home will struggle with interpersonal relationships and schoolwork. Some children will struggle with trusting the adults in their lives.

And yet, we mustn’t see these precious children in our classrooms as problem children. We mustn’t label them “the foster kid” or the “ADHD kid”. Practically, a better label for these children would be “children from hard places”. This phrase describes where a child comes from, instead of placing a judgment on the child.

Also, we must see these children through the lens of hope and love. We should be aware of tendencies and issues that they may face, but we must believe that each of these children can grow and learn and love.

With God’s intervention – through loving adults like us – they can even learn to love Jesus.

Lens #3: View our classrooms as a refuge of hope and healing.

With a little dose of education and a willingness to adjust, our classrooms can be a place where children receive hope and healing. In order to bring hope and healing, we have to be adaptable.

The way we learned about God decades ago may not be the best method to teach our children today. – Tweet That

For example, having children take turns reading from the Bible is a great way to promote Bible-learning and also literacy. However, what happens when one of your students has missed weeks of school and has just been placed in her fifth foster home? She’s probably not going to be able to read on grade level. An easy solution would be to have children raise their hands and volunteer to read out loud, instead of having each child read in order. This way, the challenged reader doesn’t feel shamed or exposed.

Last year I had a 6-year-old boy come to my classroom after being placed in a new foster home. Despite his squirminess, I had him sit close to me and allowed him to be my special helper. Although he asked for his foster mommy twice, he hung in there and I made sure he got the extra attention he needed. I knew I probably had a short window of time to reach this child with the love of Christ, but that didn’t stop me.

And it shouldn’t stop any of us from sharing His love with a child who may come from a background very different from yours and mine. If we can change our teaching “lenses”, we can impact the Kingdom of God – one precious child at a time.

How can you change your teaching “lens” to advocate for children from hard places? Please share with our community by leaving a comment below.

Carla Adair Hendricks is a pastor’s wife, mother of four, writer, speaker and orphan advocate. Two of her four children are biological, one was adopted from Russia and one was adopted domestically. Her husband Anthony leads the Conway campus of the ethnically-diverse Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas, where she serves the Mo Kids Children’s ministry as a teacher and teacher-coordinator for the K through 1st grade class. She also serves two orphan care ministries: The CALL and the African-American Church Initiative of the Christian Alliance for Orphans. A published journalist, Carla’s shares her heart at adoptionfostercareadvocate.blogspot.com and carlaadairhendricks.blogspot.com.

{Guest Post}: Teaching Children From Hard Places (Part 1)

02/19/201402/19/2014 Kathie Phillips

Note from Kathie: Today’s guest post is from my friend Carla Adair Hendricks. I pray you’ll be blessed, inspired and challenged in the first of a two-part post.

As an adoptive momma, an advocate for adoptive and foster children and a Children’s Ministry leader, I love when my passions collide. A few weeks ago, my passions collided when I had the opportunity to train the Children’s Ministry volunteers at my church, Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas, on the topic “Teaching Children from Hard Places.”

My main point? If we as Children’s Ministry teachers are going to impact the children that we serve – even those who come from challenging environments and backgrounds – we must remove the old lenses we’ve been wearing in our classrooms and replace them with new ones.

Lens #1: View yourself as an advocate for children.

Becoming a teacher – even an occasional teacher in Children’s Ministry – is a high calling. It’s a calling that involves more than teaching Bible verses and leading “sword drills”.

Don’t misunderstand me. Yes, we want our students to memorize Bible verses and learn to recite all 66 books of the Bible. Yes, we want them to know the difference between King Saul in the Old Testament and Saul-who-became-Paul in the New Testament. And of course, we’d love for them to be able to retell the great Bible stories of Esther and David and Moses.

Yet teaching children in Children’s Ministry involves more than filling their heads with information – even the great information from the Bible. Actually it involves much more than teaching. It’s really about reaching the child. Reaching deep down into the heart of the child – touching him or her with the love of Christ.

So yes, we teach the children in our classes, but we also seek to reach these young ones with the message of Christ – that they are valuable and precious. That they were created by a loving God who wants a relationship with them.

In order to reach the children that enter our church’s classrooms, we must view ourselves as more than teachers. We are advocates for our children, encouraging them to be their best selves and encouraging them to love Jesus, themselves and others.

Please come back tomorrow for Part 2.

How does your ministry advocate for children from hard places? Please share with our community by leaving a comment below.

Carla Adair Hendricks is a pastor’s wife, mother of four, writer, speaker and orphan advocate. Two of her four children are biological, one was adopted from Russia, and one was adopted domestically. Her husband Anthony leads the Conway campus of the ethnically-diverse Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas, where she serves the Mo Kids Children’s ministry as a teacher and teacher-coordinator for the K through 1st grade class. She also serves two orphan care ministries: The CALL and the African-American Church Initiative of the Christian Alliance for Orphans. A published journalist, Carla’s shares her heart at adoptionfostercareadvocate.blogspot.com and carlaadairhendricks.blogspot.com.

Dear Student Leader

01/15/201401/15/2014 Kathie Phillips 4 Comments

One of our adult leaders called me last week to let me know what a fabulous job the student leader working with her was doing. So, I wanted to acknowledge the student leader’s service with a personal note. Here’s an edited version of what I wrote:

Dear [Student Leader},

I wanted to let you know how wonderful it is to have you serve as a student leader in [Children’s Ministry]. I’ve heard how great you are with the children – how you welcome them, help them get settled, how you make them laugh and how helpful you are to [the adult in charge].

Keep up the good work. Serving as a student leader is a big responsibility. When children come to church, it is our opportunity to share God’s love with them. That opportunity is a gift from God, one that is very important and one that we must take very seriously.

You are doing a fabulous job of sharing Jesus with the [children] and we are blessed to have you on our team. You are awesome!

Love,

Miss Kathie

Do you have students serving in your ministry? How can you encourage them this week?