Last Sunday I had the privilege of leading the first grade small group in DU. It wasn’t actually a small group; the kids filled two round tables (a topic for a future post.)
It had been more than a decade since I’d led a group of kids that age and I truly enjoyed being with them.
When it came time for kids to talk about how they could apply the virtue, I stayed at one of the tables so I could have a more in-depth conversation with the kids. The analogy of self-control being like the walls of a city was a bit challenging for them, but the kids began to grasp the idea that when they use kind words, their lives will go better and when they use mean words, they’ll bring problems on themselves. We talked about how showing gratitude is one way to use kind words.
We ended up with extra time, so I encouraged the kids to draw a picture of someone they could thank this week as a way to show self control with their words.
As the parents started picking up their children, one little girl came over to me and showed me her picture. This was a girl who had been disagreeable at the beginning of group time. As she held up her picture, she had a big smile on her face.
“That’s a great picture! Who’s it of?” I asked her.
“Jesus,” she replied.
“What are you going to thank Jesus for?”
“For letting me live.”
Then, she bowed her head in the middle of the room as parents were picking up their kids and prayed. “Thank you, Jesus, for letting me live.”
Wow! What a great morning! This little girl, who seemed contrary at first, was really listening and learning to appreciate Jesus. That’s what we’re after – helping kids (even those who don’t seem very engaged) understand that Jesus loves them and cares for them.
Rest assured that as you love kids and respond to them positively, even when they seem disengaged or contrary, God is working in their hearts, drawing them to Himself.
photo by LaRezistance
Once or twice a year, I get the privilege of preaching in our church. Since I don’t get to do that very often, I don’t get many opportunities to refine my public speaking. A couple years ago, I decided I’d better read some books to figure out how to deliver a message that is memorable.
I came across a book titled Communicating For a Change by Andy Stanley and loved it. One of the points he makes in this book is be careful at the curves.
What he means is this:
When you are making a transition, make sure you are taking your listeners with you through that transition. Don’t lose them.
Public speakers have a tendency to lose their audience by moving too quickly through transitions, so Stanley’s advice to them is “slow down at the curves.”
As I’ve observed children’s small group leaders, what I’ve realized is that they often lose their kids during transition times because they slow down too much. If a leader is unprepared, she often stops after one activity to read the next one and then figure out what to say to the kids. While she’s quietly reading the plans, the kids’ get fidgety. They might begin to talk with each other, poke each other, giggle, and throw things . If the leader is really slow about engaging kids in the next activity, mayhem can break out.
As a small group leader, one of the most effective ways for you to prepare for your time with kids is to pre-script your transitions. Write them out word for word. Be very clear (yet concise) about what you want kids to do and why. Don’t say too little. Don’t ramble on and on.
You might think this is too time consuming, but I assure you, it works. If you know exactly what you want your kids to do next and you can verbally move them from one activity to the next without pausing to think about what to say, you’ll hold kids’ attention and they’ll stick with you.
Pause now and think about your small group. Do you tend to lose kids at the curves? Do they start talking to each other between activities? Do you struggle to get their attention whenever it’s time to shift gears in your group?
If this describes your group, I encourage you to take the extra 10 minutes to script out your transitions. In one week, you’ll notice a difference. Your ten minute sacrifice will result in more focused class time, which will result in more time for kids to learn how to apply God’s truths, to pray, to learn Bible verses and to make meaningful friendships. Your weekly ten minute sacrifices will make an eternal difference in the lives of your kids.
A couple weeks ago on a Sunday morning a family entered the church through the office door. This is a family that attends our church but comes more “off” than “on.” The kids were a bit tentative about being here but they were here – YEA! As they left the office, I overheard the mom say to the kids, “Come on, kids; let’s go find a seat.” She hesitated as she walked down the hall toward the sanctuary and came back to my office with a question. “Is our daughter’s small group leader here today? She’s gotten two ‘I miss you’ cards from her and has been asking to come to church to see her. There aren’t many girls in her small group and she really loved it that the leader asked her to come be another girl with her in the group.”
Kids LOVE to hear that they have been missed! They LOVE to be noticed. They LOVE to know that you care about them – not as a group, but as a person. This little girl loved getting cards from her leader and really believed that SHE was missed.
Our goal is not to have kids come to church so our numbers are big. Our desire is to have kids come to church because we LOVE each of them and we’d LOVE for each of them to experience God’s love and presence in their lives.
I encourage you to write or call the kids you haven’t seen in a few weeks and let them know they are missed. When you do that, make your message personal. Whatever it is that you miss specifically about that child, let him or her know that. You could write things like:
- I miss YOU.
- I miss YOUR smiling face.
- I miss hearing YOU pray.
- I miss that way YOU help me pick up after small group.
Let’s let our kids know they are loved and missed when they are gone. There will be postcards in your mailboxes for kids who haven’t been here in a few weeks. If they don’t come on Sunday, please send them an “I miss you” card. If they come on Sunday, please send them an “It was great to see you on Sunday” card. They will cherish the cards and/or calls and will want to keep coming back. Thank you so much for loving kids to Jesus!
One of the best ways to help your kids focus during small group time is to make sure they are sitting next to people who won’t distract them. As the leader of a small group, you not only have the authority to ask your kids to sit in specific places, but you have the responsibility to do that. If you allow certain kids to sit next to each other, not only do those kids distract each other, but they also rob everyone else in the group of valuable learning time.
Before you come to church this Sunday, take a minute to think about the dynamics of your group. Which kids feed off each other? Which kids need to be physically separate from each other? Which kids would benefit from sitting right next to you so you can provide extra guidance and support for them? Which kids can you count on to help others find Bible verses or encourage those who are struggling?
You may not get the arrangement right the first time, but having a plan in a place to start. Experiment with the order until you’ve come upon a plan that minimizes distractions and maximizing learning time. And, remember that kids only come on the average half the time, so whatever plan you come up with won’t be perfectly implemented, but it will get you thinking about who should (or shouldn’t) sit next to whom.
As a reward for keeping focused on learning while sitting in their new spots, kids could be allowed to sit next to their friends for the last few minutes of group time while they are waiting on their parents.
One of the best learning strategies out there is that people learn better through short, repeated practices than through massed practice (in one long session). This is why teachers encourage students to review a little each night instead of cramming for tests. It’s why athletes practice nearly every day instead of doing all their practice on one or two days a week. And it’s why our Discovery Unlimited curriculum camps out on one virtue and one verse each month.
As a small group leader, you may be wondering how this applies to you and the kids you lead. Here are a few ways:
- Include a Bible memory activity each week instead of spending 15 minutes one week of the month on Bible memory. Kids will learn the verse better if they review it each week.
- Provide prayer time each week for kids and encourage them to pray aloud, even if it’s just one sentence. The act of praying a bit each week will teach them to pray more confidently than if you try to get them to pray a longer pray once a month.
- Have them open their Bibles, even if it’s just to one verse, regularly. The more they use a Bible and the Table of Contents, the easier it will become. Don’t think that they can wait until they are older and learn to navigate the word of God.
- Repetition is an aid to learning; it’s not a hindrance. The fact that kids have four weeks to learn a virtue and a verse doesn’t mean that what we are doing is “watered down;” it means that we are teaching toward mastery. If we hopped from topic to topic each week, kids would have much less of a chance of learning anything. The repetition enhances their ability to learn so…
Capitalize on opportunities to have kids repeat. Provide them with short opportunities to practice spiritual disciplines (like prayer, Bible memory, finding verses in the Bible and service over and over). This approach will change their lives!
The foundational components of our Sunday morning program for kids are (1) relevant, engaging Biblical content and (2) loving community. Kids face all kids of challenges in life – broken homes, financial uncertainty, and social pressure, to name of few. Security is a foreign concept to many kids.
Our dream is to create an environment where every child is treasured and valued, where every child is known and has the opportunity to know others, where every child is loved and has the opportunity to love others. That’s where you come in.
As small group leaders, you are the glue that holds your small group together. Community doesn’t just happen. You can facilitate community for your group by implementing a few ideas. I have already mentioned some of these in previous tips, but they warrant repeating because they are so important. (This list isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a great start.)
Ways to build community:
- Know your kids. Make it your goal to find out something new about each kid each week in your group. Start taking notes if you have trouble remembering what kids tell you.
- Ask follow-up questions about kids’ lives. Once you find out what their hobbies are, ask about them from time to time. Once you find out if they are in any performances or games (music, drama, sports), ask how they did. Take a personal interest in each kid.
- Take advantage of free time. Be in your room at least 15 minutes before your program starts to spend unstructured time with your kids. This is a great time to get to know them.
- Establish rules of respect in the group so that when one person is talking, everyone else is listening.
- Encourage kids to pray for one another. One way to do this is to have every one write something they want prayer for on a slip of paper and then trade papers or put them in the center of the circle and everyone draws one out. Have them pray aloud for the person whose paper they go.
- Send your kids a postcard or note each month or whenever they miss or whenever they do something really great in small group. Getting a sincere note from a small group leader means more than you can imagine to a kid! A more communal idea is to write cards as a group to kids who have been gone for a couple weeks.
- Address the kids by name each week. Using someone’s name speaks volumes!
- Pray for your kids each week.
These are just a few ways you can facilitate community in your group. There are a ton of other ways. I encourage you share your ideas in the reply box below.
Praying for your small group may not sound like a very insightful tip, but it is actually the best advice I can give.
Four reasons it’s so important to pray for your small group:
- Prayer reminds you that you are utterly dependent on God.
None of us, in our own strength, can change kids’ lives. Only God can do that. By constantly asking God for help, you remind yourself each week that this is God’s ministry and you are His tool. - Prayer puts you in the right frame of mind each time you meet kids.
Sundays can be hectic so we need to start the morning by focusing on God. Ask God to use you to show His love to kids. We often miss great opportunities to help kids see how amazing God is because we haven’t prayed and asked God to love kids through us. - Prayer endears the kids to you.
When you pray for a child in your group by name and ask God to deepen your love for that child, God will give you a desire to know that child better and love him or her more. - Prayer increases your passion for ministry.
Ministry has its ups and downs. It’s not always easy; it’s not always fun. However, as you pray for the kids in your group and pray for God’s help to lead well, God will strengthen your heart in the challenging times and increase your desire to make a difference in the lives of kids.
A few things to include in your prayers:
- Thank God for…
- each kid in your group
- the opportunity to lead your group
- His help and strength
- Pray for each child in your group
- that they will understand God’s love more and more
- that they will make wise choices, treat others the way they want to be treated and trust God no matter what
- any particular concerns you are aware of
- Pray for yourself
- that God will give you love, patience and wisdom as you lead your group
- that God will help you become an even better small group leader for the kids in your group
- that God will use you to impact kids for eternity
Each Sunday dedicate the morning to God and ask Him to use it to draw kids to Himself. If you forget to pray for the kids in your group and your time with them, you are missing out on the best help you’ll ever get.
One of the exciting things about our church is we have frequent non-churched visitors. Our prayer is that these visitors will come back and become regular attenders. This is something we rejoice over, but it creates a leadership challenge for you.
Your small group is most likely comprised of kids who have been raised in the church and kids who have rarely been to church. As you look through the weekly lesson plans, don’t assume the kids in your group are at the same place spiritually and, if you lead groups of older kids, don’t assume they all have a strong knowledge of the Bible. Many of our kids have very little previous spiritual instruction.
To help each child develop spiritually, do an informal assessment of each one. Answer questions like these:
- How effective is this child at connecting the main point in the lesson to his or her life?
- How well can s/he navigate the Bible?
- How comfortable is s/he praying aloud?
- How respectful is s/he of other members in the group?
Once you feel you know these things about the kids in your group, come up with a spiritual development plan for each child. This doesn’t have to be complex or overwhelming.
For example:
- If Billy doesn’t know how to look up verses, make it a goal to teach him how to use the Table of Contents and find verses by the end of the summer.
- If Sarah has never prayed aloud, take advantage of low-risk structured prayer activities like the one in our lesson this week to encourage her to pray aloud.
- If some of the kids in your group have a hard time learning Bible verses but they love physical activity, replace the pen and paper verse activities with activities that involve physical activity, like marching in a circle, while they shout out the verse.
Having specific spiritual goals for each child will help you become a more effective leader. The goals should be individualized and achievable. As you plan your lessons, you should keep these goals in mind and tweak the plans so you can help each kid reach the goal you’ve set for him or her.
The kids don’t need to know you have spiritual goals for them, but they will certainly benefit from them as you adjust your leading to help them achieve the goals.
PLEASE POST: If you have set individual goals for kids in your group before, I encourage you to comment on this message and share one or two goals you’ve set and how you’ve helped your kids achieve them.
Thanks for caring about the spiritual development of each kid in your group!
Each week you’re given several activities to use in your small group time. You can approach these activities in two ways:
- as a checklist of things to get done or
- as a springboard for engaging your kids in the learning process.
Aside from kids feeling loved and cared for, our goals for small group time are to:
- give kids an opportunity to see how amazing God is through the stories and truths in His Word,
- to provide opportunities for kids to discover how those truths apply to their lives in practical ways
- to learn how to talk to their Heavenly Father, and
- to encourage kids to engage in Bible memory activities so God’s Word can seep into the very fiber of their being and have a life-long impact on them
As you read over the plans each week, think about how your kids learn best. What are their likes? What are their dislikes? Which activities will bring the Bible stories and truths come life? Which ones will bore them? Are there ways you can “tweak” the plans to make them more interested and memorable to the kids in your group? Some kids LOVE to draw; other kids really NEED physical activity. Some kids learn by talking; other kids learn by doing.
Don’t approach the plans as if they are a checklist you have to get through. Instead, look at them as a springboard for ways you can engage kids in the Bible story, help kids discover how the bottom line applies to their lives, help kids memorize foundational verses, and teach kids how to talk to God in personal ways. I encourage you to accomplish these goals in ways that are meaningful and memorable to your kids. When you do that, everyone has fun and everyone learns and that’s what we’re striving for.
Thanks for helping kids see God!
Your top priority as a small group leader is to build relationships with the kids in your group. Get to know them and what is going on in their lives. Your caring about each kid personally will open up opportunities for God to speak to them through you. If a kid doesn’t feel like you care about him, he won’t want to listen to what you have to say to him and he won’t be open to hearing that God cares about Him. So jump in and have fun getting to know the kids God has put in your group. Then, watch what God does in their lives over time.
Ways you can get to know your kids:
- Learn their names and meet their parents.
- Take advantage of the free time before and after your program to ask your kids questions about their families, pets, sports, music, vacations, school, etc.
- Ask open-ended questions instead of yes/no questions.
- Pay attention to what each kid says and remember from week to week what their likes and dislikes and joys and struggles are. Ask them questions from week to week that reflect you care about them as people.
- Make an effort to attend a music program, sporting event or other special activity that each child is in over the course of the year.
- As you get to know your kids and figure out where they are spiritually, adjust your plans to nurture them more effectively in their spiritual journey.
- HAVE FUN WITH THEM
