Our Children’s ministry Is Not Exciting
Your Question:
“How can I make the CM more exciting without compromising our foundational vision or safety?”
The Issues:
As an adult, and the CM director, “being safe” is critical. Being “safe” is affected by what you teach, the programs you offer, and the environment in which the CM operates. Being “safe,” can sometimes be interpreted as “not exciting” or “boring” by the children. The challenge is to be more interesting without sacrificing the sense of “safe.”
Scripture Foundation:
“And you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Mark 12: 30
Short Answer:
Children define “exciting” differently than adults do. In order to adjust the “excitement factor” of the CM, you must understand how children define “exciting.”
Children will call something “exciting” when it is messy, wild, funny, new, dangerous, interactive, and unusual. To you, as the CM director, you may view those descriptions as “risky.” This is why some CM programs are not exciting.
In order to “inject” more of the types of experiences that children view as “exciting” into your CM, you should view the entire years’ worth of CM programs on a calendar. Your regular, weekly programs should also be identified on this calendar. Then, take one of the “exciting” words used above, and “drop” it into a few programs on your calendar.
Remember, if you use one type of excitement too often, it actually can become boring. If every time you get together with your children, you are doing something messy, you will ruin the excitement of getting messy.
Each of the descriptive words may have sub options within them. For instance, “messy” could involve water (balloons, squirt guns, slip n’ slides, hoses, or sprinklers), cooking ingredients, mud, chocolate syrup, shaving cream, etc. The quality of “danger” could be saved for outside. It could also involve animals.
There are two of the descriptive words that should be considered as a “regular” part of most CM gatherings: “interactive,” and “fun.” If you can ask yourself, “How can we make this class or experience more interactive and fun?” you will increase the “excitement factor” of your CM on a regular basis.
Once you have “sprinkled” all of the exciting descriptions into your calendarized events, now go back and specifically identify how that exciting description will be evident in that program or event. When you start doing this, you may need to shift and trade some of these descriptive words around your calendar because they don’t fit the weather or the topics.
In order to make the CM more exciting, you’ll need to consider the curriculum and the CM team. Is the curriculum boring? Are your team members boring? Both of these possibilities require adjustment in your CM training. Your team members need to be trained in making the event or class more exciting, even if the curriculum is boring. The team needs to be trained in how to interact with the children, and how to add funny or unusual comments throughout the lesson without reducing the spiritual or biblical impact of the experience.
Ask the Lord to show you who on your CM team is naturally exciting (facial expressions, interactions with the children, creativity, etc.) and use that person as an example for the others. You might film that person “in action,” and use that video in your training or encouragement to other CM team members.
Remember that you are changing the “culture” of the CM. It may take a long time before you hear parents or children using the word “exciting” as they talk about the CM. For more help in refreshing the children’s ministry, click on the APPENDIX link below.
Visit other articles in the “Refreshing The CM APPENDIX”
