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Top Tips for Communicating With Parents of Bible Class Students

By on March 16, 2018 0

Top Tips for Communicating With Parents of Bible Class Students - Teach One Reach OneThe most effective Children’s and Youth Ministries are those that have learned how to communicate effectively with the parents of their students. Why? Because great communication can make parents and ministries partners in helping kids and teens develop strong spiritual foundations.

You would think modern technology would make communicating with parents easier. Unfortunately, it has created so much noise many parents aren’t seeing or opening the communications you do send. Your ministry also needs to understand what types of information helps the parents of your students the most in their efforts in Christian parenting.

So what are our favorite tips for communicating with parents?

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Teaching Kids and Teens Obscure Bible Stories

By on March 9, 2018 0

Teaching Kids and Teens Obscure Bible Stories - Teach One Reach OneDid you realize most purchased literature for Bible classes for kids only covers 30-40 Bible stories over the entire time a child in your ministry will be taught from it? Or that most children in faith based tutoring programs or on the mission field are exposed to even fewer Bible stories?

Do you know how many Bible stories there are in the Bible? Over 200! Children and teens who depend upon churches and ministries for their Bible education are getting less than 20% exposure to the stories in the Bible and less than 5-10% exposure to the rest of the scriptures. No wonder they have such a difficult time living their faith. They don’t know have a full picture of what that means!

As a ministry leader or teacher, you can make a difference. There are lots of ways to make sure your students are at least exposed to more of those Bible stories. After all, we have to assume God put those particular accounts into the Bible for important reasons. You can also do things to make sure your students have experienced more of great Bible books like Proverbs, Psalms, the Epistles and others rarely even mentioned in Bible classes for kids and teens.

Here are some of my favorite ways to make sure young people have a much broader exposure to all of that great material God placed in the Bible.

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Helping Inexperienced Volunteers Become Master Teachers

By on February 23, 2018 0

Helping Inexperienced Volunteers Become Master Teachers - Teach One Reach OneMost ministries and churches depend on volunteers to teach their Bible classes for kids and teens. Sometimes, the volunteers are professional master teachers. Many times though, your volunteers are people who love God and young people. They want to help kids and teens learn about God. They have the best of intentions, but may not have the skills to be as effective as they could be.

Not everyone has the God-given talent to teach, but most volunteers can become effective teachers. With a little extra help, you may even find you have some undiscovered master teachers in your volunteer pool. Unfortunately, most volunteers never reach their true godly potential as teachers. Our young people aren’t getting the best Bible classes in part because we haven’t better prepared our volunteers to be as effective as possible when they teach.

There are a lot of things you can do to help move inexperienced volunteers towards the master Bible teacher level. Here are a few of our favorites:

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Rethinking Decorating Bible Classes for Kids and Teens

By on February 16, 2018 0

Rethinking Decorating Bible Classes for Kids and Teens - Teach One Reach One

 

Walk into a children’s or teen Bible class and you will notice two basic types of classes:

  1. Eye Centric: These classrooms are bright and cheery. It often seems every inch of wall space is somehow covered. These classrooms are definitely eye-catching.
  2. Non-Traditional: These classrooms are often bare or the decorations don’t seem appropriate for the children’s or teen Bible class meeting there. The walls may or may not be colorful and the decorations that are displayed may be faded and look as if they have been in place for many years.

Often non-traditional classrooms go undecorated because it is a shared space and the teacher doesn’t have permission to decorate in age appropriate or Christian ways. These rooms are also often the result of a volunteer group with a lot of turnover. The teachers only teach periodically and don’t see the need for spending the time and money to decorate the room. Still others believe they have no artistic talent and that any decorations they made would look worse than what is currently there.

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Signs Your Ministry to Children or Teens Is Drifting

By on February 9, 2018 0

Signs Your Ministry to Children or Teens Is Drifting - Teach One Reach OneWhen Christians start a Children’s or Youth Ministry or community outreach program for youth, they usually have the best of intentions. There is talk of raising up the next generation to be strong Christians. There are goals of conversions or lives being changed by learning about and following God.

Yet, when you examine many of these programs a few months or at best a couple of years later – they are virtually indistinguishable from secular programs. Oh, a Bible story is still probably told, but the emphasis has totally shifted. Instead of their original goals, they are now trying to merely entertain or provide secular education or housing or clothing or a safe place to hang out with friends.

Don’t misunderstand. None of those things are wrong. It’s just that when your focus switches from the spiritual to the secular, you are no longer meeting the entire standard God set for us. In scripture, there is definitely talk of social justice. It is always, however, in the framework of caring for those who are already God’s people or for pointing the unchurched to God so they can follow Him.

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