100 Best Ideas to Turbocharged your Preschool Ministry (10 page)

—Dale

Preschoolers love characters.
Just take a group of 4-year-olds to Chuck E.
Cheese and watch their excitement.
Trust me, they’re not excited about the pizza...they’re eager to dance and sing with the oversized mouse.
And what’s the #1 thing that children want to do at Walt Disney World?
You guessed it— they want get up close to meet and greet the Disney characters.
I think it’s time for our preschool ministries to take a cue from these two preschooler hot spots and utilize over-the-top personalities and mascots to connect with our kids and teach them biblical truth.
Here’s why.

Characters connect with preschoolers.
An over-the-top persona taps into children’s innate curiosity and their desire to use their imaginations.
Preschoolers can begin to see themselves in the characters.
They want to be like the characters you have on stage.

Characters engage preschoolers’ attention.
Characters are a great way to grab kids’ attention and
keep
their attention while you teach them biblical truth.

Characters make kids laugh.
Kids identify with and learn from these characters because they make kids laugh.
Characters create a buzz with the kids and families at your church that can spread throughout your community.

In our preschool ministry, we use various characters to get kids excited about coming to church.
They help us meet preschoolers where they are and teach truth that’s eternally significant.
We have three main characters and a preschool mascot that engage kids, connect with them, and create a fun environment for learning about God.
Meet our characters.

Mr.
Manners
—Mr.
Manners dresses in a tuxedo and is very prim and proper.
His primary role is to help us teach preschoolers how God wants us to treat others.
Whenever we communicate something from the Bible that deals with our relationship with other people, Mr.
Manners makes a guest appearance in our preschool ministry.
He assists us in teaching our
preschoolers to obey their parents, love their neighbors, and treat others the way they want to be treated.

Georgia Jones
—From stories of David fighting Goliath to Joshua sending spies into Jericho, God’s Word is full of adventure.
Whenever the Bible lesson involves adventure, we use our character, Georgia Jones, to teach the lesson to our preschoolers.
Georgia Jones is our version of...you guessed it...Indiana Jones.
Complete with leather jacket and theme music, Georgia Jones teaches preschoolers that following God is never dull.

Fisherman Fred
—Whether we’re teaching about Moses parting the Red Sea, Jonah and the big fish, or any other Bible account that deals with water, Fisherman Fred is there to set the hook and grab our preschoolers’ attention.
He wears a camouflage hat, carries a huge fishing pole, and can tell a tale as only a fisherman can.

Kodiak the Bear
—We not only use characters to teach the Bible, we also have a preschool mascot.
Kodiak is an oversized bear that welcomes families as they arrive at our preschool department.
There’s nothing like watching the smile on preschoolers’ faces and the joy in their eyes as they line up to high-five Kodiak on their way to their rooms.

Every week our cast of characters and our friendly mascot get kids excited about being at church.

—Eric

“The Church has not yet touched the fringe of the possibilities of intercessory prayer.”

—John Mott

The greatest thing we can do for the preschoolers in our ministry is pray for them.
We say this and know it—but do we do it?
Do we get so busy putting together crafts and disinfecting toys and running off coloring sheets and buying fish-shaped crackers and picking out worship songs and all the rest on an unending list...that we don’t do the most important thing?
It’s time to move intercessory prayer for our preschoolers to the top of our priority list.

Recently we took a strategic step in this direction.
We spent hours and hours seeking God for prayer verses that we could pray over the preschoolers in our ministry.
Here are the prayer verses we chose from the Scripture God led us to:

“May the Lord bless you and protect you” (Numbers 6:24).

“May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you” (Numbers 6:25).

“May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace” (Numbers 6:26).

“May the Lord keep you from all harm and watch over your life...now and forever” (Psalm 121:7-8).

“May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully” (Ephesians 3:19).

“May you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).

“ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord.
‘They are plans for good...to give you a future and a hope’ ” (Jeremiah 29:11).

Each preschool ministry room has one of these verses painted on the wall.
Our preschool volunteers gather to pray for the children before they arrive.
Then during class, they silently pray the verse over the children
several times.
As children grow and move through our preschool ministry rooms, they’re interceded for hundreds of times with each of these verses.

It means so much to parents to know that their children are intentionally prayed for each week.
We also partner with parents by giving them a copy of the verses so they pray them over their children at home.
A prayer partnership between home and church makes an eternal difference in a preschooler’s life.

The greatest thing you can do for your preschool ministry is make it a house of prayer!

—Dale

My greatest fear in life is waking up one day and finding a generation of young people who’ve completely walked away from the Christian faith.
There’s one thing that gets me out of bed every morning, and that’s the fact that someone must get in there and fight for the hearts and minds of these children.

As preschool leaders, it’s important for us to realize this truth.
We have the ability to influence an entire generation.
God has called us to diligently put his Word into their hearts.
How can we as leaders teach our preschoolers the unchanging truth of God’s Word?

Tell them again and again that what we tell them from the Bible is true.
This means it really happened.
In an ordinary day for preschoolers, more than likely they’ll view media that’s based on fantasy or fairy tales.
That’s okay.
We don’t need to get rid of Santa Claus or the Little Mermaid.
But we do need to teach our children what the word
truth
means.
Truth is fact.
Truth really happened.

Always use the Bible.
Even if you’re not reading from the text, have the Bible open in your lap so preschoolers will know what you’re saying is coming straight from the Bible.

Encourage older preschoolers to bring their Bibles.
Take time to show them how to open their Bibles to the exact page you’re reading from.
They love this and it helps them grasp God’s truth in a more concrete way.

Let’s be determined to use the gifts God has given us to teach our children about the unchanging truth of God’s Word.

—Gina

I love the pure energy that erupts when our preschoolers gather in a group to experience God—it’s one of my favorite times in ministry.

When we do our planning, here’s how we build a worship flow that creates an amazing and age-appropriate experience for preschoolers.

Welcome
(1 minute)—The host welcomes preschoolers and interacts with them.
Make sure this person is a “big kid” who can inspire smiles, giggles, and cheers.

Song
(2 minutes)—The worship leader leads children in a fun, energetic worship song with simple motions.

Bible verse
(2 minutes)—The host teaches kids the Bible verse of the month.
Keep the verse short; a single sentence works best.

Song
(2 minutes)—The worship leader leads kids in a fun, medium-paced worship song with simple motions.

Bible Time
(4 to 5 minutes)—An energetic person shares from the Bible, using audience participation and tools such as pictures, puppets, or props.
He or she also has preschoolers repeat the teaching truth several times before, during, and after the telling.
The teaching truth is based on the Bible and is a simple statement of a few words.
An example would be “God watches over me” based on Noah and the Ark.

Prayer
(30 seconds)—We close in prayer.
Children can participate in the prayer by repeating each line.
An example would be “Dear God (pause), thank you for watching over me.
(Pause.) I know you’re always with me.
(Pause.) In Jesus’ name.
Amen.”

Worship time can be the highlight of preschoolers’ week when you create an experience they can connect with.
I love it when parents tell me...

• how much their children love coming to church.
  
• how their preschoolers talk with them about what they learned in worship.
  
• how their children sing songs during the week that they learned at church.
  

I love it when I walk by an environment and see preschoolers saying by their actions and enthusiasm, “Yeah!
It’s worship time!”

— Dale

The Word is living and active and brings true transformation to the hearts and lives of people.
Can you imagine trying to venture through this life without it?
I’m truly thankful for the gift of God’s Word.