Ministering to children during a lock down

Last week we brought you an article that looked at the easiest ways that churches can stream their services online during the Coronavirus pandemic.

This week, we want to focus specifically on how children’s ministry can continue to take place safely and effectively in an online environment.

Waste Not Want Not

There is a smorgasbord of resources that are being produced to aid churches who are trying to include some kind of children’s ministry within their online Sunday service broadcast. Reinventing the wheel is therefore neither necessary nor very scrupulous. Many bigger (often American, but not always!) churches have huge budgets for children’s ministry and therefore, are able to produce really good quality online resources that other churches can use.  The following is by no means an exhaustive list, but it offers a great place to start:

Life.Church Open Network

The go-to place for children’s resources in recent years, Life.Church, an American multi-campus church responsible for the extremely popular YouVersion Bible App, have been making their children’s materials available for free for a number of years through their Life.Church Open Network.

Now, with the outbreak of COVID-19, they are producing special “Church at Home” videos for children, which can be downloaded and integrated into your own churches Sunday broadcasts for free.

They also have a fantastic YouTube channel with special children’s “Church at Home” services being released every Sunday for a variety of age groups. Well worth subscribing to if you’re a parent and want to expose your kids to some great and engaging ministry, tailor-made for them.

Click here to visit the Life.Church Open Network website

Visit the LifeKids YouTube Channel

Little Worship Company

British company Little Worship Company are a professional organisation headed up by ex-media aficionados to produce engaging children’s devotionals and family ministry tools. They are offering Sunday Service, Little Worship Time resources for churches and families during the Coronavirus pandemic. These will include worship songs and bible stories, prayers and bible verses and can be integrated into your Sunday broadcasts by including links to their YouTube channel. 

 

Visit the Little Worship Company YouTube Channel

Snail Mail

As a parent of two young boys myself, I never thought I’d see them get sick of watching people on screens, but we’re only a few days into lock down and already they’re getting restless.

The same will be true for kids across the region and we know of one local children’s worker who is going full-on retro to try to combat this issue by printing and posting out resources to the kids in her church.

Not only does it create the thrill of the kids opening letters addressed to them, (remember the time when receiving mail was exciting and not mundane/inconvenient?!), it also enables them to physically sit down and complete an activity on paper. Writing or drawing uses a totally different part of the brain than viewing a screen and can make messages stick in a way that watching stories on YouTube often doesn’t. Why not buy a few books of stamps and give it a go? Post Offices aren’t closed during the lock down!

However you decide to broadcast to your church during the lock down, we hope you’re able to reach out to the children in your church and community in a powerful and effective way. Who knows how God will speak to them during this crazy time in their young lives?

If you’d like more information about the vast array of resources available for children’s and youth workers, please contact our Next Gen Champion Deb Chamberlain – deb@loveblackcountry.org.uk

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