The ultimate goal for kids is that they live for God the rest of their lives. Kids are under our care while the soft clay of their spirits is still fresh. We have them during their formative years. During their time in our ministry, they should receive so much of the Spirit of God and the Word of God that they can’t help but live for God, making Him the one they love and trust.
This will not happen if our classrooms and ministries are more about fun and less about depth. We know that kids must have fun in our ministries or they won’t come back. But if we aren’t providing the environment for the Holy Spirit and the Word of God to change their lives in a long-lasting way, then we will have failed.
Kids enter our classrooms in far fewer numbers today than when I grew up. It’s quite normal for us to have kids only an hour a week, and then maybe only a couple of times a month. There may not be a lot we can do about their attendance, but we can make sure the times we do have are powerful!
Many classrooms aim at the younger children with very little content, when we can really aim higher. For example, if the lesson is on lying, the main thought might be “Lying Ain’t Cool,” and only one partial verse on lying might be provided.
Yet the Bible is so full of powerful thoughts on this and other subjects that we do the kids a disservice if we don’t teach them in depth. Take a look at these five verses on the subject of lying:
The Lord hates ... a lying tongue (Proverbs 6:17, NIV)
He who utters lies is treacherous (Proverbs 14:25, NASB)
The wicked man ... gives birth to lies (Psalm 7:14, ESV)
Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 12:22, NASB)
The devil is the father of lies (John 8:44)
Each one of these powerful verses will teach the kids a bit more about God’s absolute disdain for lying. God hates it. It makes you treacherous. It comes from wickedness. It is an abomination. And the devil is the father of all lies! When you lie, you are pleasing the devil, not God.
Each of the above verses will impact kids in different ways. But sometime in later years, when they are about to lie, they will remember that it’s the devil who smiles at lying.
Send kids home with an assignment to look up other verses on the topic. When kids discover Bible verses for themselves and comprehend what the verses are saying, they are learning biblical literacy.
How do you deliver these multiple verses in a setting with kids? One of the old methods that still works is the “Sword Drill.” Challenge kids to look up the verse and see who can do it the fastest. Then the leader reads the verse and talks about it for 90 seconds. Five verses times 90 seconds each gives you an extra seven-and-a-half minutes of good solid in-depth teaching.
Remember, the Word of God is powerful. It is anointed and designed to impact kids’ lives.
They can handle the power of digging into the Word of God!
