Category Archives: Teaching Settings

What better way for helping children develop into people who love, worship, and serve the Lord than for them to see it demonstrated in the life of those who influence their lives. Hence, a children’s church teacher’s life can be a vital teaching tool.

How a Children’s Church Teacher’s Life Serves as a Model for Loving, Worshiping, and Serving the Lord

Children need teachers in their lives who do more than tell them what they should do. They need people to come alongside of them and show them how — coaching, mentoring, and discipling them toward loving, worshiping, and serving the Lord. But, even that will have minimal effect if our attitudes don’t match our words and actions. As teachers, we need to model …

• a wholehearted devotion in loving the Lord (Matt. 22:37), not holding back.
• a joy or pleasure in worshiping (Ps. 100:2), not merely going through the motions.
• a fervency in serving (Rom. 12:11), not just doing enough to get by.

Even if the teacher has a more introverted personality, these kinds of attitudes, passion, and enthusiasm would still shine through if it’s there. — As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart. (Prov. 27:19)

A quality essential, then, to being a model for loving, worshiping, and serving the Lord, is authenticity. Genuine devotion, joy, and fervency in our lives serves as a contagion for children, stirring up a desire for the same in their lives.

Out of authenticity comes consistency. Only when it is deep within our hearts will we consistently model what it means to be a lover, worshiper, and servant of God. When that happens, our lives reinforce over and over for children how good it is to love, worship, and serve our Lord.

With the goal of helping children develop into people who love, worship, and serve the Lord, a children’s church teacher’s methods and materials must lead to the accomplishment of that objective.

If the children’s church program is structured to be an extension of Sunday School or a replacement for it, methods and materials will also be like that already described for a Sunday School teacher’s methods and materials. But, you can still aim for the broad objective suggested above which leads to methodology mentioned below.

Methods and Materials That Lead to a Children’s Church Teacher’s Overriding Goal

The best methods to help children become more fully devoted followers of Jesus, learning to love, worship, and serve Him, involve that which enable them to observe and then put it into practice.

• Demonstration shows them how. (in-class demonstrations, drama, field trip to adult worship service or where they can see people serving or video clips of the same, modeling)
• Doing reinforces what they’ve learned. (projects, role play, simulations)

So, we’re not just teaching them about worship but giving them opportunity to worship. We’re not just telling them they should serve the Lord, but fanning into flame the gifts God has given them to serve (2 Tim. 1:6) and then providing opportunities for them to engage in ministry right there in class.

• Participating lets them see it is something they can do now, not just when they’re older.
• Practicing under the mentoring, or discipleship, of the teacher, helps them learn by experience with the needed feedback, support, and encouragement.

The most effective visual aid is that of a teacher’s life, modeling what it means to be a lover, worshiper, and servant of the Most High God. — More about that in the next post.

Subscribe for E-mail notice of new posts.

Since churches vary in what they do about children’s church, part of a children’s church teacher’s goals should be to align with that purpose. Yet, teachers can certainly have personal goals for impacting children’s lives that could include a broader objective.

What a Children’s Church Teacher’s Goals Should and Shouldn’t Be

No matter how one’s church handles children’s church, individual teachers can make it their goal to be wise in making the most of all opportunities to teach children (Eph. 5:15-16). As a result, teachers will view this time as more than keeping children occupied while parents attend the worship service. If we see our role as more of a babysitter, we will be less likely to invest our time and effort into it.

Rather than merely supervising children until the adult service concludes, teachers can use this opportunity to impact lives, helping children develop into people who love, worship, and serve the Lord. They can do that by:

• presenting to children a God who is worthy of their devotion and adoration so they learn to love the Lord
• planning ways for children to worship in accordance with their age level so they learn to worship
• providing opportunities for children to take part in preparing, leading, and some aspects of worship and teaching so they learn to serve

Even in a church that uses children’s church as an extension of Sunday School or a replacement for it, rather than a mentoring ground for learning to worship, this broad goal and means of getting there can still be incorporated. Teachers simply need to keep this focus throughout the lesson and implement methodology that helps students develop into lovers, worshipers, and servants of our Most High God.

Training Resource: The Teacher’s Role in Discipling Students to Worship