Article #2 in our series is from Todd McKeever.
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The Future of Children’s Ministry – Todd McKeever (Article 2)
What does the future of Children’s Ministry look like? I would start with those who lead these ministries. It is through these men and women that I believe we will see our greatest impact of changes take place.
I am seeing a change in the “Top Down” type of leader. This older style is being replaced with a leader style who will decentralize leadership so that more people have a voice. It is a win-win type relationship.
The new leader/children’s pastor will be the one who will harness the use of technology but will customize that technology to take on an interactive role for all those involved. I believe that even though technology will continue to be a great tool in the hands of all of us, we will see boys and girls want a person-to-person experience that will help take what they are being taught to a level where they are experiencing it. A fun example of this would be the Atomic Tom Live YouTube video.
The boys and girls who are be being raised in our children’s ministries over these next 5-10 years will be kids who possibly have never seen a mighty move of God and have no one currently close to them speaking into their lives telling them the stories of God and His miracles. This generation of kids will have hours possibly poured into them by many of us about the plans God has for their lives, but it will not truly be understood. We as leaders will need to find ways to call them to action and give them a hands-on cause.
This previous point I made is, in part, why I developed a texting service with the kids at my church. We encourage the kids to bring their cell phones instead of trying to prevent them from bringing them. During the service we put up the number of our Google Voice account and encourage the kids to text in their questions as I preach. The questions go to the soundboard where they have access to my account. They route the questions out to some of our leaders who text back a response to the question. We hold a couple questions back that may be more specific to what I am talking about with the kids for that service and at the conclusion of the service they are sent to me and I answer them from the front stage. Then, on Tuesday, which we call “Texting Tuesday” I copy and paste the questions and answers from my Google Voice account and add them to the children’s blog. The blog search field is powered by Google and allows the kids to search our site for answers to what other kids may ask them in school. No longer are kids scared to witness for fear of not knowing the answer to specific questions. Now they have the power through their smart phones to search our blog site and come up with the answers to the questions they are being asked. They now understand more about being missionaries to their schools. They now feel they have the power and resources to carry the cause they are on to win their friends to Christ. It assisted the parents as well to help start or carry on conversations with their kids as they too would read over the questions and answers.
The future of children’s ministry demands that kids need both their parents and leaders to believe in them and pour into them daily. What kids don’t need is more technology for technology sake, but relationships that touch their very core. The future I see calls for us leaders to get back to whose Kingdom is really being built?
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About Todd:
Todd McKeever is the proud dad of three wonderful kids and husband of his best friend who is his wife, Rachel McKeever. Todd serves on staff at Sheffield Family Life Center in KC, MO. Be sure to check out:
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All articles in this series reflect the opinion of the author and may or
may not reflect the opinion of Greg Baird and KidMin360.
[...] Read the rest over on Kidmin360 [...]