Conventional thinking has limited it to Sunday school quarterlies, cleverly repackaged Bible stories the kids have heard for the hundredth time, a good puppet skit here and there, excellently produced videos with good moral lessons, and some well-produced, lively music.
But there is a growing number of children's ministers who stroll down the aisles of the typical Christian bookstores and browse through various publisher's catalogs, and come away saying, "There's got to be something more than this!"
I, too, have wondered, "Just how many ways can you repackage Noah's Ark anyway?"
At some point we have to ask ourselves is what we're doing in children's ministry today really working?
It's a legitimate question based on recent findings that tell us as many as 70 percent of the youth raised in our Christian churches are leaving the church at the age of independence and never stepping foot inside our doors again. (Barna Research, Real Teens)
I dare say their decisions were not made once they reached their teen years, but by the time they were 10, 11, and 12 years old.
After being a children's pastor for many years, and now working with kids in churches around the world on a regular basis, I am confident kids don't want another Bible story they already know by heart, but a supernatural touch from the living God.
Kids are hungry for the supernatural! The results are speaking for themselves in churches where the children's ministries are daring to introduce their kids to the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, intercessory prayer, teaching them to flow in the gifts of the Spirit, and lay hands on the sick, and more.
Kids can't get enough of these things! These have generally been considered "adult activities," but Jesus didn't think so. He said, "These signs shall follow them that believe," (Mark 16:15) and if a child believes, he qualifies for the supernatural like anyone else.
Recently I hosted a four-day conference for children, parents, and children's ministers called "The School of Healing for Kids." We conducted four workshops each morning teaching children everything we possibly could in such a short time frame about how to heal the sick according to Bible patterns and doctrine.
The last night of the conference we invited the sick to come so the children could lay hands on them and pray for their healing.
It was an amazing thing to watch children as young as seven and eight-years-old give words of knowledge such as, "There's somebody here with a crooked spine that needs prayer," and to see two women come forward with scoliosis.
As these children then gathered around them and prayed, both ladies claimed they could feel their spines had been straightened.
One little girl called out "fibro myalgia." I wondered how she even knew how to say the words! But once again two ladies stepped forward, and one had immediate manifestations of healing when her ever-present pain immediately left.
One lady had come believing to be healed of a serious sinus condition, and testified on the last morning that a bleeding ulcer on the inside of her nose that had been there for nine years was totally gone!
While it may be a very new thought to many to train children in such ways of the Lord, I believe the day will come when these types of activities will be mainstream children's ministry.
While the world is allowing their kids to be sucked into the supernatural world of Harry Potter, the church has got to sit up and take notice, and begin training our own children with the supernatural ways of the Living God!
One darling four-year-old girl at our conference stepped up boldly to the microphone, looked intently at her chubby little hand and declared, "God told me He put power in my hands!"
All rights reserved. Used by permission.