We’ve talked about content, delivery, and relationships in an engaging children’s ministry environment. They are each important, but they can’t stand alone. The best environments seek synergy among these efforts.

This starts with a set list. When a band performs, they write a set list. They know what songs they’re singing, in what order, and how they’ll transition between each songs. Our ministries need something similar. Everyone leader in the room needs to know where they’re going and how they’ll get there during the hour they have with the kids. When leaders know where they’re going, chances are exponentially higher that they will actually get there.

By the time you get to the point where you’re developing your set list, you should have a bottom line and a list of possible ways to help kids remember that bottom line. This is different than a production sheet. Production sheets have all of the sound and light cues written into the flow of programming elements. A set list is just that – a list of what’s happening when to cue everyone as what’s going on and where the kids need to be.

Let’s get started on that set list with three questions:

1. Total Time: What’s the total amount of time that you need to fill?

Always plan on more than you’ll need. Most of us serve in environments where the service lengths are not as standard as we’d like. We usually planned for about 5-7 minutes over what we normally needed. 98% of the time we were fine.

2. Time for Each Element: How long will it take you to do each of the programming elements on your list?

You can’t do everything. Choose the best options that will get you to your bottom line. It’s OK if you choose fewer elements as long as they fit within your time frame and help kids know and apply the story.

3. Write your story: What is the best order for the elements we’ve chosen?

Think about the plot line of a movie. Directors and editors make important decisions about when they will reveal parts of the story; you should as well. Put the elements in an order that takes kids on an experience that keeps them wanting more.

A Sample Set List: Here’s a simple example of set list with some explanation as to why certain elements are in this particular order.

SMALL GROUP: The idea behind starting your hour off with small group is to thwart chaos. Think about it: As a parent would you feel more comfortable dropping your kids off into a room where everyone is running around looking like they’re about to bang into walls or each other or a room where the kids are active with a purpose?

Early Arriver – These are activities that kids can join as they come into the room. These can be games or small group activities that are open-ended so kids don’t miss something important if they aren’t there when you start.

Build Relationships – have small group leaders check in on how the kids are doing. Go around the circle and have kids share about the past week.

Teaser – At some point you need to start telling a story that leads to the bottom line. A teaser activity is one that doesn’t blatantly share the story or bottom line but hints at the topic for the day. For example: The story is a lesson on being thankful with the story of the 10 lepers. Maybe the activity is simply an open-ended question that has kids talk about a time when they went out of their way to say thanks to someone. This doesn’t give them the bottom line and doesn’t reveal the story too early. Keep the kids guessing!

Transition: When you call the kids to large group, play walk-in music that will help cue them to move to the next part of the morning. This should be a song or two that hints at the bottom line or topic for the day. The music should last long enough for everyone to get seated. You could also have a music video of some sort to help focus kid’s attention to the front of the stage.

LARGE GROUP:

Countdown: 10 seconds – no longer, no shorter. Kids can count along with this this. If you go for 30 seconds, it’s just too long.

Transition: When you call the kids to large group, play walk-in music that will help cue them to move to the next part of the morning. This should be a song or two that hints at the bottom line or topic for the day. The music should last long enough for everyone to get seated. You could also have a music video of some sort to help focus kid’s attention to the front of the stage.

Worship Songs: Two rockin’ songs that gets kids excited to be in the environment

Transition: Music bed out of the last song that will continue through the host welcome.

Welcome/Intro: Host introduces the topic with a story or a game. He doesn’t give away the bottom line. He helps keep attention and builds towards the story. This should be where the zany can come out. Have fun and keep the kids enjoying their time. Don’t create something that’s funny for the sake of being funny. Every element should serve the bottom line in your story.

Transition: Begin the introduction to the first song as the host is leaving the stage.

Worship Songs: One or two mid-tempo songs to set the mood for the story. These songs help the kids wind down after the fun of the welcome/intro.

Transition: Use a video trailer to set up the storyteller. This will refocus attention back to the stage after worship.

Message: The storyteller shares the main Bible story for the day and reveals the bottom line for the day.

Transition: Start music under prayer. As the storyteller begins to walk off the stage start the closing song.

Closing Song: One song that can serve as a response to what the kids just learned. This could be a theme song for the month or simply a worship song.

Transition: Have the host come up before the last notes of the song play. 

Wrap-Up: The host comes out and brings it home with a word of application, has the kids repeat the bottom line, and dismisses kids to small group.

Transition: Walk-out music to cue kids as they move back into small groups. 

 SMALL GROUP: The focus of this part of the hour is to help the kids remember the bottom line and figure out how they can put the bottom line into practice throughout the week. If you have time, you should have an activity that covers each of the following:

Bible Story Review

Memory Verse Review

Application Game or Activity

Prayer – build relationships through praying for each other

CLOSING ACTIVITY: Activities may not take as much time as you thought. Equip your small group leaders with quiet games they can play in group if they’ve finish early. These serve as a way to keep the kids engaged as their parents arrive to pick them up.

Once you have your set list written out: Email it to everyone before the weekend, hand it out on Sundays, post it everywhere, and follow it! The set list is the plan that will keep you accountable to your story. 

What do your set lists look like? I’d love to hear how you keep the story moving throughout your morning! Comment below!

You have a story, and a place to share that story. You have the right props and a killer stage design. But you’re not finished. Who is going to tell your story? What are the key relationships that you need in the room to make that story come alive to those kids?

This can be a long list: communicators, worship leaders, dancers, actors, tech gurus, group leaders, and greeters. All play a vital role in creating an environment for your kids. For the sake of space (and your precious time), I’m going to focus on a few.

The Executive Producer and Creative Director: 

Every environment needs people who will keep everyone accountable to the story. The EP and CD are these people. They have a vision for the story and how it should be delivered. They make ensure that week after week your story is being told with excellence. They build momentum and propel vision to the rest of the team.

In your church environment, this could be the children’s director or a large group production director. Really it doesn’t matter where they are on the org chart; what matters is that the roles are filled in your environment.

 Hosts AND Storytellers: 

This is one of the most important lessons I have learned from Camp Kid Jam. You need someone who can be zany and off-the-wall getting the kids excited about being in the room. Hosts build energy, lead games, and tell funny stories. SImply put: they are crazy. In contrast, the storyteller is the credible voice on stage that communicates the Bible story to the kids.

You need both. If one moment your host is telling some off the wall story about how he surfed blind folded in Santa Cruz and the next he’s trying to communicate the feeding of the 5000—both fantastical stories— a child may not be able to discern that one of those is actually true. Having a separate storyteller to come in and deliver the feeding of the 5000 story will actually give credibility to the storyteller and that great story.

Let the host be crazy to free the storyteller to be credible.

NOTE: If you are in a church where this is just not possible due to the amount of volunteers available, you will need to program something between the crazy and the story like worship or a video that will give your communicator a chance to break the host character and transition into the storyteller. This helps the kids differentiate between those two roles as well.  (We’ll talk about this more tomo

Small Group Leaders:

We often see SGLs as care-givers or shepherds for our kids, and they are. But they are also the people in the room who help make the story concrete and applicable to the kids. Yesterday, we talked about remembering the story. The small group leader is all about helping kids remember the story. If the storyteller and host did their job right, they’ve set up the storyteller to bring home the bottom line for those kids in a way that will make sense to the kids throughout the week.

Host Team:

Don’t scrimp on a host team. Don’t allow computers to do what a person should. Your story begins as soon as people step out of their car. Give them a host team that will welcome them with open arms and start the story off in the right direction.

Audience:

Sometimes we forget that we need people to experience the story. We can put together a great show, but if no one is there to watch and engage, our efforts have been in vain. Create and environment where kids will want to come week after week. Once they come, remember something important about audiences: Their collective intelligence is greater than yours. Respect those kids. Don’t talk down to them. Engage them in the story, because after all, it’s their story too.

Again, these posts are just scratching the surface of creating engaging environments. These are just a few of the important roles. Who have I left out? Comment below!

Once you know the story you want to tell, you need to gather a team of people to help craft how you will tell your story.

At first glance, when we look at the word “delivery” we think in terms of the person communicating on stage, but, like environment, delivery encompasses much much more. Delivery includes anything that communicates your story to your audience. Like Disney, you begin communicating your story as soon as people pull into your church parking lot. The story may not be very good (yet), but you are communicating a story. In other words, the atmosphere you create must begin from the first moments that a person will experience your environment.

Three Questions:

How will you decorate? 

This is not a new question in the children’s ministry world. Companies make a living by helping churches theme out there spaces. You may not be there yet though. You may not have a huge budget to create Main Street USA in your church hallways, but that doesn’t mean you don’t try. Decor is important. Kid-friendly atmosphere lets a child know that you understand their point of view and like what they like.

In terms of planning your decor, choose one theme. Don’t mix Medieval Times with a 1950’s small town. It’s confusing and will create unneeded tension. People may never say this out loud, but they really won’t ever feel comfortable in the tension created by the decor.

Work from the specific to the general as you move from the outer hallways to the interiors of the room. This allows for a definitive brand but will give you room to play with monthly theme decor on the stages. Think about how you could change up those hallways to fit seasonal holidays: Can you switch out seasonal flowers? Will Christmas decorations make sense? What will summer look like?

As you think about your stage, think generic. By all means, make it “feel” like your hallways, but leave room for lots of options. Think about how you will use the stage: will you ever need to hang anything? Will you project your graphics onto a screen or use a flatscreen TV? How will you hide wires? How many people will ever need to be on the stage? Do you need inputs for instruments and wired mics? Will be able to swap out monthly theme decor without difficulty?

How will you communicate?

Once the stage is set, it’s time to think about what elements you will use to make the story come alive on that stage. You and I both know that the possibilities are endless. Because of that, let the following principle guide you:

Less is more; more is distracting.

You want the story to be the focus not the light show. Whatever you do and however you do it, make sure that the kids are leaving with a clear vision for how they will put God’s story into practice in their lives. If they only leave thinking, “Wow, that was an awesome game!” without knowing why they played it, well, we’ve failed them.

Just a word on the elements you can use:

Music: You shouldn’t choose songs because they’re cool. Choose them because they will help kids arrive at the bottom line or will help them respond to God’s love in light of what they experienced during large group.

Video: Kids watch TV and videos on YouTube. They like them. Use video strategically. You may even want to consider using video to share the main Bible story to ensure that what you want communicated is actually communicated.

Games: Games can be a great way to introduce a topic or just simply to break the ice and get the kids comfortable in the space. They can be messy or not. They should be fun. If they’re crazy, just create enough space between the game and the Bible story for kids to get back “into the mood” to be ready to hear from God’s word.

Questions: Open ended questions are a powerful tool you can use to help kids process what they’re learning about the bottom line. Save these for small group environments where a trusted leader is helping them through answering them.

Visuals: Make sure that you can read visuals from the back of the room. Limit text to four lines per slide. Remember that many kids have difficulty reading. Make it simple for everyone.

Props: You don’t need everything just what’s important to create a feel for where you are and the story you’re telling.

Lights: Have fun but be intentional. Just because you can make a strobe affect, doesn’t mean you should.

How will you help kids remember?

As you plan how you’ll deliver the story each week, how will you help kids remember what you’ve covered? Something we often forget is the part of the environment kids take with them when they leave your spaces: take homes.

Take homes can be as simple as a sheet of paper to a trinket of some sort that they get each month. The most successful take homes are those which can be used or worn as a cue to remind kids to recall the bottom line and act accordingly. Is there a craft that will be something they won’t just throw out when they get home?

Everything costs money. Use that money to do something that will give you a return on your investment. Remember, you’re helping kids remember a story. Don’t have them create something that will never make it home in one piece. Spend as much time brainstorming a great take home as you would what questions you’ll ask during small group. Take homes are that important.

Planning delivery is really about being intentional with each element you’ll use to tell your story. If you have good answer for the question “why did we do this?” for each moment, you’re on your way to creating a great environment.

______

What are some of the best ideas that you’ve had when it comes to delivery? I’d love to hear them. Comment below!

Yesterday, we defined environment as the some total of a person’s experience with the content, delivery, and relationships within your space. When you find synergy among those aspects, you begin to create a children’s ministry that is dynamic and engaging.

Synergy begins with aligning your content throughout your church. Don’t hear me wrong. This does not mean that everyone in the building learns the same lesson on the same day; that’s an incomplete strategy. Rather, it is important that from the top down everyone has answered these questions:

What is the story that we’re telling? 

This could be a mission or vision statement that works as a thread keeping your ministries aligned.

For North Point Ministries this is simple “to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.” From the babies to the adults, everything points people towards that end in mind.

For Walt Disney, he went with the simple “to make people happy.” Every aspect of what his company aimed to accomplish worked toward building a story where people could be happy – if for only the two hours they watched a film or the day they spent in theme park.

Think of it like this (and yes, I realize that if you think too hard this analogy breaks down, but go with me for a moment.)

Church: Your church is the novel with an over-arching plot line. Every ministry under that umbrella should work towards a common end in mind.

Family Ministry: Your church should have a common chapter in this novel that covers your birth – college strategy.

Children’s: Think of your children’s ministry as a paragraph in the family ministries chapter. It takes some cues from the previous paragraph (Preschool) and sets up the following paragraphs (Students) to succeed.

Programming: Your weekend programming need to be a sentence in the children’s ministry paragraph working for the greater good of that topic sentence. What you do on Sunday needs to be clear, complete, and concise with a singular bottom line for kids to remember on Wednesday when the rubber meets the road. 

If you don’t know where to begin, get a few people in a room and brainstorm around what Disney calls psychographic information. Think about the people that both come to your church and who you want to come to your church. Figure out what they need, what they want, what stereotypes might keep them away or help them stay, and what emotions you want them to experience. Answering these questions will give you important in sights as to they story you need to tell through your ministry.

You have to know the story. If you don’t know the story, everything will be an option which in reality means you won’t be saying anything. Knowing the story you want to tell will help you discern how to create the rest of your environment by giving you a framework for saying yes and no. With a common story, you’ll be able to help people prioritize their time.

What’s the bottom line? 

As a joke is only as good as the punch line, the story is only as powerful as the bottom line.

The bottom line is the ONE thing you want kids to remember at the end of your story. You can only say one thing each weekend. If you try to say five things, kids won’t remember any of them. By saying one thing, you exponentially increase the chances that kids will remember it throughout the week.

The bottom line should be short and memorable. The best bottom lines include a “go-and-do” idea that helps kids put the story into action as they interact with their family and friends throughout the week.

What do you need to help kids remember the bottom line? 

This is simple, right? You just need a building, a room, some sort of stage, and curriculum. OK, maybe not so easy, but this can be simple.

You need a space that helps kids know that you like them and understand their point of view. This includes decorations, posters, paint colors, seating options, and hang-out spaces.

The stage should speak to the story and the bottom line you’re telling. This includes visuals, videos, props, and costumes.

Your curriculum should be strategic from birth to eighteen, but give you age appropriate options for your environments. (Shameless plug: head to WhatIsOrange.org for more on curriculum strategy.)

Obviously, I’m just scratching the surface here with how this works out practically, but the decisions you make about content really come down to your overall philosophy of ministry. The nuts and bolts will become obvious as you work out the story you want to tell.

I’d love to hear from you. What is the story you are telling with your ministry? What curriculum do you use? What have you done to your environments to make them show kids that you like them? Comment below!

When you hear the words “kidmin environment” what comes to mind?

Decor? Lighting? Check in stations? 3D wall art? Stage design?

If you answered any of those, you’re on the right track. All of those are definitely part of a children’s ministry environment, but they are only a part of environment.

Your environment also includes the games you play, the songs you sing, and the kids who will do all that you have planned — not to mention the people who will lead those games and songs. When it comes to children’s ministry environments, we need to look at more than bricks and mortar, paint and lighting. An environment is really defined as the sum total of a person’s experience in your space.

Everything that a person experiences in your environments defines how they perceive what you think is important.

You can have an amazing space full of hip lighting and bounce houses for kids to enjoy, but if your content doesn’t engage the kids, none of that will matter won’t matter. You can deliver dynamic content in a kid-friendly environment, but if you don’t have strong relationships to reinforce what the kids are learning, kids will grow tired of the bling and start to check out. Everything matters.

Think about a Disney theme park. From the moment you step foot in the parking lot you know the story they are trying to tell, you know the story will be told magically, and you know that the people will treat you like rock stars while they tell you the story.

As you go about creating an engaging kidmin environment, three things need to be headed in the same direction:

Content: what you say.

Delivery: how you say it.

Relationships: who is saying it.

When those three aspects of environment are working together to tell the same story, you will be creating an unforgettable environment for your families. You don’t need tons of money or multitudes of volunteers. You need a strategy everyone in your ministry can make happen. This week is all about discovering that strategy for your children’s ministry. Each day we’ll take a closer look at each of those aspects.

But before we get too far into this discussion, I’d love to hear from you! What do you want to know about creating kidmin environments? I’ll try my best to answer your questions throughout the week.

Comment below!