How to help Kids and Young People engage with the teaching

This is probably the most difficult part of the service for a kid to engage with just because listening to someone talk for ten minutes to half an hour is not something we do regularly especially as kids. So here are some ways we can help them to connect with what is being taught.

• Bible reading
  Get kids and teens who can read on the rota. They’re much more likely to pay attention if it’s something they could do, or a friend who’s doing it. However, while it’s great to get kids up the front it doesn’t help understanding. For a narrative text an easy solution is to have a narrator reading from the Bible and the roles played by the congregation: no need to rehearse, you could have pre-prepared lines to read, maybe some easy costumes i.e. scarfs for headwear and a someone who can roughly direct actors to where they are supposed to be.
  Another good way to engage listeners is to have a powerpoint with pictures as the reading is read. Again this is easy enough for narrative sections, find a children’s bible and scan them in, draw your own or visit Free Bible Images. For letters/wisdom books/prophecy you could pick out some key words and provide pictures for those.

• Sermon engagement
  Worksheets and powerpoints are your friends here!
  Put references for verses on the screen, you want the youngest to be able to know that it’s okay to check what a speaker is saying against the Bible, if teens have worksheets or are writing notes that’ll help them too.
  You can find helpful hints and examples of sermon sheets here.
  Pictures on screen can aid memory for visual people, and give an easily distracted person (such as a three year old) something to look at. Props can fit this bill too! Having physical examples of something – a toy lamb, a globe, a lifebelt etc. which represent some common Biblical themes can be so helpful.
  If you have a half hour semon then split it into two or three (depending on where the sermon naturally breaks) with a song or other time of response in the middle since most children find it hard to sit and listen for half an hour at one go. If your church regularly has 10-15 minute sermons then this is less of an issue.

• Videos
  A pre-recorded news report can be a fun way to help contextualise a passage – It’s hard to convey how shocked people would have when Jesus said “before Abraham was, I am” A report can make it clear that it’s a claim to be God himself which would have been considered blasphemy. Here’s an example of part of a report about Noah.
  I love these videos for explain things in a kid friendly way while still leaving enough room for a sermon to expand on details and add more specific application. And, of course, you can find all kinds of videos on the Disorganised Sunday School Youtube Channel as well.