I have a history of being a little extreme when planning events at church.

I am talking about building a 16-foot tall space shuttle out of styrofoam in the worship center for V.B.S. 

We would do a countdown before sending kids off from worship and fire off a smoke machine to give the effect of the launch.

At one of our fall festivals, I had several people help me blow up 900 BALLOONS.

We draped them across our church's gym from basketball hoop to basketball hoop.

It was beautiful!

After it was over, my five kids popped all the balloons in about five minutes.

I didn't do that ever again.

I was and am passionate about reaching kids with the Gospel.

I was good at planning the events—V.B.S., camps, retreats, conferences, and afterschool Bible clubs.

What I wasn't good at was follow-up.

We have been in a holding pattern with our kids in our churches for so many years. Are you on target to see lives changed in your church?

All of us must ask ourselves, “Is it time?”

1. Is it time to join parents in the discipleship of their children?
2. Is it time to invite children and preteens into the spiritual depths of their faith by teaching them how to walk with the Master every day for the rest of their lives?
3. Is it time to move kids from just sitting in class and listening into a ministry that equips, trains, and releases them to serve and minister in the body of Christ today?
4. Is it time to release the most effective missionaries worldwide into the mission field today?

After we finished our prayer time, I was thinking to myself, “I won’t do this ever again.”

We spent all day setting up our building for what we called “A Journey of Prayer.”

Our goal was to have serious fun with the kids that evening.

We set up multiple rooms throughout the church for the kids to rotate through to pray.

One of the problems we all face in children’s ministry is going through the motions.

If you are like me, you find that you are meeting yourself coming and going.

There seemed to be insufficient time during the week to get things done.

From Sunday morning to midweek, things were a little crazy.

The problem we face in a routine ministry is that we might be passing kids through our ministry with no clear plan or objectives in place.

George Barna says, “The battle is won or lost for our children in the Children's Ministry of the church.”