What an honor it is to be able to lead a child to the Lord and see Him transform their lives! We should be ready to help kids respond to Him and make life-changing commitments whenever the opportunity is given. 

Many people are saved as kids, which makes them one of the biggest mission fields in existence! They are building their foundation for the rest of their lives (and eternities), and we want to help them grow strong roots and become strong in their faith. Kids are naturally curious and formidable. Kids may not understand EVERYTHING about salvation... but I believe adults don't understand everything about salvation either. That doesn't stop us from believing. I know I didn't understand everything about salvation when I was saved at age 17. Kids can have a true grasp of what it means to be forgiven and to have a relationship with Jesus. We know from the Bible that Jesus loves children, and He wants us to bring the children to Him. That is what this is all about- being prepared to bring kids to Jesus. That's what children's ministry is all about.

Here are some tips for leading a child to Christ. Included at the bottom are some resources you can download and use in your ministry. We don't do "altar calls"  too often, because kids can feel a lot of pressure or not truly understand. It's more likely that kids will make commitments in their small group setting, with a leader who has been mentoring and investing in their lives, and can answer their questions and have a real conversation with them. Altar calls can be a great way to inspire kids to make a commitment for God.

We encourage parents to be the ones to have faith-conversations with their kids and pray with them to accept the Lord. 

Three Steps for Children's Ministry Leaders

1. Empower Small Group Leaders to have faith conversations with kids.
2. Fill out a Commitment Card.
3. Celebrate and connect with parents. Provide resources for growth.

Tips for Small Group Leaders and Kidmin Leaders


Important things to remember….

1.    Don’t do all the talking. Ask questions; let the child talk. Let the child ask questions, and help him/her look up the answers in the Bible.

2.    Don’t use big or confusing words. Instead of the phrase ‘Ask Jesus into your heart,’ which is too abstract for kids to understand, use the phrase ‘Ask Jesus to be your very best friend.’ Avoid big words.

3.    Say It. Ask the child to communicate what he/she is doing, to make sure they understand. Ask if he/she has any questions.

4.    ABCs. Go through the ABCs with the child, and use a Bible to help the child look up the Scripture verses.

5.    Pray. After going through the ABCs, pray with the child. Ask if he/she wants to pray too.

6.    Celebrate! Tell the Children’s Pastor, who will follow up with the child’s parents. Fill out a Commitment Card (1 for the child, and one for the church to keep). We will follow up with Next Steps for discipleship for the child.

A- ADMIT you are a sinner & ASK for forgiveness!

•    Romans 3:23- “For all have sinned & fall short of the glory of God.”
  
•    1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
  

B- BELIEVE in Jesus as your Savior & BECOME a child of God

•    John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His one & only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

•  John 1:12 “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
  

C- CONFESS that Jesus is Lord & CHOOSE to follow Him daily!

•   Romans 10:9 “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

•   Luke 9:23 [Jesus said,] “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
  

FREE RESOURCES
Click below to download

• Leading a Child to Christ  Tips and Scriptures for Kidmin Leaders and Group Leaders
  
• Commitment Card to fill out with kids
  
• Baptism Info packet - One of the follow-up resources we provide, to help kids see if they are ready for baptism, give their parents this baptism packet, which includes devotionals and discussion questions for parents to have with kids
  

Question - do you remember when you gave your life to the Lord? Who prayed with you and inspired you? Mine was my youth pastor and his wife, at age 17. They eternally impacted my life, and I am forever grateful for them and their investment in me and bringing me to the Lord.

-Lynne

About 5 years ago, our church staff was talking and praying about how we can serve our community, and a God-given vision was born. In one staff meeting, the Lord led us to create an event that would fill a void in our community-- a community with no city-wide Easter event. This was one huge way that we could impact our community and show them that we love them, and more importantly, that God loves them. God gave us a vision, and EasterFest was born.

This is our 5th year to do EasterFest, and it is one my favorite things that we do! It is the one thing that we ALL do together as a church, with one common goal: to give the people in our community a fun and free day together, and to let them know who we are and how much we love them. 

We have EasterFest at a big park right off of our main road in the city. We give away a free lunch to everyone, we have a live band, carnival games and prizes, a petting zoo, face painting, pictures with the Easter bunny, a GIANT egg hunt with 20,000 eggs, a ton of awesome inflateable slides and obstacle courses, a rock climbing wall, and a special toddler area just for babies. And it's all free for people in our community! We have tweaked it over the years, and each year it has gotten bigger and better (except it rained one year, and we were there anyway!). 

We have an amazing team of volunteers who work so hard to put this event together. It is a great way for us to serve the families in our city, and for us to connect with them and engage in relationships with them. Our people are rock stars at initiating conversations and loving people. 

Promo: before the event
Our media guy does a great job of putting our event out in our community through a variety of venues (throughout the years, we have done posters, radio ads, newspaper ads, Facebook ads, TV, and more!). We give all our people EasterFest T-shirts to wear around town before the event, and it is so cool to hear stories of people wearing their shirts at the gym or the grocery store, or anywhere, and having people walk up to them and say they have been to or heard of EasterFest, and they can't wait to come this year! In addition to shirts this year, we are giving away bracelets. 

Out of all the ways to promote this event, we have found that by far the #1 way people hear about EasterFest is by word of mouth. We equip all of our people to invite their friends through social networking and through invite cards. We have done door hangers in the past, and have canvased neighborhoods, which was awesome. When all of our people take ownership of the event, their passion and excitement bubbles over and they eagerly invite people. 

Followup: after the event
Two of the most important parts of a great event take place after the event is over. Follow up and evaluation. Since we have done this 4 times, we have tweaked these two things and come up with a great way to do them.

Connection Cards
We bring a bunch of "Connection Cards" to the event and get as many people as possible to fill them out and turn them in, to be entered into a prize drawing to win one of 4 Family Night Out cards ($50 Visa Gift cards). Once we get their information, we send everyone a letter thanking them for coming, and letting them know we would LOVE to have them at our church. We make sure to include information about our children's ministry.

Personal Invite
One of the reasons we intentionally have the event the day before Easter is to give people an opportunity to attend our Easter Sunday service. Easter Sunday is a common day for people to visit a church. We give them invite cards at EasterFest, letting them know what our Sunday service will be about the next day, and our greeters and hosts are intentionally looking for people to personally invite and make one-on-one connections with, so they know we have a spot for them, and will be looking for them the next day.

Evaluation
A key to a great event is to continually evaluate and look for ways to improve. We also look for things that were a huge hit, so we can keep doing them and keep getting better! We have a staff debriefing session, and we get great input from our volunteers and leaders. We are always looking for ways to make the event better. Our egg hunt has changed and improved a little every year, and the current egg hunt looks nothing like the egg hunt our first year! Something we ask ourselves every year is "What is the goal of this event?" and "Did we accomplish it?" If we ever answer "no" to that question, then we will know that it's time to make changes, or it that it may be time to stop doing the event. But until then, as long as the Lord is leading, we will continue to prayerfully step out in faith and work together to put on an awesome Easter outreach event for our community.

Easter Sunday
We have a fantastic kids' service on Easter Sunday, and make sure to have plenty of hosts and greeters to welcome any new guests who visit that day. 

What does your church do for Easter? What great outreach ideas can you share?