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All right.

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Hello, everyone.

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Matt Rupert here, and this is the ROAD Kids Ministry training, where our goal is to empower

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leaders to disciple a generation.

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This is video one of how to lead a small group vision and strategy.

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So let's just dive right in.

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So

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I wanted to start with vision and strategy because these will be the rocks that you can

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always come back to, the things that you can always look back to whenever there's a question.

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What are our values?

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What are our strategies for leading a small group?

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What is really important to us?

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And so first of all, I want to start with just the mission.

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What is our mission?

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Our mission as a kids ministry is to partner with parents to disciple a generation.

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You know, the vision of the ROAD is to bring a kingdom of God revolution, and we believe

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we can do that through the next generation by empowering kids to change the world.

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And so we believe kids ministry is a huge part of that.

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And so within our kids ministry, we have three core values that we will always come back

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to in our lessons, in our programming, in our small groups.

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The first one is Bible.

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Obviously, we want children to have a firm foundation in God's word, in truth.

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And so you'll see those different elements all throughout our kids ministry that we're

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doing verse memorization, that we're having the kids open their Bibles and read through

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their Bibles together.

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We're teaching them how to navigate their Bibles.

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Where is the book of Acts?

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Where is the book of Revelation?

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Helping kids feel comfortable with navigating through their Bible and understanding its

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implications to their life.

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Application is so huge.

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Kids can learn all of the Bible stories, but if they don't understand how the Bible applies

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to their life, then it's pretty much void.

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So we want to focus on these areas in our small groups.

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So in our small groups, if you're ever looking for something to do, then pull out the memory

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verse and talk about verse memorization.

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Have them recite the verse together.

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There are different games that we'll incorporate into our programming to help with that, but

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that's always a go-to.

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Reading the Bible, having kids open the Bible and read through different verses or different

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passages, depending on their reading level, depending on their comfortability, and navigating

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the Bible together.

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Something you can always look back on is explaining how to navigate the Bible.

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Every time we open the Bible, say Genesis is the first book of the Bible, Revelation

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is the last book of the Bible, there's the Old Testament and the New Testament, and we'll

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be working on different scripts to help you guys explain how to navigate the Bible.

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But we want kids to understand the Bible.

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They have to have a firm biblical foundation, which will affect their worldview.

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How they view the world around them is so very important.

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So that's rock number one.

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Rock number two is relationship.

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We want to create an atmosphere where children are able to connect and grow in their relationship

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with God.

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And we do that through many different ways.

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One big one is through prayer.

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As leaders, we should be modeling prayer to the group.

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How do we pray?

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Maybe we need to simplify it as a leader.

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Maybe we have a lot of that church lingo.

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We've grown up in the church, and we have a lot of those church phraseologies.

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Maybe we need to simplify our prayers so that kids can understand how to pray.

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It's just talking to God.

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But prayer is something we always want to be a part of our small groups.

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Whether you're opening in prayer, whether you're closing in prayer, you should be coaching

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your children to pray.

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Hey, Jimmy, can you open us in prayer?

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Can you close us in prayer?

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Can you pray for Jill's cat?

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Whatever the situation may be, we want to be encouraging and cultivating prayer in our

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small groups.

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The second thing in terms of relationship, kids ministry in general, is worship.

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We want to create an atmosphere for children to worship.

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And this is a unique thing that we'll have a whole video on at one point.

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But worship in the corporate sense is largely contributed to the church.

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So as a small group leader, you should be modeling worship to your kids, to the kids

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that you are discipling on a weekly basis.

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And relationship also has to do with role modeling and friendship as the leader.

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They say some Bible that anyone will read or something like that is you as a person.

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You will be the only Bible that someone reads, is what people say.

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And that's even true for Christian kids in the church context.

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You are Christ to these kids.

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How are you modeling?

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Jesus, how are you modeling Christianity?

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How are you modeling friendship to these kids?

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How are you showing them that you care?

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Are you modeling the love of Christ through your care

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and through your intentionality

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with the kids in your small group?

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Your relationship with these kids

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directly affects their perception of God himself.

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And so it's very important for leaders

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in that second big rock relationship

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to be building relationship with your kids.

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Then the last big rock is Holy Spirit.

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It's helping students connect

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to the resources of the Holy Spirit.

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If we're going to create a generation of kids

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who are bold, who are confident and are world changers,

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then they don't just need a biblical foundation.

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They also need to connect

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to the resources of the Holy Spirit.

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That is the boldness that we see in the book of Acts.

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That is the signs and the wonders

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that we see in the early church.

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And we want kids to be connecting with God through that.

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And so a big way that we can do that as small group leaders

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is once again in modeling,

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making sure that we're emphasizing the Holy Spirit

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in our prayer to God.

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When we're praying for those specific things,

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God, give us boldness.

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God, fill us with your Holy Spirit

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so we can receive boldness.

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When we're scared,

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Lord, give us more of your Holy Spirit

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so that we can be bold,

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so that we can reach out to the people in need.

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All of these different things.

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And yeah, Holy Spirit really does pull to that modeling

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and just how we're praying.

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Something that we wanna emphasize to the kids

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is that they have immeasurable resources

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through the Holy Spirit.

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If they're scared, if they're fearful,

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if they don't have the right words to say,

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if they don't know how to approach a conversation,

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if they don't know how to stand up to the bully,

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the Holy Spirit is the resource

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that we should be pointing them to

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for incredible power.

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And so those are the three big things

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that we will emphasize

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through all of our children's ministry programming,

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but specifically in small groups.

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As a small group leader,

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we wanna make sure that you are emphasizing Bible,

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verse memorization, navigating the Bible,

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understanding how it applies to their life,

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relationships through prayer, worship,

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and modeling of the leaders,

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and Holy Spirit through helping students connect

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to those resources, that power, that courage

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through prayer and helping kids understand

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that He is the one to reach out to.

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So that's the end of video number one,

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vision and strategy of kids ministry small groups.

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We'll see you in the next video.