All right.
Hello, everyone.
Matt Rupert here, and this is the ROAD Kids Ministry training, where our goal is to empower
leaders to disciple a generation.
This is video one of how to lead a small group vision and strategy.
So let's just dive right in.
So
I wanted to start with vision and strategy because these will be the rocks that you can
always come back to, the things that you can always look back to whenever there's a question.
What are our values?
What are our strategies for leading a small group?
What is really important to us?
And so first of all, I want to start with just the mission.
What is our mission?
Our mission as a kids ministry is to partner with parents to disciple a generation.
You know, the vision of the ROAD is to bring a kingdom of God revolution, and we believe
we can do that through the next generation by empowering kids to change the world.
And so we believe kids ministry is a huge part of that.
And so within our kids ministry, we have three core values that we will always come back
to in our lessons, in our programming, in our small groups.
The first one is Bible.
Obviously, we want children to have a firm foundation in God's word, in truth.
And so you'll see those different elements all throughout our kids ministry that we're
doing verse memorization, that we're having the kids open their Bibles and read through
their Bibles together.
We're teaching them how to navigate their Bibles.
Where is the book of Acts?
Where is the book of Revelation?
Helping kids feel comfortable with navigating through their Bible and understanding its
implications to their life.
Application is so huge.
Kids can learn all of the Bible stories, but if they don't understand how the Bible applies
to their life, then it's pretty much void.
So we want to focus on these areas in our small groups.
So in our small groups, if you're ever looking for something to do, then pull out the memory
verse and talk about verse memorization.
Have them recite the verse together.
There are different games that we'll incorporate into our programming to help with that, but
that's always a go-to.
Reading the Bible, having kids open the Bible and read through different verses or different
passages, depending on their reading level, depending on their comfortability, and navigating
the Bible together.
Something you can always look back on is explaining how to navigate the Bible.
Every time we open the Bible, say Genesis is the first book of the Bible, Revelation
is the last book of the Bible, there's the Old Testament and the New Testament, and we'll
be working on different scripts to help you guys explain how to navigate the Bible.
But we want kids to understand the Bible.
They have to have a firm biblical foundation, which will affect their worldview.
How they view the world around them is so very important.
So that's rock number one.
Rock number two is relationship.
We want to create an atmosphere where children are able to connect and grow in their relationship
with God.
And we do that through many different ways.
One big one is through prayer.
As leaders, we should be modeling prayer to the group.
How do we pray?
Maybe we need to simplify it as a leader.
Maybe we have a lot of that church lingo.
We've grown up in the church, and we have a lot of those church phraseologies.
Maybe we need to simplify our prayers so that kids can understand how to pray.
It's just talking to God.
But prayer is something we always want to be a part of our small groups.
Whether you're opening in prayer, whether you're closing in prayer, you should be coaching
your children to pray.
Hey, Jimmy, can you open us in prayer?
Can you close us in prayer?
Can you pray for Jill's cat?
Whatever the situation may be, we want to be encouraging and cultivating prayer in our
small groups.
The second thing in terms of relationship, kids ministry in general, is worship.
We want to create an atmosphere for children to worship.
And this is a unique thing that we'll have a whole video on at one point.
But worship in the corporate sense is largely contributed to the church.
So as a small group leader, you should be modeling worship to your kids, to the kids
that you are discipling on a weekly basis.
And relationship also has to do with role modeling and friendship as the leader.
They say some Bible that anyone will read or something like that is you as a person.
You will be the only Bible that someone reads, is what people say.
And that's even true for Christian kids in the church context.
You are Christ to these kids.
How are you modeling?
Jesus, how are you modeling Christianity?
How are you modeling friendship to these kids?
How are you showing them that you care?
Are you modeling the love of Christ through your care
and through your intentionality
with the kids in your small group?
Your relationship with these kids
directly affects their perception of God himself.
And so it's very important for leaders
in that second big rock relationship
to be building relationship with your kids.
Then the last big rock is Holy Spirit.
It's helping students connect
to the resources of the Holy Spirit.
If we're going to create a generation of kids
who are bold, who are confident and are world changers,
then they don't just need a biblical foundation.
They also need to connect
to the resources of the Holy Spirit.
That is the boldness that we see in the book of Acts.
That is the signs and the wonders
that we see in the early church.
And we want kids to be connecting with God through that.
And so a big way that we can do that as small group leaders
is once again in modeling,
making sure that we're emphasizing the Holy Spirit
in our prayer to God.
When we're praying for those specific things,
God, give us boldness.
God, fill us with your Holy Spirit
so we can receive boldness.
When we're scared,
Lord, give us more of your Holy Spirit
so that we can be bold,
so that we can reach out to the people in need.
All of these different things.
And yeah, Holy Spirit really does pull to that modeling
and just how we're praying.
Something that we wanna emphasize to the kids
is that they have immeasurable resources
through the Holy Spirit.
If they're scared, if they're fearful,
if they don't have the right words to say,
if they don't know how to approach a conversation,
if they don't know how to stand up to the bully,
the Holy Spirit is the resource
that we should be pointing them to
for incredible power.
And so those are the three big things
that we will emphasize
through all of our children's ministry programming,
but specifically in small groups.
As a small group leader,
we wanna make sure that you are emphasizing Bible,
verse memorization, navigating the Bible,
understanding how it applies to their life,
relationships through prayer, worship,
and modeling of the leaders,
and Holy Spirit through helping students connect
to those resources, that power, that courage
through prayer and helping kids understand
that He is the one to reach out to.
So that's the end of video number one,
vision and strategy of kids ministry small groups.
We'll see you in the next video.