Making Your Children's Ministry the Best Hour of Every Kid's Week

by Sue Miller, David Staal

Promiseland is Willow Creek’s highly successful children’s ministry. Using examples from Promiseland and churches of all sizes around the country, this book provides step by step guidance and creative application exercises to help churches develop a thriving children’s ministry—one that strives to be the best hour of every kid’s week. Included are Scripture-based principles and practical resources for church staff members and volunteers who agree with the critical role children’s ministry plays in a local church. Making Your Children’s Ministry the Best Hour of Every Kid’s Week, based on twenty-eight years of experience at Willow Creek, explains four ministry foundations: Mission, Vision, Values, and Strategy. Content includes: Detailed answers to questions facing every children’s ministry: • What does Jesus expect from children’s ministry? • How can we evangelize lost kids and disciple saved kids at the same time, and should we? • How do we engage kids so they don’t become bored? • How do we get better at recruiting and leading volunteers? • How can our ministry be a safe place for children? • Six specific ministry values that address the needs of today’s children • Practical first steps for ministries that want to get serious about change • Clear indicators of success in children’s ministry

Genres: Nonfiction, Religion

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Sue Miller is a teacher, leader, speaker, and author with a passion for bringing out the best in volunteers. She mentors leaders, inspires volunteers, and consults with churches.

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Heather Gmiterek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was good. It had a solid foundation to build on and a lot of good reminders. It was more of a chronicling of the events then a how to... which isn’t a bad thing, hearing the ways God showed up for them was faith building but I expected more of a how to book.

[Elissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely learned a lot.

[Brittany Trodick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific!

[Tich Chiham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very strong emphasis on getting children to have that moment where accept Jesus, but in general a good, encouraging book about setting a vision/values/strategy for your children's ministry, recruiting volunteers, and taking care of both yourself and the volunteers (emphasis on spiritual gifts).

I do think she uses sort of a straw man for comparisons against Promiseland (their SS curriculum), though. She talks about no one liking to sit there in SS and do a workbook. In my years as a kid in Sunday School and more than a decade teaching children's Sunday School, I've never seen a workbook-focused Sunday School class.

She does emphasize small groups and really relating to the kids and also how important consistency is in the ministry.

She doesn't really have anything to say about churches with small children's departments, other than make it more interesting and they'll bring their friends (not much help for those in low population areas). Nothing for starting a children's ministry from scratch, either, or what to do if your small groups and large group are the same group.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good, practical ideas for how to vision/strategize improvements to your Sunday School program. Based on mega-church Willow Creek in the Chicago area, you could feel overwhelmed with all they accomplish because of their size, but still some good ideas for visioning for any size church. Also, not as much conservative, evangelical religion as I feared when I saw where it came from.

[Daniel Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Building a ministry

I recommend this book to anyone who is new to children's ministry or looking for some inspiration. It will put the desire back in your heart to lead the children into the world of tomorrow.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few good ideas on organization and method.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent for anyone who is interested in children's ministry.

[April Queen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good resource for those looking to boost their children's ministry. Even though this is based off of a mega-church with an hour long children's church service, many ideas were still relevant for my small church with a children's service of half that time.