What’s the first step to creating a service for your kids ministry? Most people might start by looking at teaching, activities, or crafts. Some might even sort through their volunteers and see who’s available to help. But if your kids ministry holds multiple services each week, you have a whole different set of questions.
You’ll need ideas for how to stretch activities across multiple services. You’re probably looking for ideas to maximize your teaching without spending twice as much money. You might prefer continuity between your services than creating entirely new programs twice a week. So, if you’ve ever wondered if Grow Kids Curriculum can be used across multiple children’s ministry services, then we’ve got great news. Yes! You can!
There are many ways to coordinate two children’s ministry programs each week, and what we’re suggesting isn’t the only option for using Grow Curriculum multiple times. These ideas might spark inspiration for you to create a strategy that suits your ministry style better. (If you’re looking for similar strategies for Grow Students, check out this article!) By the end of this article, you’ll have a great idea of some of the ways you can creatively use Grow Kids during two services, but if you still feel like you need help developing a plan for your ministry, schedule a call with one of our incredible Grow Strategists. They’d love to give you a hand with adapting Grow Kids Curriculum to your ministry.
Before we jump into the ways you can use Grow Kids Curriculum in two services, you’ll want to think about the structure of your services. What do both of your programs look like? Is one a high-energy event while the other is more relaxed? What about worship? And, most importantly, which program has more (or the most available) volunteers?
For some of these, your answer might be “both,” and that’s okay! The point of these questions isn’t to make you feel sweaty about what you’re doing in your children’s ministry. Each of your answers to these questions helps you think through the ways you can start to approach using Grow Kids.
If you know your mid-week program is low on volunteers, you probably won’t want to be crafting with kids. If there’s one day where you know your kids are wild and full of energy, keeping them in small groups might be difficult (if not totally impossible.) The more you know about how your programs feel and function, the more effective your strategy can be.
Are you ready to get into it? Let’s go!
STRATEGY #1: DIVIDE EVENLY
If you’ve been using Grow Kids for any amount of time, you’ve probably grown familiar with our structure. We think every great message communicates three different ideas: What? So What?, and Now What? Inside each of these sections, we use 13 different modules to help you communicate the Big Idea and Bible story to your kids.
One of the ways you can use Grow Kids Curriculum across multiple services is to divide it up evenly (or as evenly as you want!) Here’s what that could look like across two services…
PROGRAM 1
- Choose one activity from the What? section.
- Worship with two or three songs.
- Use the Big Idea Reveal from the So What? section.
- Teach the Memory Verse using the included video.
- Teach the Bible story from the So What section by telling it live or showing a video.
- Choose two or three activities from the Now What? section.
- Use half of the discussion questions for small groups.
- Snack time!
- Review the memory verse with your kids.
PROGRAM 2
- Choose one or two activities from the What? section.
- Worship with two or three songs.
- Review the Big Idea for the week.
- Review the Memory Verse using the included video.
- Review the Bible Story by telling it live or showing a video.
- Use one or two activities from the Now What? section.
- Use the other half of the discussion questions for small groups.
- Snack time!
- Color the included coloring page.
STRATEGY #2: DIVIDE ACCORDING TO STRUCTURE
Remember how we started by talking about your program’s structure? One of the best ways to divide Grow Kids Curriculum is to develop a plan of action around your structure. As you browse through each week of the curriculum, you might notice some activities that work best in an environment with high energy, multiple volunteers, or in front of a larger group. On the other hand, some of your responses and activities might work better in a quieter, more reflection-oriented environment.
We’ve designed our curriculum to be easily adaptable to your needs. If you know a high-energy activity would work better during one program than the other, then you can move it! And if you’ve got a contemplative group of kids who want to go deeper, you might even skip the activity altogether. By dividing your curriculum according to your structure, you get to create a unique environment that emphasizes your program’s strength each week.
So, really, the layout of your program might look exactly like the example above. It’s just that the types of activities, songs, and stories you tell will play to the strengths of your structure, kids, and volunteers!
STRATEGY #3: DIVIDE BY SECTION
Do you remember the three questions each week of Grow Kids answers? They’re What?, So What?, and Now What? So, if you’re looking for a simple way to stretch Grow Kids Curriculum across your services, you could simply break the teaching content up by these sections!
This could look like creating a program that includes the What? and So What? sections. This gives you all sorts of activities, stories, and the main Bible teaching for your program. You can also include the craft during this program to help round out your time. Then, during your second program, you could focus on the secondary passage of Scripture and the Now What section, which includes reflection and response activities as well as discussion questions.
These are just a few of the ways you can use Grow Kids Curriculum across different programs, but there are so many other options, too! Experiment with your structure, ask your volunteers for their input or work your way through these strategies to find one that suits you and your ministry.
Just know we’re here to help! If you have questions about how to use Grow Kids Curriculum across your programs, then set up a call with one of our awesome Grow Strategists. They want to answer your questions and help you find the rhythm and approach that works best for your program! And, if you’ve never used Grow Kids Curriculum before, then try Grow for free!
So, whether you use one of these strategies or you’ve been inspired to create your own, we hope it helps you serve kids and point them toward Jesus!
In this post, here’s what we’ll cover: