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OT: Children's Ministry Curriculum What does your church use?
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Our children’s ministry is looking for new options for our Elementary program. We have been using Orange curriculum across the board for the last six years, but our pastors feel it is time for a change. Orange’s 252 Basics is virtue based and comes across as legalistic. We are looking for something that is Christ-centered, focusing on the redemptive narrative rather than isolated stories chosen because they somehow illustrate a virtue.
Options we are looking at are The Gospel Project for Kids, Bible Studies for Life Kids and Go! Curriculum from Mooblio.
Do any of you have experience with any of these curriculums? What does your church use to disciple kids and engage parents as their children’s primary spiritual leaders?
CEF (Child Evangelism Fellowship) is what we use for our Good News Club (not Sunday School). I really like it – it uses lots of people from the Bible to teach the gospel message – emphasizing teaching the children to accept Jesus as their savior. Some of the stories also are emphasizing growing in Christ.
The lessons are scripted, but you don’t have to use that if you don’t want to- you can tell the stories in your own words.
We use Great Commission publications though I teach the little kids class and basically make up my own 😉 It’s too workbooky for me though I suspect most of them are.
Alexandramnelms, do you serve in kids ministry? I was given some GP books to look at, but the pastor said they aren’t using them at this time because the videos and artwork are “too hoaky”, which was my fear based on the online samples. Could you tell me how large your Sunday morning ministry is and how your church uses it? Which ages to you use it for? Do you use the videos or a live story-teller? Do you order the digital or printed version? Do the older kids find the videos too silly? Do the activities seem too juvenile for the older kids?
We are currently using the virtue based Orange curriculum which is top of the line quality videos, resources, etc, but barely passing in terms of biblical content/discipleship. The thing is we need our volunteers onboard to make the change, and that means finding something that they can get behind. Our pastors are pushing for “workbooky”, one of them even left a stack of Biblical survey books on my desk for me to review as a possible curriculum for our grades 6-8s. It was a series that might be suitable for independent homeschool study (if you go for the fill in the blank, study and test type thing), but there was no leader guide, discussion questions, nothing to give a leader a clue what to do with it. Unfortunately, no matter how good the content, if it’s not presented in such a way that allows leaders and children to connect with the material it’s not going to be very effective.
Our Church Plant pastor who loaned me TGP books to review said they are still considering it for next year. This year they chose to go with What’s in the Bible from the creator of Veggie Tales. I learned a thing or two watching the online sample, but it’s geared to younger elementary…
My adult sons and teen daughter help with the Children’s ministry classes at our church, where they use Orange curriculum. I showed them this thread, and we discussed it.
They said that our church tweaks Orange, because it is Bible light often. They add more emphasis on the Bible stories as needed.
My kids said that some of the small group leaders don’t use the activities listed on the sheet in their groups, and that the activities are intended as something to do if your group discussion is stalled or there is extra time. The disciplining comes from the small group leaders, who are encouraged to be invested in the student’s lives as much as possible, as well as discuss the large group lesson in a style that is comfortable for the leader. Orange has a book called Lead Small to help train small group leaders. Many of our volunteers attend Orange Tour training events annually, which are held in many US cities. Maybe calling Orange and sharing concerns and asking questions would help. Orange doesn’t do everything well, but since our church leaders don’t have the time to write all of their own curricula, they tweak Orange.
Our advice is to steer clear of workbooks. Most children will be turned off by curriculum that looks and feels like more schoolwork to them.
Orange is K-5th grade, and we are going to ask and report back on what our church uses for 6-12th grades.
I understand if your church finds a better curriculum elsewhere, but I thought maybe this would help explain or help someone else; )
Hi Retrofam;
I really appreciate you weighing in. I would love to know more about how they tweak the curriculum. We currently do not have a youth pastor, or any paid staff member capable of putting the work into it necessary to tweak the material to the extend that it would need to be tweaked. I am already doing all the administrative work for our kids ministry as an extension of my position as the Pastoral Administrative Assistant, plus overseeing the elementary programming and doing what I can to support the women overseeing the middle school and high school groups and the youth group leader, all who are new to those roles. I can’t be rewriting 12-15 lessons per month when we’re already paying more than $2500 for just the elementary curriculum.
I have read Lead Small -love it, and Creating a Lead Small Culture – love it even more. Reggie Joiner is an incredible speaker who really inspires and motivates. I love listening to him. Orange is right on the money as far as their leadership training and small group discipleship plan goes. We have been trying to get our lead and associate pastor to see the impact that dedicated leaders can make on the faith of children for sometime, but as we still only have one service a week, they don’t want anyone serving anymore than 1/3 of the time so they can attend the service the other 2/3s, and they aren’t willing to consider a second service or other solutions, Currently our leaders serve one month on, two off. It could be so much more effective by adopting the Orange philosophy and empowering the small group leaders, but this is what we have to work with.
Our biggest problem isn’t that it’s light on Bible content — I can generally expand on the story without difficulty when I am leading a group — our problem is that the lessons start in the wrong place. They choose a virtue first, then say “where do we find a bible story to illustrate this”, rather than going to the Biblical text and saying “what is God showing us about Himself here and how should we respond”.
I have been thinking about this, and I think that it is similar to unit studies vs. Charlotte Mason. Unit studies (Orange) start with a virtue, and Charlotte Mason starts with a living story or book and uses narration. Unit studies have their place, but I can see how many prefer the Charlotte Mason like church curricula.
Comparing this to adult worship services, most of the time a sermon starts with a text as a base. Sometimes sermons are topical in many churches. I don’t think that is horrible, but it would be out of balance if they always did topical only.
Unlike homeschool curricula, there doesn’t appear to be very much church curricula to choose from.
My kids said that our children’s pastors rewrite the scripts for the large group time. They take turns hosting large group time, along with a few volunteers, so each one has their own style, but the children’s pastors are the ones who rewrite the scripts, etc.
Hope that helps.
Praying that a good solution is found.
4myboys, I find this thread interesting and I am praying for you. Our church uses Orange, as well. Up until January, I volunteered one Sunday a month in our K-5th class (up to 50 kids a week). The previous church we attended used Orange and I liked it for preschoolers there. When my daughter entered kindergarten, it just didn’t fit the way they set it up. Part of the issue there was the class and volunteer setup. We found out new church and really, our first church home almost 4 years ago. They have been using Orange the entire time. First and foremost, I concluded what mattered most was my husband and I’s spiritual growth. If we weren’t growing, who were we to model and teach out children? Then, I began volunteering in the classroom…partially to try to see how the curriculum for K-5th worked. My issue is the same as you stated:
“Our biggest problem isn’t that it’s light on Bible content — I can generally expand on the story without difficulty when I am leading a group — our problem is that the lessons start in the wrong place. They choose a virtue first, then say “where do we find a bible story to illustrate this”, rather than going to the Biblical text and saying “what is God showing us about Himself here and how should we respond”.”
Just a few months ago, I had an Ah-ha moment with the curriculum though. The core values ARE being instilled in my children. Now that my daughter is 9 and has been in the same classroom for 4 years, she also gets the Bible stories. I still wish it was reversed but I realize the motive of Orange. . . for the kids to have those repetitive Life App mottos become second nature to them – based on Biblical stories. For example, “I will treat others as I want to be treated.” Just the last couple of months, I see my daughter connecting the Biblical reasoning behind it versus the nice thing to do.
Please do come back and share what you find and decide on. Personally, this decision is not up to me in my church but I’m not afraid to give input. I’m going to check out the Gospel Project. And I have to say, the leaders make all the difference in our church versus previous experience. They do tweak discussions based on what is going on in the kids lives and they have worship time and more.
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