I am all for kids being grounded in the word. I regularly go over catechism questions with my kids because I want them to have a theological framework born out of a biblical world view. But I also believe church should be fun. In kids and family ministry we generally fall into one of two categories biblically driven of fun fanatics. We have to continually fight to be what we are not. Fun is important because fun creates memories fun creates the containers that hold truth for a lifetime.
Here are a few things we are going to try to make things fun in Uptown.
1. Candy Crush – for the fist 15 min of the service we are going to have leaders in the hall handing out candy to kids as they enter.
2. Wishing well – When I was a kid I loved going to Perkins for breakfast with my parents because they had a wishing well that had small prizes in it. The highlight of the trip for me was pulling out some cheap toy I thought was the best because it was held in a small wood wishing well. We are going to create a wishing well for visitors and kids for their birthdays. Kids today may not find that awesome but it won’t cost much to make and it’s worth a try.
3. Themed days – Our kids pastor did a Star Wars part for our moving up day and it was a huge hit and it didn’t cost us much of anything to pull off and the parents did most of the work. Bonus! We are going to do a themed weekend once a month. October will be crazy hair day January will be Toy Story day. It’s a great day for kids to act like kids and for them to see their leaders act like kids. What is more exciting than that.
I would love to hear what you do!