Youth & Children’s Ministry

Youth & Children’s Ministry equips churches, parents, and ministry leaders to disciple the next generation with biblical clarity and lasting care. Explore practical resources on teaching Scripture to kids and students, creating safe and welcoming environments, partnering with families, developing volunteers, and building ministries that form lifelong faith. You’ll find guidance for age-appropriate curriculum, small groups, outreach, worship, and mentoring—along with wisdom for navigating cultural pressures and supporting students through formative seasons. Whether you lead a children’s program, youth group, or family ministry, these articles help you serve young people in Jesus’ name.

January 12, 2011

Christian Standard

Making a Difference

By Joni Sullivan Baker Christmas decorations are down, second semester is underway, and snow is on the ground. It”s January. For those involved in children”s ministry that means only one thing””it”s time to start planning Vacation Bible School. Every summer, Standard Publishing puts its brand-new, unpublished VBS curriculum to the test by asking a local church to actually try it. Christ”s Church at Mason (Ohio) tested the new VBS last June. VBS 2011 is called “Inside Out & Upside Down on Main Street: Where Jesus Makes a Difference Every Day!” The children in the field test learned about five of

January 12, 2011

Christian Standard

VBS Changes Lives

We all have stories of VBS. We can remember the songs we have sung, the crafts we have made and even many of the Bible stories we learned each year, but do you remember the names of the volunteers who gave up their time to help you learn about Jesus and plant seeds that would blossom years later? Do you remember when you first heard about how Jesus loves us or how we can help others? Was it at VBS? Do you have some stories of how VBS affected you or someone you know? Check out www.vbschangeslives.com to read life

November 2, 2010

Christian Standard

Interview with Velvet Lozada

By Brad Dupray Standard Publishing has developed a simple book fair for churches, offering a new way for churches to interact with families and provide true-to-the-Bible resources for all ages. Velvet Lozada, a regional sales manager for Standard Publishing, helps churches arrange book fairs. Velvet joined Standard as a consultant in 1987 after serving as director of education in the local church setting. She and her husband, Gil, moved to New York in 1969 to work with Go Ye Chapel Mission (now the Orchard Group) and have attended South Nassau Christian Church since 1972. What is “Kids Reading for Lifeâ„¢“?

June 27, 2010

Christian Standard

Evangelize Unreached Teenagers? (It Can Be Dangerous)

By Rick Bundschuh Call me naive, call me ignorant, call me idealistic””but I honestly believed the church”s search committee members when they said one of the goals they had for the new middle school youth ministry position they were creating was to have evangelism take place among young people. Perhaps we were talking past each other and agreeing to very different things when they hired me for my first youth ministry job outside my home church. Perhaps they were envisioning a small trickle of smartly dressed honor students entering the kingdom of God and finding its way to the front

June 10, 2010

Christian Standard

The Hero HeadQuarters Field Test

By Joni Sullivan Baker Workers in lime green shirts scurry by carrying chairs, lariats for name badges, handfuls of markers, and pizza boxes. There”s a hum, a vibe, voices with some energy, maybe even nervous energy, laughing and talking. Early arriving boys whiz by and chase each other in the hallways. Equally early girls cluster and clog doorways, whispering loudly. The atmosphere is one part preparing for children”s church and one part backstage tension at five minutes to curtain. And then they start arriving. Parents holding the hands of little ones with big eyes who can”t decide what to look

May 9, 2010

Christian Standard

Generation to Generation: An Interview with Wayne Rice

By Joni Sullivan Baker “I think if you are working with teenagers, you have the most important job in the church.”””Wayne Rice, in a phone interview, March 2010 In the late 1960s, churches didn”t have youth ministers. The Christian Endeavor meetings for youth that some folks remember were pretty staid affairs, possibly highlighted by a rousing rendition of “Deep and Wide,” or some other camp chorus. Meanwhile, a youth culture was starting to emerge in a changing society experiencing the generation gap. Outside the church, organizations like Youth for Christ experimented with new ways of reaching teens through large events

January 20, 2010

Christian Standard

Don”t Let Us Forget

By Mark A. Taylor When I was a young parent, I cared a great deal about the children”s ministry at my church. Every week I asked my kids what they”d learned in their classes. I fretted over the issue of child care vs. Bible teaching for young children. I questioned whether lessons were appropriate for their ages. When I was a Christian education staff member at my church, I gave a great deal of attention to children”s ministry. I struggled to find enough workers, and the right workers. I labored over choices of curriculum. I tried to figure out how

January 17, 2010

Christian Standard

Fear Not . . . Volunteers Can Be Found!

By Linda Ahlgrim Worry is an insult to God! Even so, it”s easy for church leaders to experience panic and despair when they know ministry programs are doomed to failure without boatloads of committed volunteers. I understand. As director of children”s ministry for our church, I often found myself burdened with the responsibility of finding and training volunteers to serve with our ever-increasing numbers of children. And as everyone around me anticipated a summer filled with fun and travel, I faced my annual “season of despair” when volunteer after volunteer decided to take the summer off. I had to learn

January 10, 2010

Christian Standard

VBS Changes Lives

By Joni Sullivan Bakerr Read about “Hero HeadQuarters,” Standard Publishing’s all-new VBS program for 2010 You”d think they”d tire of cleaning cookie crumbs and glitter from every imaginable surface of their churches. Tire of the smell of small sweaty bodies and the stickiness of spilled juice. But anytime you get a handful of VBS warriors together to talk about what they do with VBS at their church, you start hearing stories. Seems like everyone”s got at least one. After listening to them for a while, sharing tender laughter and sometimes a surreptitious tear, you realize what it is about VBS

January 10, 2010

Christian Standard

Introducing Hero HeadQuarters: Standard Publishing’s 2010 Vacation Bible School

By Joni Sullivan Baker The boy with the five loaves and two fishes. Those shepherds abiding. An army officer asking for a servant to be healed. These are stories we know pretty well. But have you ever noticed something these stories have in common? We don”t know the names of any of these people. Their actions weren”t as heroic as David facing Goliath, but their obedience made a significant difference. And the story of their obedience has been passed down through millennia. They are heroes, but they are the approachable, “I-could-do-that” kind of heroes. And they are being celebrated in

January 10, 2010

Christian Standard

We Call It Kids Camp

By Dave Smith “I like you Mr. Dave.” I looked down at 6-year-old Max, son of Polish parents, and one of the children at Northshore Christian Church”s Kids” Camp, and replied, “I like you too, Max.” And after a week of shepherding some 15 second-graders, I decided I also liked kids” camp. Many of our new churches throughout the Northeast have a summer kid”s camp. In other places, we call them Vacation Bible Schools. This year I spent a week helping Northshore with its fifth kids” camp. Northshore Christian Church began in the fall of 2005 in Riverhead, New York,

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