Get Started With the Program
1. First things first. Pray about whether this is the program that God wants you to use. This program is user-friendly, but it requires substantial effort and commitment. However, the rewards are great–both now and in the future. If you feel the Holy Spirit leading you to use KidzLife, take some time to become familiar with all the components. Decide which age groups you will accommodate. You may need to cast the vision to church leadership and children’s workers.
2. Select your team. The program will run smoothly if you have prayerfully chosen the right people. The leadership team should be engaged, called, passionate, positive and relationship-oriented. Don’t feel obligated to just take anyone. Pray and search diligently for the right people. A bad hire costs a company thousands of dollars. A bad KidzLife volunteer is much worse in that it costs the spiritual nurturing of a child. Avoid high-maintenance people or people that you have to compensate for over and over (always late, don’t call when they’re out, aren’t prepared, etc.) Having the right people makes the workload light–and fun!
3. Order teaching materials for each age group.
KingdomKidz (Kindergarten through 5th grade): You will need a Teaching Packet consisting of 25 large group lessons with power points and 25 small group discussion guides for each age group (K-2nd and 3rd-5th). We have three years of curriculum. We suggest that you go in the following order:
- Keys to God's Kingdom (Sermon on the Mount)
- Adventures in Acts (Acts)
- Kids Like the King (Psalms and Proverbs)
On your fourth year, you can start over with Sermon on the Mount. Young kids will have changed age brackets and will be working in the next, more in-depth journal series. Read more about this philosophy here.
BigKidz (3 and 4 year olds): You will need a Teaching Packet, consisting of 25 large group lessons with power points, 25 puppet shows, and 25 crafts. We have two years of curriculum, which you will alternate.
Kiddoz (2 year olds): You will need a Teaching Packet consisting of 25 large groups lessons and crafts. We have one year of curriculum.
4. Develop your calendar for the year. Decide your start date, end date, and holidays. Keep school holidays in mind when planning. Theme nights, such as pajama night, crazy hair night, crazy sock night, are a favorite for kids. These are left up to each individual church. Be creative! It's fun and effective to have themes that somehow correlate to the lesson title–for example, Neon Night for the Bright People lesson.
5. Set your evening schedule according to the needs of your kids and the capability of your facility. Allow for welcome and announcements (5 minutes), large group lesson (25 minutes), small group time (30 minutes), and worship (10-15 minutes). If time allows, kids love game time (15-30 minutes). Some churches insert a missions component for an additional 30 minutes. We are available to help coach one of your team members to create a missions component specific to your church. Any order of these components is fine, but large group time should come before small group time.
6. Train your volunteers. Set aside a specific time to train all of your workers one or two weeks prior to your start date. Lay out the vision for the year, as well as give your workers specific, detailed information about how to do their job well. You may want to have breakout sessions for each position. For training your small group leaders, use the actual first night’s small group lesson to demonstrate how a small group should go. Each leader should leave with a printed calendar, schedule, name tag, t-shirt, leader guide, and church-specific training manual (if applicable). For help training your team, we offer a very affordable training video series.
*Please protect your children and your church: Every person working with children should undergo a criminal background check. We suggest that no one be allowed to purchase a KidzLife leader shirt before the background check is completed.
7. Hold registration two to three weeks before the first night of KidzLife. Decide ahead of time whether you will allow parents to choose which group their child will be in, or if you will assign the groups. There are different schools of thought, but generally, it works well for parents to choose which leader and friends they want to be with. During registration, parents will order t-shirts, journals, and accessories for their child(ren) if you choose to use them for your program. It's a great idea to have samples for parents to se and feel.
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