Kids Ministry

Kids have the heart of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is Family. Let’s face it–kids are amazing and have the best hearts. They are the most honest, resilient people we get to know and understand; that’s mainly because we used to live it!

At Rancho De Sus Ninos (or The Mission), the main, most important ministry we give our hearts to is anything having to do with the kids. The Mission originally started out as just an orphanage, but it has grown so much in the past three decades. Not only is it an orphanage, but it’s turned into a School of Missions (which I attend), a church on two campuses and a school for grades kindergarten to high school.

One of our main ministries that we have at Rancho is, of course, Kids’ Ministry! This is for all of the kids that attend our school–mainly the younger ones. From Tuesday to Thursday we hold a class for the younger grades and talk about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, as well as what they have done in the Bible. As students of the School of Missions, our responsibility is to not only teach the kids, but also interact with them. They love to play games, sing songs, dance, do crafts, and so much more!

The last time I was a part of children’s ministry was so much fun. I taught a second grade class, with my friend Mafer who helped translate for me, and they kids were always excited and ready to have fun. We told stories about the Bible. Not only that, but we held competitions for the kids and played games with them. They always wanted to compete.

At the end of the month (which is the last couple days of our ministries) we gave out prizes, sang songs and created new games. It’s always fun to see how all of the kids love to be around each other. At the same time, however, it can be a challenge.

I’ll admit it–I’m a child at heart. It’s just a part of me. However, sometimes I have no idea how to interact with kids, especially when they were on the move. Sometimes it seemed like they were five steps ahead of me. But I found out quickly they just love to have fun. So we create fun.

Another special part of this ministry is–typically on the last day of the ministry–we have a special devotionals for the kids. This is what I mean. About four days a week, the Mission as a whole holds devotionals for an hour, which means a half-hour worship and a half-hour message every day. The kids normally leave before the message because the devos can be very complicated or not on the subject that kids are always eager to hear about. 

However, with the kids’ devotional we make it all about the kids. We bring the kids to the front of the stage, and during worship we dance, throw balloons around, and even get the kids to sing in the microphone. Everyone who is part of this ministry jumps on stage to teach the kids the dance.

After worship we play games with the kids on the stage. A few select kids jump on stage to play in competitions, and it’s typically boys vs girls. It’s always fun! Then after the games we perform a skit–based on the theme of what the devotionals is typically about. We have had one about dreams, about who our Superhero is (God, obviously), building your dreams, love languages–the works!

With these themes of skits, we have an overlying theme of something kids will enjoy. We had a superhero theme, which was a ton of fun. We all got to wear capes and masks, and sing about Jesus being our superhero. We have also had an Inside Out theme, so people dressed in different colors and pretended they were the feelings from the movie.

My personal favorite, however, is the LEGO theme we had. If you have been following my stuff on Facebook lately, you may have seen pictures like this.

We literally built a LEGO man and LEGO bricks for our set. For our “skit” we had a LEGO video and described the story of Joseph. It was really an amazing experience. All of my friends and I had so much fun with it. I will be honest, though, it took a lot of work to build everything and get the dances together. Even our outfits and masks took a lot longer than I had hoped for. But everything put together was amazing!

But, yes, this is an amazing experience. I have learned so much about loving on kids through this. Not only that, but I’ve been very thankful to have a great team to work with that teaches me about God and His love for His children every day. Plus if for whatever reason I am on kids’ ministry anywhere again, I know how to do it. Kids’ ministry teaches you how to think and improvise on the spot. Let’s face it–kids can be unpredictable. But it’s great!