The Roller Coaster Effect

We care about impacting kids the best we can. For this reason we have developed something we call “the roller coaster effect”. We picture the energy of our kids on a scale of 1 to 10. (1 being least amount of energy and 10 being most amount of energy.) Our ministry to kids is measured on a different scale. This is pure physical energy that kids have. We’ve noticed—and I’m sure you have too—that when kids are wound up because of games, fun and excitement that they do not focus as much during the lesson. They’re thinking about all the fun they just had or just can’t sit still because of they rush.

We create our services with all this in mind. We start off wanting the kids to be around 5 on the energy scale and build up from there. We may do a fast-paced song, competition, etc. to get everyone going until they reach a 10 and then we slowly bring them down to a 1 where we teach the lesson. Brining them to a 1 requires some great transition sequences from our emcee’s, a video teaching and a slow song (or something similar. It changes from time to time) until we’ve captured their attention. We then give them the meat, pray and turn the energy knob up again so they leave between a 5 and 10.

Since we’ve implemented this, we’ve noticed kids paying attention more, moving around less and retaining the content of the lesson.

What say you?

Pj

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jsmith@churchleaders.com'
Justyn Smith is married to an amazing wife and is a father to five children. He is the children's pastor at South Hills Church in Corona, CA and has a passion to help other children’s pastors become great leaders in their local church and ministry. He consults, writes, and is a frequent conference speaker. Justyn is the host of Celera Kidmin (click http://www.celeragroup.org/network-coaching/kidmin.aspx for more info) and has recently been named one of "Children's Ministry Magazine's" Top 20 to Watch. Twitter: pastorjustyn Facebook: facebook.com/pastorjustyn