Last year, I blogged about special needs ministry for children with autism. It has become a forum of discussion for parents and children’s ministers to discuss the challenges of church for children with autism.

I stressed the importance of developing a unique approach and relationship with each child. I highlighted research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison that discovered, “autistic children shy from eye contact because they perceive even the most familiar face as an uncomfortable threat.” But the greatest insight comes from the answers to my question:

What advice do you have for ministering to special needs children?

Here is a summary of the insights.

WHAT WORKS

• Buddy System - children with special needs are paired with trained adults to assist them at whatever level is needed. Experienced volunteers trained by child psychologists and educators are a plus. (Example: Joy Zone)
• Childcare Nights (respite care) - childcare for children with special needs and their siblings so the parent(s) can relax. On-site doctors, nurses, and OT/PT’s is a plus. (Example: Revive)
• Community Outreach - go beyond the church walls and minister in the community because some parents will not attend church because they believe their child with special needs will disturb others or cannot be entrusted to others.
• Dual Classrooms - sometimes children with special needs participate in the same class as their age group, and other times the children with special needs are in a quiet room especially designed for them as not to be overwhelming or too stimulating.
• Separate Classroom - children with special needs are separated from the standard children’s classrooms but their parents and siblings are welcomed.
• Zachariah’s Way - trains churches how to better minister to people with special needs and their families.
• Prayer

TIPS

• Labeling their Identity - Do not refer to people by their disability. Say “children with autism” rather than “autistic children” because it can subtly change one’s perception of a child with autism.
• Every Child is Different - Determine how to reach each child. Children with autism don’t like too much stimulation. But children with other disabilities may thrive on it.
• Give Expectations - many children with special needs behave better when they know what is expected of them.
• Be Visual - Include inanimate objects need to be included in lessons. Things like puppets, pictures, and videos take the focus off the teacher and engages the child without intimidating him.
• Use Music - children with autism love music.
• More than Chairs - children with autism do not like to sit for long periods of time.
• Keep It Small - children with autism like small environments
• Ask & Research - do not tell the parent what you think. Ask the parents about the child then do some research.
• Don’t gossip.
• Love the child.

WHY IT MATTERS (stories from parents)

• I have a stepson who is autistic, and I tried to take him to church, I really miss going to church. My problem is I spent more time in the child’s room than I spent at church because the people who teach there are simply not educated in the needs of an autistic student. I have been looking into getting a tss or a pca to come and help during church but to no avail. It would be wonderful if more people truly understood instead of staring and whispering. (Stacy)
• I have a 20 year old son with Asperger Syndrome who loves the Lord deeply. Sadly the church environment has been the one place he has never been welcomed or encouraged to return. The secular world has been far kinder to him. Though he desperately wants friends and fellowship, the lack of encouragement within the church body has caused him to retreat further into his own world. He now refuses to try again. (Rhiannon)
• I have been very grateful for a Special Needs Sunday School class that was started. I feel comfortable with leaving him there and I am at least getting to hear a sermon once a week! (Sheryl)

For Discussion:
- What advice do you have for ministering to children with special needs?

Keep the insights coming!

Environmental design for churches has changed drastically over the last two decades (at least on the fringes). It has become much more than church interior design. It has evolved into creating entire worlds and environments.

For example, when Cornerstone Harvest Church (Lima, OH) recently revamped their Heir Force youth ministry, they hired Little Mountain Productions to develop the environmental design. The result was a youth ministry design that featured a lifesize M-1 Abrams tank and 40 foot wing span plane coming out of the walls.

To complement these installations, Little Mountain Productions also added acoustic panel military graphics to the room.

In case you are wondering how they did it, here are some production shots.

OooRah!

The University of Texas School of Public Health recently discovered that middle school sex happens more often than most think. According to their study:

• 1/3 of students experienced precoital touching behaviors
  >> 43% of these students experienced sexual intercourse
• 12% of students experienced vaginal sex by age 12
• 7.9% of students experienced oral sex by age 12
• 6.5% of students experienced anal sex by age 12
• 4% of students experienced all three types of sex by age 12

Among sexually active middle school students:

• 1/3 experienced vaginal or anal sex without a condom within the past three months
• 1/4 had four or more partners

Obviously, this trend is alarming morally. But researcher Christine Markham also states:

These findings are alarming because youth who start having sex before age 14 are much more likely to have multiple lifetime sexual partners, use alcohol or drugs before sex and have unprotected sex, all of which puts them at greater risk for getting a sexually transmitted disease or becoming pregnant.

I think middle school ministry is usually too soft. It is a difficult age to teach because some students are still years away from puberty while others are already beginning to experiment with sex, drugs, alcohol, and porn. Children’s ministers don’t like to touch taboo topics, but when 1 in 3 students are feeling each other up, how can they afford not to?

It takes tact, grace, and wisdom to discuss these things with students without offending or embarrassing them or their parents. It is challenging but worth it. It is much easier for a middle school minister to teach a preventive message than it is for a high school minister to rewire students’ established bad habits.

For Discussion:
- At what age does your church begin approaching tough topics?
- What do you think is the best way to teach tough topics to young students?

Generation Z is everyone between 2001 to 2021. They are who your children’s ministry will strive to reach for the next two decades.

While it is difficult to forecast how Generation Z will evolve, I think we have enough data to predict that these children will have their innocence robbed at earlier ages and engage in sexual activities earlier and more often than previous generations.

THE POWER OF LYRICS
The University of Pittsburgh surveyed ninth-grade students and discovered:

Exposure to lyrics describing degrading sex was one of the strongest associations with sexual activity.

Compared to those with the least exposure to lyrics describing degrading sex, those with the most exposure were more than twice as likely to have had sexual intercourse. Similarly, among those who had not had sexual intercourse, those in the highest third of exposure to lyrics describing degrading sex were nearly twice as likely to have progressed along a noncoital sexual continuum compared to those in the lowest third.

GENERATION Y STATS
Currently, the United States has 750,000 teenage pregnancies each year.
One in four (25%) U.S. teen girls have sexually transmitted infections.

GENERATION Z TODAY
Obviously, pop lyrics have digressed from the days of the Beatles (i.e., “I wanna hold your hand.”) to the era of Beyonce (i.e., “I know you want my body. Tonight I’ll be your naughty girl”).

Many of today’s Generation Z kids already listen to mainstream pop music. In fact, 44% of UK parents sing their babies pop songs and TV theme tunes rather than nursery rhymes. And if they do not listen to provocative pop music yet, media conglomerates will package it to them and tell them to listen.

Look at the some of music nominees for Nickelodeon’s 2009 Kids’ Choice Awards:

• Beyonce
  “Now take it off while I watch you perform.” (Suga Mama)
• Chris Brown
  “Let’s get and make love on Venus.” (Gimme Whatcha Got)
• Alicia Keys
  “So maybe we can go to first base because I feel you.” (Teenage Love Affair)
• Jesse McCartney
  “Spend the night with me and I’ll rock you.” (Rock You)
• Katy Perry
  “I kissed a girl just to try it. I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it.” (I Kissed a Girl)
• Pussycat Dolls
  “I can get off when you ain’t around.” (I Don’t Need a Man)
• Rihanna
  “What you got up in them jeans? Put it on me, or get lonely.” (Lemme Get That)
• Kid Rock
  “that little p**** l***** finger f***** h* a** c***.” (F*** U Blind)
• T-Pain
  “She was s***** on me. And I was l***** on her.” (69)

Considering a large part of Nickelodeon’s audience is Generation Z, the future looks rough for these kids, particularly those who are already listening to Kid Rock, T-Pain, the Pussycat Dolls, and Katy Perry.

For Discussion:
- Where do you see hope for Generation Z?
- How can ministries best help Generation Z from becoming the probable statistics of teen pregnancies and STDs?

In children’s ministry, teaching good spiritual truths is the essential foundation. It is the basics. So if your children’s ministry already has the basics covered, here are four areas of children’s ministry excellence that will make you more effective and efficient.

#1 - KNOW (Rules, Culture, & Science)
You need to know your church’s rules for children’s ministry. In other words, you need to know the policies, procedures, and what is expected of you. And of course, you should follow the rules, too. Examples:

• Your church may have a policy for no food in the classroom other than a preapproved snack. Disregarding that policy may evolve into a situation where a child with allergies eats some food he finds and must be rushed to the hospital.
• Your church may require all volunteers to wear official uniforms and identification badges. Disregarding that policy may make the ministry seem less professional or secure to some parents. And regularly disregarding it, may create a security vulnerability that entices a child predator (rare but it has happened).

You should also know the cultures of the kids you are responsible for teaching. You should not only know where the cultures are now, but you should know how the cultures are evolving. Discover the answers to these questions:

• What TV shows, music, and family traditions drive the kids I teach?
• How do these influences change how these kids behave and think?

And know the science behind how kids learn. It does not matter whether you take care of babies or teach middle school students, there are things you can learn to help you better reach them. Examples:

• Nursery workers can become better by studying things like the Dunstan Baby Language, the 5 S’s, Baby Signs, or the latest research studies on educating babies. Read more>>
• Boys interpret the world as objects moving through space. Therefore, a teacher of all boys should move around the room constantly and be that object. But girls work well in circles, facing each other. Using descriptive phrases and lots of color in overhead presentations or on the chalkboard gets girls’ attention. Read more>>

#2 - IMPROVE (Yourself & the Ministry)
All you need to do to improve yourself is push yourself to do a better job than the week before. Always be looking for ways to improve what you do. This month should be better than last month. And this year should be better than last year.

It is also important that you work to improve the children’s ministry as a whole. Create a system for feedback and be sure everyone uses it. The volunteers in the trenches are the ones who best know what is needed, what works, and what does not work.

#3 - DUPLICATE (Yourself)
Imagine if God suddenly called you to a different role in ministry, would there be a replacement that could instantly do the same job as well or better than you?

If you are a leader, you need to always be “working yourself out of a job” by teaching those you lead how to do what you do. You are duplicating yourself but not cloning yourself. Others need to be able to achieve the same results or better but through their own God-given mix of talents and strengths. Read more>>

#4 - STICKINESS (Lessons & Relationships)
A study by the United States Air Force discovered that we forget 95% of what we hear within 72 hours. So how do we get our lessons to stick?

I believe that as long as you have the basics covered and are teaching quality spiritual truths, adding some “wow” factor to your ministry significantly helps a lesson to stick. Without quality teaching, you are wowing for the sake of “wow,” which is superficial and often fleeting.

I still remember spiritual lessons from my childhood that were taught with the “wow” of throwing darts, flash paper, and great storytelling. You can wow kids by delivering an incredibly creative, engaging, multi-sensory lesson. The goal is to make the lesson stick and be memorable so that when the child is older and needing the lesson, they can be equipped with that spiritual truth

Making your children’s ministry “sticky” does not have to have all the “whiz,” “bang,” and gadgets. One of the greatest opportunities that children’s ministries have is to wow their kids relationally. Even some preschoolers are already hurting from broken families or a lack of love. Go the extra mile to make your kids feel loved. At the very least, when they are teenagers or in college, they think fondly about church and say, “Wow, they really loved me!”

For Discussion:
- What tips or areas of focus would you add to this list?

If you want to teach kids, you should understand more than how to reach their culture now. You should understand how your presentation will affect their culture in the future.

This applies to teaching any demographic and any culture, but it is particularly important for younger ages since it is assumed their brains have more plasticity.

How you choose to teach someone will influence their future at least in a very, very small way. Research repeatedly shows how easily molded our minds and behavior are to our environment and experiences.

Think of each interaction as a small drop in a bucket. A few interactions may not make a noticeable or measurable difference in someone’s future. But if you have the opportunity to teach someone week after week, those small drops will add up into gallons of influence.

For example…

In my early years of children’s ministry, I had the opportunity to be a part of an incredibly creative and highly talented team of staff and volunteers. We knew how to make a lesson stick.

From ages 2 and up, the curriculum had us teach the importance of giving offerings and tithes. In hindsight, we needed more balance to our approach. All too often, the lesson would revolve around the sowing and reaping angle (limitless object lessons), and we needed to focus more on giving just because we love God and because we want to help people. In hindsight, we needed to focus more on selfless giving just to counterbalance the negative effects of consumerism in our culture.

Here’s what happened…

For 7 years, I taught five-year-olds. And for 5 years, I taught middle school students. I taught some of my 5th, 6th, and 7th graders when they were five-years-old, so I got to see how they had grown spiritually through their elementary school years. I was proud to see how well they knew the Bible, but I was saddened to see how many of them had become superficial and consumeristic. It was not uncommon to get prayer requests for a PlayStation3 or a PSP.

So what’s to blame?

Unquestionably, tween culture is growing increasingly consumeristic. I was amazed at the cultural evolution that I watched happen during my five years of teaching middle school students. But now at a different church, I still teach 5th graders, and I do not get any prayer requests for video game systems or shopping sprees. Perhaps, socioeconomic differences are a factor.

But I blame myself. I could have had more balance in my teaching. I did not foresee how my weekly teaching could shape my five-year-olds’ future culture. Sure, they had other teachers, and I was not the only cause. But I do think I was a factor.

CONCLUSION

A good teaching can become a bad thing if not balanced. Be self-aware of the big picture message that your ministry is communicating. And ask yourself, “Do I need balance? Is there anything missing from my big picture message?”

According to NDP Group, kids are increasingly using digital media to acquire information. While this is not surprising, the growth rate statistics are fascinating.

Among kids ages 2 to 14 in 2008:

• 92% use a computer (down from 94% in 07)
• 85% play video games (up from 80% in 07)
  >> 82% of kids ages 2 to 5 play video games (up from 79% in 07)
  >> 57% of girls play video games (up from 50% in 06)
  >> 30% of kids ages 6 to 9 own a portable video game device
• 60%  use portable digital music devices (up from 51% in 07)
  >> 20% of kids ages 6 to 9 own a digital music device
• 51% use a cellphone (up from 49% in 07)
  >> 30% of kids ages 6 to 9 own a cellphone
• 22% download ringtones
• 22% watched TV digitally on a computer, cellphone, gaming device, or music device (up from 17% in 07)

Three trends that particularly stand out to me are:

1. Video Game Momentum
   It has been a long time since Atari, Mario, and Duck Hunt, so I am surprised to see video game usage among kids still growing at such a startling of 80% in 2007 to 85% in 2008. It seems hard to imagine kid culture being more fixated on video games, but clearly the love for gaming will only grow stronger.
2. Diaper Gamers
   Four out of every five 2 to 5-year-olds play video games. Think about that. Some still struggle with pooping their pants or wetting the bed, yet they are learning how to master gaming. While playing video games at such a young age does not completely rewire a kid’s ability to enjoy childlike things, I do believe early gaming makes kids pickier and raises their level of expectations for entertainment.
3. Instant Gratification
   Unless you are 8 years old, it is difficult to imagine growing up in a world where you can often instantly watch your favorite show, listen to your favorite song, call your best friend, look up an answer, or play a game. While these conveniences are wonderful, they also eliminate many opportunities to learn patience and self-discipline.

   Because these conveniences change kid culture, it is important that children’s ministers and parents both emphasize the importance of good character and provide kids with opportunities to develop their character.

For Discussion:
- What do you think of these statistics?
- How do you see digital media changing kid culture?
- What methods work for reaching kid culture?

[via Advertising Age]

QUESTION:
What are parents looking for when they visit a church?

My friend says in the past parents were concerned about what a church had to offer their kids and would sacrifice their own interests. He also says today parents are more interested in satisfying their needs.

I don’t know that I agree with this. I see a majority of parents today, more than before, that sacrifice to make sure their kids are taken care of. I think it was true in the past but even truer today.
- James

ANSWER:
There is no black and white answer because there is no universal style of parenting.

Parenting styles vary by culture (i.e., age, race, religion, income, location, education, career, etc.) as well as each parent’s unique personality. It is the infusion of these variables that influence and usually determine each parent’s priorities.

NOT A PRIORITY SHIFT BUT AN INCREASE OF EXPECTATIONS

I believe a greater percentage of parents are looking to find a church that meets both their needs and their kids needs.

I do not think there has been a priority shift. Rather, I believe that parents have increased their expectations.

As technology advances, we become accustomed to having more options and customization, which consequently, causes us to have more expectations. Two centuries ago, parents were likely content to have a church to attend and thrilled if it was the “right” denomination. Obviously, parents have more expectations today.

Parents choosing a church is similar to buying a house. A home buyer may be looking for a home with walk-in closets and a two-car garage, but they may choose a home that is neither because they fall in love with the kitchen.

Some parents want a church that has a great children’s ministry, but they may choose a church because of the congregation’s friendliness or the pastor’s preaching. And other parents may want a church with great small groups, but they may choose a church because the children’s ministry loves their kids and teaches them valuable lessons.

SO WHAT DO PARENTS WANT?

Each parent has their own mix of “wants,” but here is a list of things that every parent seems to like:

• A children’s ministry that makes their kids feel loved.
• A children’s ministry and church with good security.
• A children’s ministry that effectively teaches their kids valuable lessons.
• A children’s ministry that is fun and “wows” their kids.
• A friendly church.
• A church with good preaching.
• A church with good worship.
• A church that makes it easy to make friends.
• A church that offers opportunities to get involved.

For Discussion:
- What do you think parents want in a church?

If you have a question you want Church Relevance to answer, submit it via our Q+A form.