Welcome to Children of Promise

Here at Harvest Christian Center, we call our Sunday morning program for children ages 5 - 5th grade "Children of Promise". We usually have between 30 and 40 children present with a team of 5 - 7 adults.

Our mission statement: Children of Promise is a Sunday morning program designed to build Christ-centered relationships with children, ages five through twelve. We strive to teach the relevance of God's Word in a fun, safe, child centered environment.

"Kid's go where there is excitement. They stay where there is love." - Zig Ziglar

We model our program after Promiseland, a ministry of Willow Creek Church near Chicago, Illinois. Our ministry needs to be appealing to the children and set up in a way that the children will enjoy. Our team is committed to making our program appealing to the children and, of course, once the kids arrive, we then want them to experience the love of Jesus.

How we structure Sunday mornings:

The first thing we do each Sunday is pray with our pastoral staff. Our Senior Pastor pointed out that our children make up a congregation, just as the adults do. Se we start the morning with prayer.

We are very deliberate in making sure that we greet each child by name as they arrive. We have a table set up where we ask the kids to sign in. This gives us a chance to greet the child and their parents, keep track of attendance and obtain contact information for all newcomers.

We strive to build relationships with our children. To facilitate this, we have a time of crafts, activity stations, games, etc., as the children arrive. The first half hour of our 1 ½ hour program is devoted to play. This gives children and adults time to interact and relax together and makes it easy for latecomers to join the group.

After we clean up all of our activities - kids help with this - we transition to a time of singing. Here we want the kids to have fun, get the wiggles out and learn to worship God through music.

Next, we move into our lesson time. We keep all of our children together during this time. We currently use a curriculum designed for 4 - 5th graders, and we adapt it to appeal to the younger children.

If time permits and the lesson lends itself to small groups, we will break up into groups of 8 or 10 and help the kids learn how to apply the lesson to their life. We may use Q & A sessions, drawing, role playing - it all depends on the lesson.

Each week we stress Bible memorization and life application of the lesson. One thing we continually ask ourselves as we prepare the lesson is "So What?" After spending time with us on a Sunday morning, we do not want any child to leave asking "So what?" We make sure that they know why the lesson is important to them and how they can apply it to their lives.

Resources

Although we might use various materials, we customize our program for the specific needs of our children. These are some of the places we go to find resource material to help us keep our program relevant and exciting for our kids:

www.promiselandonline.com

www.group.com

We desire to help train others who minister to children

With 20 years of children's ministry experience, we would love to help others reach out to the children in their church and community. If we can help in any way, please contact us.

Steve & Donna Ebell
Harvest Christian Center
1006 Sixth Street
Corning, CA 96021
(530) 824-2091
www.worshipinggod.org