The one question asked after your children’s ministry is, how many were there? In fact, I often look at that question personally. How many do I have this week? I can usually look at an average number of children in my ministry but the problem is that I may have 15 children this week and 15 children next week, but about 1/2 are NOT the same children from week to week!
The question no one asks is, how often do they come?
I used to promote the 1/168 number, which represented the one hour a week of the 168 hours in a week, which works well if a child attends each week. The reality is that today, children may attend every other week. That means we try to impact them 1 out of the 336 hours in a two week period.
Many of today’s lesson build upon one another, and reference the previous week. So often the immediate response I get from the children when I say, “last week we talked about…” is “I wasn’t here last week”.
Think about your ministry. Look at your numbers. How many children attend regularly? You may be shocked.
If we are going to be effective in reaching children, then we need to understand the trends. How can we effectively disciple a child in the church when they don’t attend?
Want to learn more, download information from the Awana website at http://awana.org/thequestion
