Sports-Centered Sunday Morning Programming
This Sunday the KidZone at New Life Christian Church (my Church) is trying something new for our 3rd service. We are trying a sports and rec centered service (called OnTheMove) as a way to provide an alternative and potentially draw some new students to the later service.
Each week there will be a different sport that the kids will learn about, practice, and then play a game using the skills they learned. For instance the next for weeks for us looks like:
May 6: Kickball
May 13: Lacrosse
May 20: Flag Football
May 27: Soccer
During each week, the coach(es) leading the sport will provide the plan for the sport part of the service. The KidZone leaders will assist the coaches with the sports and will lead the Huddle Up portion if the coach wants this.
Below is a “sample” timeline of a typical session. These times are subject to change as needed by the coaches leading the sport:
- 11:50-12:00 – Welcome (coaches will introduce themselves). Warm Up and Stretch: Kids will be led in warm up and stretching exercises.
- 12:00–12:10 – Skill Session 1: Kids will be taught skills for the day’s sport
- 12:10–12:20 – Skill Session 2: Kids will be taught another skill for the day’s sport.
- 12:25–12:50 – Sport Time: Play a game or something using the skill learned earlier
- 12:50–1:05 – Huddle Up: Devotion and lesson time.
So this is what we are trying. Something new and different. What do you think? TAKE A MINUTE and…
- post your thoughts. What do you think of this new style of programming for Sunday morning?
- Also, if you are a Children’s Minister or Volunteer, take some time to brainstorm new ideas for you and your children’s ministry. What can you do and how can you try something that is fresh that could possibly draw more children and families to your ministry.
This is very creative…is it during the service or post-service experience?
The only thought that came to mind is having something for kids not sporty. Knowing my kids- and not knowing yours- some of our kids would not want to play for one reason or another. We do many active elements in our kidmin service, I've always learned to have something for the small crowd that does not want to participate in the actual sport.
On a side note, many kids that typically skip church for sports might skip sports to be at church. Like I said on the RT…very cool!
Thanks for the comment Trevor. It is actually during our 3rd service. The 1st 2 services we do Orange curriculum and we were looking to change things up so add a little variety of our last service. Being at 11:50, it doesn't typically draw a lot of children. I agree with your "kids not sporty" comment because that is definitely a concern of ours. We have been pumping this up to parents at this service for 2 weeks now hoping that they would bring their children in active clothing and shoes so we'll see this week on how it goes.