Category Archives: Children’s Ministries

Children's Ministries, Odds and Ends

Sword Drills

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sworddrill

Official Sword Drill Instructions:

1. If some children do not know how to do a Sword Drill then first of all explain why the Bible is the Christian’s sword.

2. First of all have all the children close their Bibles and hold them by the binder.

3. Shout “Sheathe swords” – at this the children should put their Bibles under their arms.

4. Shout “Draw swords” – the children should now hold their Bibles in the air with straight arms.

5. Tell the children a book, a chapter, and a verse of the Bible, and have them repeat it after you. For example, “John chapter 3 verse 16.”

6. Once the children have repeated the reference, shout “Charge” – the children should now try to look up the verse as quickly as possible.

7. The first one to find the reference should shout out the first few words from the verse. In our example, this would be, “For God so…” (KJV). You could also have the children stand up when they get the verse to make it clearer who won.

8. This child would then come out to the front and would keep their Bible open at their verse. They are now in the final.

9. Repeat this until you have 4 or perhaps 5 children in the final.

10. The children should then read their verses and within these verses there should be a word which is the same. The rest of the children should listen to the verses to try and guess the common word.

11. Once the children have read their verses and someone has guessed what the word is, have a Sword Drill just for the finalists.

12. The first one to get the verse should shout out the first couple words as before. This child has then won the sword drill and should then read out this verse.

If you’ve ever spent hours refining your sword drill bible-opening and page-flipping skills…you might have been a fundamentalist.

Children's Ministries

Camp

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campOnce a year, fundamentalists pack their kids a suitcase and wave goodbye as the youngsters are hauled away to Christian camp. This is considered vital to to the children’s spiritual upbringing and also gives mom and dad a break — defined as “only taking care of the four youngest kids.” It’s a win-win.

Christian camp is a wonderful time to enjoy the outdoors, participate in sports, make new friends, and listen to approximately 3,468 sermons over the course of the week. This presents plenty of opportunities to get saved as many time as you like. After all, going forward to get saved again is always preferable to being stuck in your seat through an hour of singing while the counselors save other kids. It’s far better to walk the aisle and join in the fun.

Getting saved isn’t the only highlight though, there is also Scripture to memorize, crafts to make, and a camp store full of enough soft drinks and candy to ensure that the counselors never get a moment’s peace from chasing down hyper eight-year-olds. Another bright spot in the camping week is regular visits to the swimming pool (no mixed bathing of course). While dunking kids in chlorinated water may not be a substitute for daily bathing, it certainly doesn’t hurt.

As the week draws to a close, it’s a time for tearful farewells and getting saved one last time just to be sure. Then it’s back on the buses and back home until next year when they’ll do it all over again. No fundamentalist childhood would be complete without it.

Children's Ministries

Children’s Radio Programs

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old_radioFundamentalist children who were born after 1954 may recognize these words…

“Ranger Bill, Warrior of the Woodland, struggling against extreme odds, traveling dangerous trails, fighting the many enemies of nature. This is the job of the guardian of the forest, Ranger Bill. Pouring rain, freezing cold, blistering heat, snows, floods, bears, rattlesnakes, mountain lions. Yes, all this in exchange for the satisfaction and pride of a job well done.”

Ranger Bill was just one of a host of children’s radio programs that began in the 1950’s and continue to be rebroadcast to the present day. Keys for Kids with Uncle Charlie, Story Time with ‘Aunt B’, Uncle Bob’s Nature Corner…the list goes on and on.

These radio programs taught lessons such as the evils of television, gambling, lying, stealing, and other various and sundry moral ills. All accompanied by the dramatic effects of an electric organ that would do any soap opera proud.

Don’t knock it. For fundy kids, Saturday mornings around the radio were some of the happiest times of the week.

Children's Ministries

Flannelgraph

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flannel-graphBefore there were multi-media presentations, Veggie Tales DVDs and interactive flash-driven websites, there was…flannelgraph. Flannelgraph boards were simply scenes painted on a piece of flannel to which paper characters could be affixed. They were the height of visual aided storytelling.

These boards were very popular in fundy Sunday School classes because they were cheap and relatively low tech. As long as the children being told the story didn’t have much exposure to television, they worked like a charm.

Among the lessons learned from flannel were these

  • Everyone in the Bible was white.
  • Nobody in the Bible was overweight or ugly.
  • Adam and Eve lived behind big green bushes.
  • Jesus and the disciples never changed their clothes.
  • Jesus had long hair until someone pointed it out and then by the next week Jesus had evidently been to a Galilean barber shop and gotten a hair cut.