Programme Planning made easy!Alison Harris |
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It’s a familiar situation for children’s leaders: the holidays are nearly over and our children’s group will be starting up again all too soon. What are we going to do this term? Or even, what are we going to do for the rest of the year? Planning the programme can seem such a daunting task. What do we cover? How will we do it? What resources will we need? How much will it cost? Where do we start? It can all seem a bit of a nightmare, but rest assured: help is at hand. Here is a step-by-step guide to making programme planning easy, relevant to your own situation and cost-effective! You will soon find that you can do it, and once you get those creative juices flowing, programme planning will add a renewed sense of energy and excitement to your children’s ministry. Programme Planning is a team activity. The first thing is to gather the team together. Programme planning is not something to be left to the team co-ordinator. Making it a team task means that you pool together everyone’s wisdom, everyone’s perspectives and the whole team will own the programme when they start working with it. The programme will also have the added benefit that it will be grounded in your own local knowledge – of your children, your leaders, your church, your neighbourhood. Getting the bigger picture! If you are going to plan your own programme, you first need to think about the the framework around which your programme will grow and develop. What will shape this framework? The Church’s year A good starting point for creating this framework. In the way we mark the Christian Year, we are enacting and re-enacting our Christian story- from preparation for the coming of Jesus in Advent, his birth at Christmas, through his life and ministry, to the events surrounding his death and resurrection in Holy week and Easter and his appearances as our Risen Lord until his Ascension into heaven, to the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Christian Church at Pentecost, and then the Church’s witness in the world today. We all need pattern and rhythm in our lives, and children particularly value this. Being caught up in the pattern and rhythm of the Church’s year is one way in which the pattern of our own lives can be shaped by the pattern of Jesus’ life. So some of your programme planning will be guided by the Church’s Year. What do we want the children to know and experience? Another factor that will shape your framework is identifying what you think the children should know and experience in these early years of their Christian journey. This task requires careful thought and prayer, because it isn’t so much about what
we want or
we like doing, but what, under God, we think will resource children for their journey with Christ. A good task for all leadership teams, is to ask yourselves this question: if a child comes into our group at 4 and leaves at 11, what would we hope they would know and experience in that time? What is important to pass on? What is important to experience? It might help to get some big sheets of paper, and put a heading on each, for example,
God,
Jesus;
The Bible;
The Church;
Worship. Then note down your thoughts and discuss them together. When you are doing this, remember that your children’s group does not operate in isolation. It is an integral part of your local church, which is in turn part of the much bigger Church that has witnessed to Jesus down through the centuries and all around the world. When you have gathered and sifted and itemised all your ideas, you will have a list of things that you all think are important to include in your teaching and worshipping programme.
Involve your Minister in these discussions. Not only does s/he has a lot to offer in this discussion, but it is important that the children’s group is integrated with the worshipping, learning, witnessing life of your whole church. Which isn’t to say that everything has to match, but there does need to be up front discussion about it, not leaving a coordinated programme to chance! Which parts of the church’s worshipping pattern will be common to both the children’s worship and the adults’ worship? Are there going to be teaching themes in the coming year that both adults and children can consider in ways that are appropriate to all? Which missionary and charitable projects will you all be involved in? And, because it’s a bit too tempting sometimes to stick with what we find comfortable and familiar, your minister may also encourage you to include some of the more difficult issues!
Your framework is a valuable reference point
The next step Having agreed the framework, the next step is to start planning the next term’s, or the next year’s programme. Here’s one way of doing this that makes planning easier! Here goes…
Then …
This is how such a grid might look:
Click here to download a pdf of the table (opens in a new window) It may not be your exact pattern, but you can adapt accordingly.
Suddenly, what might have seemed like an impossible task in the beginning becomes much more manageable! And it gets easier… Divide the year into three, which closely matches school terms. A good pattern to follow is to think in terms of these broad areas:
And now you are ready to start filling in the boxes and building up your programme with the help of some good resources. Start gathering together some good resources Barnabas has lots of really good resources that will help you to put the programme together and then deliver it. And you will find that this can be a really cost-effective way of working. Here’s one idea for a year's programme that uses just 5 Barnabas books and would cost under £60 for the set. Where can you get better value? You could follow this as it’s set out, or use the same resources but adapt the particular content to your own situation. For this programme, you would need …
Total cost = £57.95
To purchase the pack at this discounted price, click here From September to December, your programme could include: Click here to download a pdf of the three tables below (opens in a new window)
For January to April, your programme could include:
From May to August, your programme could include:
There, a year’s programme planned and resourced with material costing under £60! And, at the end of all this, there will still be material in the books that you haven’t used and can store up for the future, so there’s no wastage. To purchase the pack at a special discount rate of only £45, click here If you want additional ideas to supplement the material in these books, try out our website where you will find a great range of ideas for all the different elements that you will want to include in your sessions with the children. And if you want more ways in which you could use sets of Barnabas resources to plan your year’s programmes, follow the links below for special offer packs |
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