Develop Leaders

Children experience transformation through churches with transformed leaders. EGM ministry teams work with children’s workers in local churches to help them become a “Model Children’s Worker. A Model Children’s worker demonstrates the five qualities found in Deuteronomy 6:2-9 and becomes a key element of transformation in a children’s life. EGM is developing a growing number of Model Children’s Workers in every country where we serve.

In Deuteronomy 6, we find that the ministry of a Model Children’s Worker will include the following five crucial elements:

A.  Relationship

 v. 5-6: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give to you today are to be upon your hearts."

Ministry to children begins with the children’s workers heart. As they love God, that love flows through them to the children. As they live according to God’s commandments their example teaches the children. Relationship is the foundation for their ministry.

B. Truth

v. 7: "Impress [these commandments] on your children."

Model Children’s Workers teach the Bible to children. The truth of Scripture is effectively taught not when Children’s Workers repeat a traditional story just as they learned it or when they teach straight from the curriculum, but when the Bible itself is studied, read and taught to children.

C. Discussion

 v. 7: “Talk about them…” 

Many children are taught as if the Bible is a collection of stories that have no connection to their real lives. Through an open and honest dialogue Model Children’s Workers help children understand the scripture as more than a story. They discuss with the children how the Bible applies to them, individually and personally.

D. Experience

v. 7: “…when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Teaching should be intertwined with what children experience every day. Model Children’s Workers create an activity that takes learning past a cognitive exercise and into an actual experience. Children need to experience the feelings connected to the objective of the lesson. Within the learning process, talking and hearing are valuable but experience has lasting impact.

E. Response

v. 8: “Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your house and on your gates.”

The word of God should affect what a child does with his hands. It should affect how a child thinks with her mind. No child should leave church not knowing how he can personally respond to the word of God in the way he thinks and what he does in day to day life. Model Children’s Workers give children practical opportunities to respond to the word of God.