The Why Behind the When - Order of Service

Planning the order of your service can be a challenging part of Kids Ministry. Keeping a child’s attention for upwards of 60-70 minutes can sometimes be very difficult. Here at VFC, we believe that with some strategic planning you can not only keep a child’s attention, but engage their mind as well! The first thing you need to establish is the maximum amount of time you will assign to one segment of your service. We have decided that we don’t want any segment going longer than 12 minutes. This allows for the kids' attention to be held and for us to communicate the topic in many fun and different ways. 

It is also very important to make sure that your service is balanced. It's important that your service has a flow and that there is a reason for each segment that is placed. For example, we don’t place our game early in the service because the kids are still engaged and haven’t been sitting for very long. Instead, we have placed our game after the worship and the message portion. We realize that at that point we’ve had some more docile activities and this allows the kids to burn some energy and reconnect.

We have opted to split our worship into segments, having two praise (upbeat, up-tempo songs) and a separate worship (slower, softer) song. The heart behind this is to help the kids understand the difference in worship styles. We feel that it may be difficult for a child to differentiate between the energetic, upbeat songs and the more somber, serious moments in worship. By dividing our worship into segments we are better able to teach the children the different styles of worship and what they mean.

Whatever you decide to do, the important thing is to determine how you want your service to flow. You need to decide what the goal for your service is and make sure that your programming schedule compliments and fulfills that goal. 

Tim

Tim Hoult