Ten Tips for for Writing a Kids’ Church Talk
You’re sitting in a meeting with your Kids’ Church team. Your leader tells you that you are down for a talk next term. You’re freaking out! What? Why? How on earth do I do this?
It can feel pretty daunting. But fear not. You can do it! Here are ten tips to help you on your way.
1. Pray
Before you do anything else, pray! Ask God for his help as you work out what you’re doing, what the talk is going to be about, and how you present it to the kids. This is probably the most important thing you’ll do in the whole process.
2. Work out what you’re doing
Now that you’ve prayed, make sure you know what you’re supposed to be teaching. A lesson that I’ve had to learn the hard way: make sure that you look at the correct week. Once I was preaching at church and spoke on the wrong passage. Make sure you don’t make the same mistake. Check your roster. If you can’t find your roster, get in contact with your team leader ASAP.
3. Work through the passage
Depending on your Kids’ Church team, there might be accompanying notes that help you write your talk. Do make sure you read those. They are (usually) pretty helpful. But, it’s way more important that you do your own work on the passage. Make sure you have a good understanding of:
The context of the passage
The structure of the passage
The big idea of the passage
The supporting ideas of the passage
The applications or implications stemming from the passage
Click here for a really helpful resource from Youthworks called the Teaching Target. The Teaching Target will help you tease this all out.
If you get stuck on something with the passage, talk with your team leader or pastor. They would love to help you. But make sure you give them enough time to help them. This means getting started early.
4. Access, Teach, Apply
Once you’ve worked out all this stuff, you can get started writing the talk. Get a sheet of paper or a document and write these three headings: Access, Teach and Apply
Teach
“Access” will be at the top of your page/document. But start off with “teach”. We’ll come back to “access” later. Explain what the passage teaches and what it means. As you do this, you’ll want to make sure you pay careful attention to points 5 and 6 below.
Apply
Next, we come to the application or implications. What impact will this passage have upon those kids listening? What does this mean for us? What should our response be? Is there a promise we need to trust? A warning we need to listen? An example we should follow? A truth we need to remember? A commandment we need to obey?
Your teaching target will be really helpful in thinking this through. And, remember, if it’s an Old Testament passage, we can only apply the passage once we’d seen how it points to the gospel of Jesus. For help on this, see my article Reading Christ in the Old Testament.
Access
Now that we’ve nailed the teaching and application, we can come back to the introduction, the point of “access”. We want to find a link from what the children already understand to what we’re going to teach them.
How do we help the children access the world of the passage? How do we help them see that this is important for them to listen to?
Sometimes you might tell a story. Sometimes you might ask a question. Sometimes you might play a game or do a challenge. Sometimes you might do a recap of last week’s talk. There are plenty of ways you can do this.
5. Be creative
As you write your talk, be creative. It’s hard to engage kids if you’re just reading from a white sheet of paper. How can you engage the kids before you?
Pictures
Consider using pictures to tell the story. This is particularly helpful (probably essential) for Preschoolers and Lower Primary kids. Help them see what you’re talking about. A lot of people I know use (free) images from www.freebibleimages.org . I’m personally a big fan of www.pixton.com which enables you to make your own cartoons. Others like to do hand-drawn pictures.
Narrated dramas or interviews
Things like dramas often go down as a hit, especially when there are costumes involved! Recently I saw two year 9 boys tell the story of Ananias and Sapphira. They got some of the other Kids’ Church leaders to act out the main characters and then involved the kids in the story, getting them to carry Ananias and Sapphira off the stage when they died. The kids loved it. It really helped them remember the story. Sandy Galea’s stuff at www.kidswise.com.au is great for this.
Interactive questions or roles for the audience
I once heard someone tell the story of Jesus calming the storm where they got the audience involved, making sounds of the sea, of the storm, of the panicked disciples. It was brilliant and kept the kids engaged. Years later I copied the idea and it worked a treat again. Think of ways you can get the audience to participate in your talk as you tell it.
Puppets
Kids love puppets. It’s harder than you might think, but when done well (or at least, reasonably well), the kids get really engaged. One term at a Kids’ Church I led, we were looking at one of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Each week, we’d get all of the kids to entire a time machine (walk through a hoop with some weird backing music) and then we’d have Paul sitting at a table writing his letter and saying out loud what he was writing. And then his housemate, Flem, would interrupt with a bunch of (sometimes ridiculous) questions about what Paul was writing. Then Paul would explain. It was really fun and the kids were really engaged.
Props
Props are great too. I recently saw a talk which was talking about how Jesus washes us clean. One person was wearing a white shirt with the word “sin” on it. They used a washing machine (made out of a cardboard box) to try and get the sin off the shirt. They used a whole heap of different products to try and get it off. In the end, they used the blood of Jesus, and it made them clean. Out came a clean white shirt from the washing machine. Be creative with your props!
But…
But just be careful not to let the creativity take over. Don’t try and bend what the passage says to make it fit your creative idea. The creative idea needs to be a servant of what the passage means.
6. Know your audience
It’s essential that you know your audience. A seven-year-old is different to a three-year-old who is different to an eleven-year-old who is different to a 34-year-old. Make sure you craft your talk accordingly. This means being mindful of:
Time
As a general rule of thumb, your talk should be about as long in minutes as the kids are years old. So, if you’re teaching 3 and 4 year-olds, aim for 3.5 minutes. If you’re teaching, 5–7 year olds, aim for 6 minutes. If you’re teaching 8-10 year olds, aim for 9 minutes. If you’re speaking from a full script, 100 words takes about a minute to read. So if you’re giving a talk to 8-10 year olds, aim for 900 words or so.
That said, it doesn’t have to be that long. In my experience, talks are rarely too short, but often too long. Watch the kids as you speak. Often the reason they drift off is because the talk is too long. So keep it punchy. The key things is that you know your audience. This is the best guide.
Language
Make sure that you use language that the kids will understand. Avoid jargon, saying they won’t understand, and technical language. At the same time, don’t speak to an older kid as if they are preschoolers. They will hate it and switch off!
Clarity
Always make sure that your talk is clear and to the point. You may have heard a great illustration in a sermon that you want to include in your kids talk. But sometimes this can make it less clear for the children. Avoid being too complicated.
One of the most common ways I see talks become unclear is when the speaker uses too many extra Bible passages other than the one we’re meant to be looking at. It just confuses the kids.
It’s really helpful to use a tool like the Teaching Target (see above), but your class of preschoolers doesn’t need you to share all of those details. As you get to know your kids, you’ll get a good idea of whether or not what you say is clear.
7. Practice
Make sure you practice your talk before you give it. This means being organised and setting aside time. This will also help calm any nerves. You might like to practice in front or a family member, or a friend, or even your mirror.
8. Get feedback
One of the best ways to get better is to ask for feedback. Ask one of the other kids’ leaders to give you feedback. Don’t wait for them to offer it. It may never come. Be proactive.
9. Ask for help
I’ve mentioned this already, but it deserves its own point. Ask for help. There will be people around who are willing to help you. Ask them for help along the way. You don’t have to do what they suggest, but more often than not, their suggestions will be helpful. Often there will be tech things you need help with. Access to the slides. Access to sound. Ask for help.
10. Be organised
Don’t leave it to the last minute. Start well before Saturday night or Sunday morning. Start early in the week. This will give you the time you need to do justice to the Teaching Target, to the creative process, to getting feedback, and asking for help.
If you leave it to the last minute, you risk either doing a bad job or inconveniencing someone else when you ask for help heaps late. So do try to be organised.
Conclusion
So there you have it. Ten tips for writing a kids’ talk. May God l work powerfully through his Word and through you as you deliver your next kids’ talk. For further help, you might find this video helpful (click here).
