Children's Crusades

We host stand alone children's crusades or for the entire family or we can do children's crusades in conjunction with other adult crusades. For instance, most crusades for adults hold their meetings at night and occasionally use it for morning pastor's meetings. Meanwhile, the kids get out of school in the afternoon and could come over to the crusade ground early for an event just for their age group for example from 3:30-5pm!

It can also be modified for a church, school assembly, orphanage, or street ministry event or multiple day services.

What is a children's crusade? It consists of what you might typically see in a children's church service, only on a mass evangelism scale with the theme being salvation and the Bible story being the simple gospel story from Creation, Fall, Birth & Miracle Life of Jesus, Crucifixion, and Resurrection.

1. Games start the meeting with a fun atmosphere that engages the audience. (10 minutes)

2. Clowns participate in the games and sometimes other costumed characters in colorful fluffy animal suits also come in to do an ice breaker or tell the theme of the service or share the rules of behavior. (5 minutes)

3. Next, puppets come on stage to do a drama skit or sing a song -- and the kids love it! (5 minutes)

4. After that, more costumed characters, usually Bible time visitors, join the fun and usually tell part of the Bible story of the day in an interview like format. (5 minutes)

5. Bible Story Drama -- this is the portion where costumed characters re-enact the gospel story from Creation to Resurrection. (10 minutes)

6. Object Lesson Sermon -- a short recap of the main points of receiving salvation thru science experiment/magic show like demonstration of the gospel points using visual aids. (5 minutes)

7. Salvation Altar Call -- this is the time for inviting kids (and parents) to receive Jesus and pray the sinner's prayer. (5-10 minutes)

8. Praise and Worship -- this is backwards from a normal service, but this is where we will worship at the end and rejoice with the new converts. (10 minutes)

9. Healing and Holy Ghost -- we will pray for the sick and teach on receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and then lead the audience in their new prayer language and also invite testimonies of healing miracles on stage as time allows. (10 minutes)

10. Before they leave we always are sure to practice with them how to lead another kid or adult to Jesus using simple scriptures and motions so they can remember. We also teach them to lay hands on the sick and flow in the Holy Spirit for supernatural soulwinning. In a small crowd, we would give away witnessing bead bracelets; in a large crowd, we would give away a followup tract that includes the plan of salvation and how to witness for kids. (10 minutes)

(This is for a 90 minute program in a mass crusade setting and if it is multiple days, we might give more details on the drama each day to highlight a specific part of the gospel story and do different characters and object lessons. If this is done in a school assembly or at an orphanage or in the neighborhoods, some parts will be left out in order to shorten the program to 30 minutes to an hour. If it is done in a church setting, it can be expanded to 2 or more hours and include crafts and snacks perhaps).

Kid's School of Evangelism is about three things: teaching, transmission, and training. The end result is kids equipped in one service to double or triple the attendance of the evening crusade for adults and families that follows and that not only is our missions team witnessing, now the local kids and parents are mobilized for multiplication so that soul-winning statistics skyrocket and continue after we leave so that churches experience exponential growth that continues after the crusade!!

1. Teaching -- kids about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, laying hands on the sick, and casting out devils according to Acts 1:8 and Mark 16:15-20. The focus will be on supernatural soulwinning by being led by the Holy Spirit to flow in the gifts to minister healing and present the basic plan of salvation to their peers and parents.

2. Transmission -- there will next be a time of praying with the kids to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. We will create an atmosphere in worship where kids can enter into God's presence and receive their prayer language based on the teaching just completed. We will lay hands on them if necessary, but often times we see the whole crowd of kids erupt into their prayer language without this. We will also pray for a few of the people that are sick in order to demonstrate laying hands on the sick and hear testimonies as God moves in the service, often kids are seeing visions and getting words from the Lord in this holy moment that can last a few minutes or if there is time even longer.

3. Training -- this is the final phase where we role play with motions to remember the parts of the gospel story (think arms out represents the cross, prayer hands, etc.). Then, by the time we train them, even the five year olds can retell the gospel presentation and say a simple sinner's prayer. They take turns practicing with the other attendee kids. Then, we also practice how to pray for the sick and believe for miracles. Afterwards, we give them gospel tracts or witnessing bracelets depending on the crowd size, and then take them out in teams if it's a small crowd or ask them to go out with their parents/friends on their way home to witness in a mass crowd setting. We usually have them return with those they have led to Jesus and invited to the evening adult/family crusade service and attendance doubles or triples from this.

Family of Faith Global Missions has just started an international internet radio ministry geared specifically for kids. It is currently in English reaching 75 nations and averaging 5,000 receiving the gospel message each week. We will begin transforming this into a children's television ministry by the end of the year and also getting it translated into multiple languages to reach even more. It is a great "Sunday School" program for kids to continue being discipled and learning the dramatized Bible stories weekly.

When we travel internationally, we often find that pastor's have little training for ministry and even less for children's ministry and then the children's workers have really zero training on the best ways to minister to kids and why it is so important to have a children's ministry in the church.

1. Inspiration -- We begin with all the ways Jesus worked with kids in His earthly ministry. We then showcase scriptural truths on questions like age of accountability, how to lead a child to Christ, equipping the saints (even the little ones) for the work of the ministry to be Mark 16 believers.

2. Information -- After the why, we cover the how -- practicalities of classroom management for behavior issues, translating the gospel into the language of fun and simplicity without Christian-ese, how to use object lessons from items found freely in nature to demonstrate gospel truths with visual aids the kids remember, how to use drama and getting the kids to act out the Bible stories, how to use storytelling like Jesus' parables, how to make simple cheap homemade puppets and costumes for the dramas, how to get kids baptized in the Holy Ghost, and most importantly, how to get kids to enter into God's presence in worship instead of just singing so the services are an encounter with God! Kids ministry is not just entertaining education on the Bible, but an encounter with the Living God and kids are hungry for this! And of course we teach on how to equip kids to evangelize and do supernatural soul-winning! We finish with teaching them how pastor's pals or Sunday school or after school or weekend outreaches can be an important part of their outreach to families so their churches will grow with new believers!

Ladies Meetings are important to accompany gospel crusade campaigns. Sometimes we do this even in the setup phases so that they can get to know our ministry better. We teach on two things primarily -- how Jesus ministered to women in the Bible and then on healing the broken hearted. We always see a supernatural outpouring of God's presence and His healing as He mends hearts and restores broken women. Occasionally, this is accompanied by some sort of tea and snack if the crowd size is manageable for this.

Orphanage Visits are integral part of our focus on kid's ministry. We will minister to the kids in everything from a short half hour gospel program to a week long stay, depending upon the nation and our invitations. We believe in mobilizing Christian orphans to be warriors for Christ by equipping them to be supernatural soul-winners!

See the description under crusades for an overview of the FUN and Spirit Filled gospel program we present in shortened format in schools. If it is a classroom size, we may use visual aid flashcards to present the gospel in a storytelling way and leave them with gospel bead bracelets so they can witness to others. In a large school setting, it will look more like the crusade plan, but we always pray for salvation, baptism of the Holy Spirit, healing, and teach them how to share the Gospel with others at home or peers. We see massive numbers of decisions in a very short amount of time, but we take it one step further so that they too can share Jesus with others so that soul counts skyrocket by the multiplication of fishers of men!

In playgrounds, in markets, in the poorest neighborhoods -- wherever we can -- we will witness one on one or setup a mini-crusade to preach the gospel, particularly to the kids around with puppets, games, drama, gospel tracts, picture visual aid stories -- whatever it takes to giveaway not just candy, but the hope of Jesus to the crowds! Sometimes this is mercy ministry door to door handing out stuffed animals and soap and bags of rice and beans along with Bibles while we pray for the sick and win the lost!

A typical day on the mission field with FOFGM:

6 am -- Showers and Breakfast

7 am -- Group Prayer and Devotions and Team Meeting

8 am -- Transportation to Various Locations for Morning Meetings

9 am -- Ladies Tea Parties / Mom's Meetings begin in one or more locations around the area

11 am -- Pastor and Children's Worker Luncheons and Training -- teaching on the importance of children's ministry

1 pm -- Outreach to Schools on weekdays or orphanages/neighborhoods on weekends

2:30 pm -- Transportation to Crusade Grounds

3 pm -- Begin Greeting and Games and Music for Crusade

3:30 pm -- Afternoon Children's Gospel Crusade

5 pm -- Send the teams and kids out to the neighborhoods to invite people back for the evening service

6 pm -- Dinner/Snack Break before evening crusade or healing meeting services begin

9 pm Back to lodging for a meal and debrief meeting

10 pm Lights out

*Note that sometimes we skip the morning ladies meetings and pastor luncheons and do more school assemblies or neighborhood ministry or orphanage or sometimes church kid's events. We take a day off every 7th day for rest and tourism, not usually Sunday as that is when we preach in multiple churches. Every team member young and old will get to minister if you travel with us!