Welcome
Next Generation Ministries began in 1979 as a Sunday morning children's church service for kids ages 4-12. We met in the living room of a small duplex apartment across the parking lot from The Door Christian Fellowship on Veteran's Boulevard in Tucson, Arizona. Attending the first meeting were four adults (Frank and Susan King, and Herb and Cheryon Unruh) and approximately 12 children. Our supplies consisted of various finger puppets constructed from doll parts, a puppet stage made from an old converted bamboo bar, and imagination.
Styrofoam balls, covered with nylon stockings, with mouths cut and hinged, followed the finger puppets. Sally, the first of these, appeared one summer day in 1979 and asked the kids what they were doing there. The kids told her about Jesus and led her to the Lord. This may have been the first time they led someone to the Lord but not the last, for some of those first dozen are now married with kids of their own, and several are pastors and pastors' wives.
We struggled through the first years of ministry by the grace of God, and with much prayer and fasting. Although the lessons we taught were not presented in a polished manner, they were all biblically sound and inspired, and the children listened most of the time, and learned some of the time. To this day our "kids" will come up to us and recount a lesson they learned in those early days.
Those first dozen children are all grown now. Some are married and their children are our second generation; others are in college or the workforce. The adult workers, thank God, have not grown up, and all four are still involved in children's ministry. Fifty other adults are now involved in Next Generation Ministries (not to mention over one hundred teen helpers), and we daily minister to around five hundred children through the various channels described in the following report.
We know we have not yet arrived at the place that God has for us; we are merely somewhere on the road to where He leads us. It is our hope that viewing our ministry will give you a vision for what God can do through you and your ministry.
Purpose and Mission
Pastor Warner once preached that all ministries in the Church must be measured against the Great Commission: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). Any ministry that doesn't further that purpose should be questioned and probably eliminated from what we do. If we keep the Great Commission in mind in all that we do, we will not be sidetracked to the mundane or the trivial, nor end up dying on the wrong battlefields. The overall purpose of children's ministry is to fulfill the great commission as it pertains to children. Any ministry that exists in the church has a place in children's ministry. If it doesn't exist in the church, we question its validity in children's ministry. The way we fulfill the ministries will differ from a big-person church, but the purpose and vision for them will be in alignment.
As you begin to develop your children's ministry, keep these truths in mind, and you will stay on the path that God has marked for you. Your object lessons, puppet skits, videos and stories can be of professional quality, but if you lack the anointing and vision of the Holy Spirit, you will fail in the calling that God has on your life. You can be a poor technician, flubbing lines and dropping props, but if you have the mind of God, the children will receive the ministry. God looks on the heart, not the outward appearance (I Sam 16:7). Keep your heart right, love Jesus and the children, and God will honor you with successful ministry.
With an understanding of the previous truth, here are some of the ministries for children in the Tucson church. Read them over, take what you need and allow God to use you in the building of a ministry. Please contact me if you want to start any of them; I will put you in contact with people and resources to help.