It’s not much of a contest. The most popular thing I have ever posted on the internet was an article I wrote on gospel-centered children’s curriculum. For a while, if anyone Google’d the words “gospel-centered” and “children” my post/article was the top of the list. If my math skills hold up, I believe the PDF downloads have passed 6,000. It’s somewhat ironic being that I’m a pulpit pastor not a children’s minister. Yet, because of my passion for gospel-centrality and wanting to see it filter through all age-graded ministries in my own church, I wanted to make somewhat of a dent in the conversation about how gospel-centrality intersected our children’s ministry curriculum. So I wrote. Posted it. And now I get calls and requests from children’s ministries from all over the country about moving their ministries toward gospel-centrality.
Indeed, last week I was privileged to host a breakout session on gospel-centered children’s ministry for an Acts 29 Network Gulf Coast Regional Conference. It was a chance for me to revisit some of the same ideas and themes I dealt with in my article. I also included some information on how my church, Clear Creek Community Church, processes children’s curriculum in light of our gospel-centric emphasis. After writing my initial article, the number one question I get asked is, “What curriculum do you use?” and, “Can we have it?” So, I wanted to show how CCCC attempts to get our hands on all kinds of curriculum and still keep our gospel-aim because, for most churches, it’s practically impossible to write your own curriculum. So how can you process other curriculum with a an emphasis on gospel-centrality in a children’s ministry-world filled with moralism? We put together a filtered process.
Over the next few posts I want to share that process with you…
