Hello! Welcome to a blog that is entirely devoted to sharing 20 years of ideas for Children's Ministry in a small church. I've discovered that it's almost impossible these days to expect a church to grow without a decent Children's Ministry, but getting one started can be very difficult. Perhaps you are trying to breathe life into an established church that has slowly stagnated to a point where there are few young families. Maybe you have ventured into the area of church planting, and have discovered that people aren't interested in a church - no matter how new and exciting - that doesn't have something for their kids. If so, let me encourage you! You can have an exciting Children's Ministry with few volunteers, limited space, and a reasonable budget.
I've started a Children's Ministry from scratch in an established church that averaged 40 when we began, with the youngest attender (other than our own children) being 14 years old. We now average over 80, with Children's Church averaging 15 and the nursery averaging 5. I'm also the wife of a Church Planter. I've dealt with ADD kids, ADHD kids, and just-plain-spoiled kids! I've prayed for kids who were in very disfunctional homes, and cried over children who were severely mentally handicapped due to fetal alcohol syndrome. I'm also a mother of 4 children of my own, for whom I created this ministry in the first place (to be completely honest).
After struggling to find decent curriculum that was relevant and fun, but also affordable, I finally decided to develop my own. I have created a curriculum entitled "Pirates and Princesses," which we have recently completed in our church, and another entitled "Aliens and Strangers," which we have just started. Each program will cover 4 to 6 months of Sundays. Since I've put so much time and effort into these themes, I decided to post them here for anyone interested. I plan to post parts of the curriculum every week.
Here's how it works: Each lesson will fill 60 to 75 minutes; however, since our church keeps the children during worship and then dismisses them for the sermon, we only need to fill 30 to 35 minutes. So, I divide the lesson into two parts: First Sunday - the object lesson, puppet skit, movie clip, craft, and prayer, then Second Sunday - Bible story, game, memory verse, unit craft, and music. Feel free to structure it however it suits your situation.
Some of these ideas are completely my own; some I have scavenged from others. I've tried to make sure that I give credit to the sources I've borrowed from.
That being said, here we go!