Many times, as a childrens evangelist, I have had childrens ministry leaders and teachers tell me they wished they could grab the students’ attention the way I do. Others wish they could write lessons and puppet scripts. I am blessed to have a wild imagination to go with my passion for teaching children and adults.
In this article and others in my blog, you will discover the creative process I use to develop new VBS programs every year, Sunday school lessons and family messages and improve on old ones. I have skills in creating magical illusions, balloon sculpture and puppetry. I will refer to these skills often throughout the book. You may not have these skills, but you have your own.
My wife uses her ability to play mountain dulcimer and her story-telling skills to connect with kids during VBS. Other teachers use other skills, including things like painting, chalk art, ventriloquism, musical instruments and more.
The goal of this book is to motivate you to incorporate your talents, gifts, and interests into your teaching methods. I want to inspire your creativity.
LET’S BE CLEAR Throughout the article, I often refer to my school shows. I have been fortunate enough to support my family and be able to afford to minister at small churches with little or no budget by presenting science, math and educational shows. I have been in over 2400 schools in 30 states in the past 17 years, while having the freedom to schedule ministry programs and help churches.
I also make references to magic and magic tricks. The King James Bible never mentions magic. It mentions magicians. Daniel was a magician. The Hebrew word translated magician in the King James Bible means a scribe or wise man. They were advisers to the kings. Some good, some wicked.
When I present “magic” as an object lesson, I never use it to deceive or imply I have a special power. I always make it clear that what I do is a skill learned from years of practice. Not witchcraft or sorcery. It’s funny how some people think that stage magicians have demon power.
Although I use the word “magic” in my books, I do not use it in church meetings and programs. When used in the book, it always refers to an object lesson that is surprising, or as they say, “magical.”
MY AMAZING DISCOVERY
In 1998, I was preaching every week at the juvenile detention center in New Philadelphia, Ohio. I was blessed to do this for three years. The young people were always attentive and engaged. They enjoyed hearing the Bible lessons and being challenged.
I asked by a church in Cambridge to come every Wednesday evening and help with their young teens ministry and give a weekly devotion. The kids were ages 10-14 and many from troubled homes.
The first week, I bombed. These kids had little interest in what I shared. I left, not wanting to ever go back. But I did. The next week, I tried to pump it up. I was enthusiastic and gesturing like a mad man. Again, the interest and interaction were meager at best.
After much prayer, I remembered that I knew how to turn two one dollar bills into a five dollar bill. The third week, I told the parable of the talents. I turned two five dollar bills into a twenty. Two ones into a five, (a slight variance on the Biblical account), and a one dollar bill didn’t change. I used the transformations to illustrate the story. The kids were riveted. They listened!
The pastor told me the following week that on the way home in the van, they couldn’t stop talking about the lesson.
I had invented what is known as “Gospel magic.” I later learned I was not the first to invent it.
I went to the library. I checked out magic books. I found effects that I could use to illustrate lessons. None of them required demons, witchcraft or any form of evil. Over the next three years, I became an accomplished magician. More importantly, I learned to develop messages that had eye appeal as well as ear and mind appeal.
I learned how to create object lessons that did not require “magic.” I taught myself balloon sculpture and used that. I became an expert at creating memorable lessons. My local librarian encouraged me to create educational programs for schools and libraries. This has allowed me the freedom to support my family, help small churches with few funds for an evangelist and set my own schedule, freeing me to minister as God opens the doors.
You, too, can become an expert at creating engaging and memorable lessons.
CREATIVITY
Creativity is the ability to consciously produce different and valuable results. An operational definition of creativity is the ability to make new connections between ideas or stuff. The evidence of creativity is observable behavior. It could be a poem, a solution to a math problem, dancing a new dance.
Creativity in education is desperation disguised as something wonderful. It comes from a teacher trying to reach every student in the classroom. Not just the gifted students, the slower students, the mainstream students, the auditory learners, the tactile learners, but every single student in the classroom needs to understand the concepts. The task seems impossible.
Desperation and impossibilities come together and creativity is born.
Creativity is ignoring the conventional lesson plans at least once in a while to reach a student who needs a different approach. It’s an open mind to any idea that is not harmful to a child. Creativity is the real reason most teachers wanted the job in the first place. Creativity is seeing education with the wanderlust of a child.
There is no ideal model or one best way to be creative. Just as there are multiple styles of intelligence, there are multiple styles of creativity, or talents, within this definition. These talents can each produce different and valuable results. Results can take a multitude of forms. Results require both sides of the brain. And no one way of being creative is better than another. They are just different!
THE FIRST RULE OF CREATIVITY
The first rule to being creative is to create. Look at a problem or situation and think of a solution. No matter how unusual, or unseemly, think of a solution.
It doesn’t matter what you create of how you create, it’s just that you create something. We are designed and created to be creators. God himself is the greatest of all creators and we are created in his image. We are each unique. We each look differently, act differently and think differently. Therefore, we should all be expected to express ourselves differently. Creativity is achieved by expressing ourselves in unique and different ways.
You may think, “Teaching children is hard for me. Wouldn’t it be great if a martian could come and teach it for me.” A silly idea, yes. But how could you incorporate it into your teaching?
Could you create a puppet skit with a space theme? Maybe your puppet wants to be an astronaut and fly to heaven. You could then explain the only way to heaven is through Jesus. Could you create coloring sheets with the planets and a Bible verse on how God create the stars and moon? Could you get some photos from NASA, showing the vastness of space and the amazing things scientists have seen with the Hubble telescope? Use those to talk about what an amazing God we have?
Isn’t this fun?
MY CREATIVITY
My inspiration always seems to come from a challenge. I’m a deadline kind of guy. I often wait until the last minute to create a lesson, write an article or even develop a show. This gets my creative juices flowing as I dash to meet the deadline.
We do VBS every year for a church in Alpena, Michigan. We have other churches we do every other year. That means I can’t have just one program and do it every year. I could probably get by with 3 or 4 shows and repeat them, but I like to do something different every year. This keeps it fresh both for the hosting church, but for my wife and me.
Two years ago, we did a pirate theme. Now lots of folks do pirate themes, but they always end up glorifying pirates. For years, I wanted to do one, but that last thing I wanted was good guy pirates. Pirates are bad. To present them any other way glorifies sin.
In the 1700’s and 1800’s, America had river pirates on the Mississippi and other rivers. I came up with the idea of a riverboat theme. I did part of our program as a riverboat captain. My wife became No-Beard the Pirate. Hers was a silent character, but tricky. Each night during the week, I would start an object lesson and be distracted by my pirate puppet Jack Spareribs. At that time, my wife would sneak in, in costume, and do something to sabotage the lesson. One night, while my back was turned, she switched my raccoon puppet with a skunk puppet.
On the last day, she interrupted me and attempted to swipe my treasure chest, containing “ The World’s Greatest Treasure.” I then informed her I had been trying to catch up with her to give her the treasure. In the chest was a Bible, indeed, “The World’s Greatest Treasure.”
We had fun but also showed the need to evangelize the lost and love our enemies.
Another year, I was influenced by the USA Network’s slogan, “Characters Wanted.” I changed it to “Character Wanted” and we did a week on building Christ-like character. We had many characters that week including the Selfish Sultan, Oliver the Octopus and Freida the Frog.
This is funny, but also presents the ideas in a way children can remember.
To learn more about being creative and developing engaging lessons, see these articles:
