In children’s ministry, it’s always a challenge to gain—and keep—the attention of the children. Kids are notoriously distractible, so presenting ideas, stories, and lessons in a way that engages them and holds their attention for at least a few fleeting minutes is essential.
These days, videos are a great way to accomplish this goal. Most kids are used to watching videos frequently, so you’ll be meeting them on their turf when you opt for this medium. There are many worship videos for churches available today, but it’s important to find worship videos that are suitable for children. Also, you’ll need to deal with any legal issues appropriately so you can be sure that it’s okay to use the videos as you wish. Let’s dive deeper into this topic.
While worship videos for church can be a powerful tool in your children’s ministry, you don’t just want to play the first video you find and call it a day. It’s important to do some research, explore various options, and find videos that suit your needs and goals appropriately. So, what makes for a good children’s ministry video? Consider the following points.
High Quality: This one is important. Even if the content of the video is okay, kids are going to quickly tune out if the quality isn’t there. This is a generation that has grown up knowing only high-definition TV and fast internet speeds—they aren’t going to engage with a video that doesn’t match their quality expectations. Only use content with solid production value, like the videos produced by Go Fish and other professional groups in this space.
Engaging but not Pandering: Of course, you’ll want a video that you present to your children’s ministry to be fun and exciting. At the same time, you don’t want it to talk down to the children or pander to them in a way that will lead to more eye rolls than anything else. Watch any video you are considering using from start to finish to make sure you are comfortable with how the information is presented and how the audience is treated.
A Catalog of Options: It’s certainly fine to use a one-off video that serves your needs for a particular message, but it’s even better if you can find a video creator that has a catalog of content for you to use over time. That way, your kids will become familiar with the style of the videos and the people in them, and they’ll start to look forward to this part of the ministry.
So, we’ve already discussed what it is that you should be looking for in a ministry video to use for kids in your church, and you should be on the right path. However, it can also be helpful to keep in mind a couple of things you should avoid in this process. Specifically, steer clear of videos that present these two issues:
Too Long: Some videos are just too long to fit into the context of what you are doing with your children’s ministry. Most likely, you don’t want to take up all of your available time with the video, so it should fit nicely into a slot within your bigger lesson plan. And while you could just choose to play part of a video, it might not be easy to take a section out of the middle without losing the flow of the information or taking out key pieces. Start your search process by thinking about roughly how much time you have for a video and then sort your options through that lens.
Aimed at the Wrong Age: You’ll need to match up the videos you select with the age group that you are serving. Videos that would be great for an audience of first- and second-graders just won’t hold the attention of a kid’s ministry made up of young people in middle school. Of course, you may have a group that is of blended ages, in which case you’ll just need to watch any videos you are considering and make a judgment call regarding how they will work for the demographics of your audience.
You will also need to have a way to present your chosen worship video, and the accompanying audio, to the kids in your group. In a world where all of us have smartphones, tablets, and other screens close at hand throughout the day, it’s easy to forget that showing a video to a group of people isn’t quite so simple. You can’t just hold your phone up at the front of the room and expect everyone to be able to see it, after all.
If you have a projector that you can connect to a computer available in your church, that would be the ideal solution to this problem. Likewise, a smart TV could work well, as you could easily deliver the content from your phone to the TV or access a platform like YouTube to play it directly. Once you have a video solution in place in the room where you do children’s ministry, it will be simple to use that same approach week after week.
While using a video to show your class in a kids ministry at church isn’t exactly like distributing material around the world, you still do need to be sure that you have legal permission to show the video in this manner. This can be a tricky area, but with a little investigation, it’s usually pretty easy to determine whether or not you need to pay for the rights to the video to use it in this way.
In some cases, the legal information you need will be attached to the video. If it’s unclear, the best thing you can do is simply reach out directly to the creator to ask if you can use the content in a children’s ministry lesson. Most likely, they will be happy to have you use the material, but if not, at least you will have asked and can either work out an agreement for the rights or just move on to another video.
We mentioned this point briefly earlier, but it’s important to remember when looking for videos that the video you use is almost certainly only going to be one piece of a bigger puzzle. That’s important to keep in mind in terms of how long the video can be, but it also plays a role in what message you want the video to deliver and how that will play in with the rest of your ministry.
We can use our videos here at Go Fish as an example. If you choose to use one of the music videos on our YouTube channel to show to your kids, that video could serve as a great “wiggle break” for the kids to stand up and dance around. So, it might work nicely to fit into the middle of your session, with some quieter sitting activities on either side. During a lesson about the Ten Commandments, for instance, you could use our “Ten Commandment Boogie” to engage the kids in a fun song that also reinforces the topic of the day.
If you are looking for children’s ministry resources that the kids in your church will love, try Go Fish today to see what we have to offer. Our YouTube channel is a great place to start, and you can also download our worship videos instantly on our digital download site. We’ve worked hard to create content that speaks to children without driving adults crazy at the same time. If the question of “How can I make my kids ministry fun?” has been rolling around in your brain for a while, Go Fish is the answer you’ve been seeking. We hope you’ll check us out today!
