This month’s Leadership Nugget is a handy worksheet I use every single week to help me design children’s sermons. I fully believe that verse by verse exposition of God’s Word is the best way to proclaim God’s Word to kids. What I don’t mean is that I bore kids with a 35 minute exegetical message using a lot of Hebrew and Greek words. What I do mean is that I teach them the Word in an organized way that is seasoned with interactive and cutting edge methods. The worksheet below is the blueprint that gets me to a final product. I hope it’s helpful for you!

Preparing a Lesson for Kids

Also, be sure to get your name in the hat for the 2 Brent Weber DVD’s. I’ll draw names on Wednesday.

*Image designed by Andy Johnson using Inkscape

This week, I am beginning an 8 post series about how we who lead children can keep our spiritual focus. I will highlight various resources that help put a spark in your spirit! This will go for 3 straight weeks, aside from a Wednesday Give Away next week. One thing that is critical for every believer is sitting under the authority of God’s Word. We certainly need to be in personal Bible study every day, but there is something about the preaching of God’s Word that motivates our spirit to be disciples who walk more closely to Jesus. I have not sat through an entire Sunday worship service  in close to a year. I’m sure that many of you are in the same boat. Both of my children’s worship services take place during the two adult worship services and I feel a strong calling as the Pastor to Kids, that I need to be the one preaching to them. I can not contract that out.

I work around this by listening to sermons in the car and while working out. I wanted to compile a list of notable places to listen to or download free, Bible based messages. I hope you may find some of these helpful, they are in no particular order.

1. OnePlace–This website has an enormous array of streaming sermons. Downloads, however, generally cost a few bucks.
2. SEBTS Chapel–My seminary has a host of notable speakers and all messages are freely accessible and downloadable.
3. Sermon Audio–A great place to go if you are interested in getting messages dealing with particular topics or books you are studying. If you want your toes stepped on about wishy washy discipleship, download this message by Paul Washer.
4. Mark Driscoll–The Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. He is now several weeks in to a Luke study which he plans on taking 3 years to finish. I hope to stick it out with him and so far I have not been disappointed!
5. John MacArthur–Leader of Grace To You Ministries. His site has decades of his Bible teaching.
6. John Piper–Founder of Desiring God Ministries. His site also has years of sermons on various Bible passages, social issues, and doctrinal topics.
7. David Platt–David is a tremendous up and coming pastor of Brook Hills Church. His teaching is up front and challenging.
8. S. Lewis Johnson–This guy is old school, but you can find a great deal of in-depth Bible teachings and messages on theology and doctrine at the Believer’s Chapel site.
9. Clay Waters–This is my pastor and I keep up with his sermons as well! He’s a great preacher.
10. Ravi Zacharias–Ravi is an international apologist. His site is filled with sermons he has preached on apologetics and biblical worldview.
11. Tom Nelson–Tom is the pastor of Denton Bible Church. He is very good at splashing humor throughout his messages.

Please feel free to comment on any other places you have found dynamic bible based teachings!

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Open Church Resources is a budding blog with logos, motion backgrounds, videos, sermons, graphics, and invite cards. You can probably find a few handy things on their site.

I found a very nice child dedication video here. (scroll to the bottom).

Don’t forget to get your name in the raffle for free Leadership CD’s featuring Jim Wideman!

I guess I’ve been on an audio kick. I promise that the next several posts will not deal with audio! If you would like some Christ-centered audio regarding church leadership, leadership within the home, and a whole host of other leadership topics, you can find them at Leader Source.

Go here to find more info regarding teachings covering a wide variety of topcis. Leader Source is an interesting organization. Check them out.

Recently I posted about the resources available at John Piper’s website for Desiring God. In that post, I made mention of the Advance ’09 Conference which was held in my backyard of Durham, NC. There were some heavy hitters at the conference including Ed Stetzer, John Piper, and Danny Aiken.

As I have been listening through some of the messages from this conference on the Church, I could not withhold sharing with you two messages from Mark Driscoll. One will really challenge your thinking of the church as well as your ministry’s role within Christ’s bride. The other is called Ministry Idolotry. This message will lead you to rethink how spiritual you really perceive yourself to be. I commend both messages to you. Go to the links below to listen or download or watch the embedded videos of these messages. The are two of the best messages on a theology of the church that I have ever heard.

Mark Driscoll–What is the Church? (mp3 download)

Mark Driscoll–Ministry Idolotry (mp3 download)

What is the Church by Mark Driscoll from Vintage21 Church on Vimeo.

Your walk with Christ is the most important leadership aspect of your ministry. I’ve mentioned before that those of us in Children’s Ministry can tend to miss our weekend services. It’s not the best, but sometimes our church schedules do not allow us to worship with the adult body. Aside from my regular Bible study, I spend time in my car and during workouts, listening to various messages from my pastor, from conferences and from regular preaching and teaching ministries.

One site that I have been tuned into for quite some time now is One Place. You can access a host of preaching and teaching programs from this one site. Some notable pastors include:

• John MacArthur
• James McDonald
• Ravi Zacharius
• Ray Comfort
• Jack Graham
• Kaye Arthur

Although the MP3′s are available for purchase from One Place, you can stream audio and video of these pastors/teachers for free and without registering. It’s a great tool to play as you are doing some of that mindless admin work we all have to tackle on Monday mornings!

If you are like me, you spend a ton of time with children, preparing lessons, working with your volunteers and running around looking for last minute subs. Unfortunately, the position of Children’s Pastor often does not lend itself to regular time in corporate worship. I listen to my pastor’s messages weekly, but also get spiritual growth through other pastor’s messages. John Piper’s website is full of incredible resources I wanted to be sure you knew about. I love the spirit of sharing, which is why I love John Piper’s work so much.

On Pipers site, you can download messages of his from 3 decades ago, articles he has written as well as conference messages of which he has been a part (like the recent Advance ’09 Conference in my town of Durham, NC). You can also download Scripture study guides and virtually every book which Piper has written in PDF. Yes, the books are all free. I have to say that the Desiring God site is one of the most comprehensive of any ministry I have seen. It is definitely worth bookmarking and using as an occasional resource for your own spiritual growth or for study materials as you prepare to teach children.

**Please, no comments about Piper’s Calvanism or my affinity for him. I am not a follower, I just think he has some great resources!