Most churches want to provide children with great Christian education. One way to encourage spending time focused on Jesus is to use technologies readily accessible in many homes and libraries.
Encourage quality learning at home.
Engaging resources make it easier to capture the attention of both parents and children. The more sensory areas that are engaged, the more retention and attentiveness. An example is simplychristian.org, which provides online augmentation for lectionary-based Sunday school lessons.
Simply Christian formed a partnership effort with the Western Pennsylvania Conference of The United Methodist Church. The conference helped raised awareness among area United Methodist churches and several surrounding states. Simply Christian® is now reaching beyond Western Pennsylvania and beyond The United Methodist Church to make the open-source software available to all churches and families.
Cokesbury will introduce activities in January and already has activities for tween confirmands.
Research to empower parents.
Google the themes or Scripture verses related to your lessons. List relevant websites, videos and apps and give these resources to parents so they can direct their children to quality learning and devotions.
Overcome the resource problem.
Ask for donations of older equipment from congregants who are upgrading at home. Older computers can be reformatted with Linux (an open-source, free operating system you can download that runs quickly and efficiently) to make Internet access in Sunday school possible. For home use, you can find free audio versions of the Bible and devotions that can be loaded onto older mp3 audio devices. Be sure to promote these links and resources via your e-newsletter and the children's ministry section of your website.
Teach technology.
Teach children how to use computers safely. Share new communications tools and ask, “Why did God give us the ability to communicate in such incredible ways?” The answer, of course, is so we could share the good news in innovative, powerful ways. Then share the different ways we can use technology to tell the story of Jesus Christ.
We want to teach people from the earliest age about God's love through Jesus. Technology can aid in lifelong learning through powerful, yet very accessible, means.