Know your material
Learn the story! Read it again and again each day until you have memorised the story. Spending ten minutes each day reading the story and telling it over to yourself is the best use of your preparation time. You cannot easily learn the story if you leave it until the night before. That is not satisfactory for yourself, and is unfair on the children to whom you have a wonderful opportunity to present God’s word. If you want them to learn and to benefit through the occasion, then you must be willing to do your part. Learn your material.
Pray
Pray about the story and any tricky parts which you find difficult. Ask God for help. Also pray for the children; pray for their salvation; pray that they might come with listening hearts and pray that their behaviour will enable good listening and learning. Above all pray that God will use his word to reach the hearts of the children and bring them to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Using the Bible
Remember that you are using God’s word. Always teach from the Bible (2 Timothy 3 v 16 – 17) and don’t add things to your story as if they were part of the original. If you have to add anything, then acknowledge it by saying “I think that…..” or “Perhaps…………but we don’t really know.”
Teaching Aids – Online visuals, PowerPoint and DVDs
There are many excellent visuals which you can download free from the internet, or at a small cost. Likewise, there are many PowerPoint presentations and DVDs retelling Bible stories – some more accurate than others, so be selective. There is nothing wrong in using these aids but don’t overdo them. Variety is the spice of life and children can be so used to watching television that they enjoy real story telling and prefer human interaction to impersonal DVDs.
Interactive resources
People have been telling stories from the beginning of time, and Jesus was the greatest storyteller of all time. He taught in parables, but he used visual illustrations to which his audience could relate, e.g. a farmer, a shepherd, a woman doing housework or a merchant. We also have the example of Jesus taking a coin to illustrate his teaching when asked about paying taxes to Caesar. In these ways Jesus was relevant and able to graphically make his point. Following Jesus’ example, I believe that stories should relate to the children and that objects carefully used can enliven a story and make it much more memorable. When children are involved in the learning process, they learn and recall so much more. Getting a child to reveal a picture or having a child open an envelope and reading out a message, rather than just listening to you, engages them, solidifies their learning and helps them to concentrate.
Lesson Aims
Today children at school are very used to being told what the lesson aims are or what they are learning on that particular occasion. It is so common that they will expect to see these written down or at least referred to during the course of a lesson. Build on this. Tell them what they are going to learn from the story. That is how they are used to learning.
Conclusions
The most difficult part of any talk is knowing how and when to stop. Eggs do not improve by being over-beaten and stories do not improve by going over and over the same points. All that happens is that children switch off and lose what they have learned.
Tell your story. Give the application – yes, this is important. How does it apply to them or what have they learned today? Then stop.
How long?
Children have a much shorter attention span then we expect. A general rule of thumb is one minute for each year of their age plus two minutes. In other words a seven year old can only be expected to listen for 7 mins + 2 mins = 9 minutes and a nine year old for 9 mins + 2 mins = 11 minutes. Yes we all know about your niece who is six and can listen for 45 minutes but she is the exception! This is a rough guide, but if you are tedious you will lose them in seconds. Short, sweet and to the point is much better than being killed through boredom.
Your personality
Throw your personality at the children. This is the easiest and most effective way of giving a good talk. Tell them what you are interested in or at least make it really obvious. Engage them as individuals, then they will value you as a person and the things that you say. Putting over your personality is so, so powerful.
The audience
Talk to them as if you are trying to relate to them. Give them eye contact. It is horrible when someone speaks to you and doesn’t make eye contact. Think about where to stand or sit. Do you need to be high up to be seen by many or better still, can you get down to their level? Whatever you do don’t tower over them like a ten foot giant.
Your smile
Try to be friendly. It is amazing how powerful having a positive approach can be. Greet and welcome your children, treat them just as you like to be treated.
Your voice
Consider how you sound. Are you apologetic? Are you a dominant sergeant major? Do you constantly cough or say er? Do you speak with a high pitched squeal? Critically listen to yourself. Record yourself and play it back. Why does this embarrass you? Get another person to give you honest feedback, then try to improve on the points which they mention. You won’t get everything right the first time but in the long term you should try to improve your presentation.
Behaviour
Children can be experts at disrupting a talk or lesson. Do not accept poor behaviour and challenge unacceptable behaviour. You can speak to the child after you have finished your talk. During the talk you can politely ask the child to move to a different position, but this is better done before you begin; prevention is always best. You can also ask or indicate to another leader that you want them to sit next to the disruptive child. This can go a long way towards solving the problem.
To be fair to the child however, we must ask whether or not the child is telling us something. Is the child bored? Is your delivery putting the child off? Is the child unable to understand your language or choice of words? Are you too long? Are your talks childish and too young for the audience? Does the child resent being there? Are you just boring?
Try to understand their perspective, it can teach us a great deal.
God’s servants
Remember above all that we are God’s servants, obeying his great commission in Matthew 28:18 –20 to take the gospel throughout the world. We are spreading the good news about Jesus and doing so with God’s help. Giving a children’s talk is an important opportunity and you should want to do your best. Above all pray and ask for God’s help. He can calm nerves, he can help us remember the tricky parts or give us the correct words to explain the Bible.