Make Sure You Teach The Essential Four by Billy Burns

If you ever have the privilege of meeting Children’s Pastor Billy Burns, you won’t forget him easily. Smiling, jovial, hilarious, and serious about leading kids into revival. I first met BillyBurns at the Empowered21 conference in Tulsa, OK.It was quickly apparent that we had the same vision, the same passion, and the same DNA about kids. Billy is a conference organizer and speaker, a writer, a father of five grown kids. And one the things that impressed me the most was to discover Billy has been a children’s pastor for thirty years, I believe at the same church! That’s incredibly rare, considering the average children’s pastor only stays two years at any given church.

Anyway, I found this article on Billy’s Blog and asked him if I could repost it here. It’s a good foundation to build your ministry on.

Becky Fischer

Billy Burns – Make Sure You Teach The Essential Four

As a children’s pastor, I am constantly challenged because there is so much that I want to teach our children. For many of our children, I recognize that our ministry is the only opening of God’s Word that they will experience during their week. Then, add to that fact, many of our children only attend our services sporadically. While we do have the weeklies (those who attend every weekend), there’s a portion of our attendance that are the bi-weeklies, the monthlies, and finally the CEO’s (Christmas and Easter Only) attendees. This makes my decision for what is taught in those precious 90 minutes each service so important.

There are so many curriculums available today with great Bible information. We’ve come a long ways from the type of curricula that we had when I started in children’s ministry hundreds of years ago. There are teaching packages with all of the high-tech bells and whistles. Many are non-stop excitement and drama. Some are very culturally relevant addressing issues that children are facing today in their homes and schools.

All of this is well and good. But, before I as a children’s pastor start looking at what to teach, I always have to know in my spirit that there is a solid foundation of the “Essential Four” before I build the remainder of the structure. Before there is teaching about morals and how to’s and why to’s, I want to know in my heart that the children sitting in front of me have a solid understanding of these four core values:

• Salvation by the blood of Jesus
• The baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues
• Christ as Savior and Healer
• The imminent return of Christ

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