We Miss You. We Really, Really Miss You!

A couple weeks ago on a Sunday morning a family entered the church through the office door. This is a family that attends our church but comes more “off” than “on.” The kids were a bit tentative about being here but they were here – YEA! As they left the office, I overheard the mom say to the kids, “Come on, kids; let’s go find a seat.” She hesitated as she walked down the hall toward the sanctuary and came back to my office with a question. “Is our daughter’s small group leader here today? She’s gotten two ‘I miss you’ cards from her and has been asking to come to church to see her. There aren’t many girls in her small group and she really loved it that the leader asked her to come be another girl with her in the group.”

Kids LOVE to hear that they have been missed! They LOVE to be noticed. They LOVE to know that you care about them – not as a group, but as a person. This little girl loved getting cards from her leader and really believed that SHE was missed.

Our goal is not to have kids come to church so our numbers are big. Our desire is to have kids come to church because we LOVE each of them and we’d LOVE for each of them to experience God’s love and presence in their lives.

I encourage you to write or call the kids you haven’t seen in a few weeks and let them know they are missed. When you do that, make your message personal. Whatever it is that you miss specifically about that child, let him or her know that. You could write things like:

• I miss YOU.
• I miss YOUR smiling face.
• I miss hearing YOU pray.
• I miss that way YOU help me pick up after small group.

Let’s let our kids know they are loved and missed when they are gone. There will be postcards in your mailboxes for kids who haven’t been here in a few weeks. If they don’t come on Sunday, please send them an “I miss you” card. If they come on Sunday, please send them an “It was great to see you on Sunday” card. They will cherish the cards and/or calls and will want to keep coming back. Thank you so much for loving kids to Jesus!

Who Sits Where

One of the best ways to help your kids focus during small group time is to make sure they are sitting next to people who won’t distract them. As the leader of a small group, you not only have the authority to ask your kids to sit in specific places, but you have the responsibility to do that. If you allow certain kids to sit next to each other, not only do those kids distract each other, but they also rob everyone else in the group of valuable learning time.

Before you come to church this Sunday, take a minute to think about the dynamics of your group. Which kids feed off each other? Which kids need to be physically separate from each other? Which kids would benefit from sitting right next to you so you can provide extra guidance and support for them? Which kids can you count on to help others find Bible verses or encourage those who are struggling?

You may not get the arrangement right the first time, but having a plan in a place to start. Experiment with the order until you’ve come upon a plan that minimizes distractions and maximizing learning time. And, remember that kids only come on the average half the time, so whatever plan you come up with won’t be perfectly implemented, but it will get you thinking about who should (or shouldn’t) sit next to whom.

As a reward for keeping focused on learning while sitting in their new spots, kids could be allowed to sit next to their friends for the last few minutes of group time while they are waiting on their parents.

Distributed Practice More Effective Than Massed Practice

One of the best learning strategies out there is that people learn better through short, repeated practices than through massed practice (in one long session). This is why teachers encourage students to review a little each night instead of cramming for tests. It’s why athletes practice nearly every day instead of doing all their practice on one or two days a week. And it’s why our Discovery Unlimited curriculum camps out on one virtue and one verse each month.

As a small group leader, you may be wondering how this applies to you and the kids you lead. Here are a few ways:

• Include a Bible memory activity each week instead of spending 15 minutes one week of the month on Bible memory. Kids will learn the verse better if they review it each week.
  
  
• Provide prayer time each week for kids and encourage them to pray aloud, even if it’s just one sentence. The act of praying a bit each week will teach them to pray more confidently than if you try to get them to pray a longer pray once a month.
  
  
• Have them open their Bibles, even if it’s just to one verse, regularly. The more they use a Bible and the Table of Contents, the easier it will become. Don’t think that they can wait until they are older and learn to navigate the word of God.
  
  
• Repetition is an aid to learning; it’s not a hindrance. The fact that kids have four weeks to learn a virtue and a verse doesn’t mean that what we are doing is “watered down;” it means that we are teaching toward mastery. If we hopped from topic to topic each week, kids would have much less of a chance of learning anything. The repetition enhances their ability to learn so…

Capitalize on opportunities to have kids repeat. Provide them with short opportunities to practice spiritual disciplines (like prayer, Bible memory, finding verses in the Bible and service over and over). This approach will change their lives!